Rob Duncan
Founder & Principal, Imagine That Performance
Rob believes practitioners already have the wisdom they need. His work is creating conditions where they can access it.
The Outsider Advantage
My value isn’t despite lacking industry credentials. It’s because of it.
Leaders already have people around them with industry training and experience. What they often lack is someone who can see what they can’t, precisely because they’re not inside it. I see the assumptions that seem like reality, the blind spots that formed from expertise itself, and the gap between what leaders think they’re communicating and what others actually hear.
Before Government
Nine years at Applied Materials taught me how large organizations work and break. Two years turning around a lighting company in crisis taught me that culture reconstruction transfers across industries. Seven years at ABM calling on Florida municipalities taught me that the outsider perspective local government leaders valued wasn’t an accident.
I’d never heard of a city manager before I was hired. I became a trusted advisor anyway.
How This Started
I launched Imagine That Performance in July 2020, weeks after being laid off. The first Think Tank was free, focused on a single question: how are you handling the executive burnout that comes when an already isolated position becomes even more isolating?
75% agreed to continue meeting monthly. The work served a need.
The methodology I now call The Shift That Sticks isn’t something I invented. Others have named similar patterns. I’m simply naming what effective leaders have always done, framed for the current context.
What I Learned
Over 250 sessions and hundreds of conversations, patterns emerged. The leaders who thrived weren’t the smartest or most experienced. They could see their environment clearly and adapt. Their hardest challenges weren’t technical, they were about blind spots and the gap between intentions and impact. And most struggling leaders were using patterns that had worked brilliantly before. Earned expertise meeting changed conditions.
Ten months as Interim Town Manager for Kenneth City taught me I’m better suited to support local government practitioners than to be one of them. I understand the role from inside. I serve it better from alongside.
Still in the Work
I’m still working on this myself. The methodology isn’t something I perfected and now teach from a distance. I have my own blind spots, my own gaps between what I say matters and what my behavior reveals.
What I can offer: pattern recognition, frameworks that surface what’s hard to see, and the ability to create environments where this work actually happens. We’ve done it for hundreds of leaders.
I’m a fellow traveler who figured something out. Not a guru from a mountaintop.
Background
Experience: Founder, Imagine That Performance. Interim Town Manager, Kenneth City FL. Account Executive, ABM Industries. General Manager, East Coast Lighting. Engineering Manager, Applied Materials.
Education: B.S. Electrical Engineering, Fairleigh Dickinson University. Graduate coursework, Marist College & Santa Clara University.
Training: Vistage Chair Program (Peer Group Facilitation, Executive Coaching).
Publications: Local Government Companion Guide to the 2025 World Happiness Report. The Shift That Sticks (forthcoming 2026).
Let’s Talk
Questions? Ideas? Just want to talk through a challenge?
No pitch required.
rob@imaginethatperformance.com
813-699-9614
Based in Tampa, FL · Serving leaders who value clarity