Friday, November 2, 2007

Development of The Arc of Greatness

Earlier this year I was the event coordinator for an extraordinary business seminar that took place on September 17, 2007, in Santa Barbara.

Legendary business documentary film maker, Sam Tyler, gave the presentation combining clips from 20 years of film making with what he’s learned along the way.

Sam’s first film was based on Tom Peter’s In Search of Excellence. His most recent completed film, Good to Great based on the book by Jim Collins, began airing on public television in January 2007.

At this point in his career, Sam has decided to move out from behind the camera. His thought was that he would present his Good to Great film to the management team or entire team of a single company and follow the filming with a group discussion on how that company could apply the Good to Great concepts to their company.

Then I came along with another idea – that businesses shouldn’t limit their potential for greatness because of their size. Or as Jim Collins so aptly put it, “Big does not equal great, and great does not equal big.”

When I sat down with Sam to discuss the possibility of having him do his Good to Great presentation for a group of small business owners and their service providers, I indicated that the emphasis of the event was going to be “Who’s on Your Bus?”.

First Who…Then What
That is the title of Chapter 3 of Good to Great. The main point of this chapter is not just about assembling the right team—that’s nothing new. The main point is to first get the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) before you figure out where to drive it. The second key point is the degree of sheer rigor needed with regard to people decisions in order to take a company from good to great.

The problem for small businesses is that when they look at their bus, there are still many empty seats. In order to fill all the seats, a small business must expand its concept of “The Bus” to include not just their Team but also their professional advisors and service providers.

The second request I made of Sam is that when he discussed the concepts after showing the movie that he frame the discussion and commentary towards small business. As we discussed this approach, Sam’s eyes started to light up. He realized that some of his previous work would do a better job of explaining Good to Great to small businesses. He suggested that rather than watch Good to Great in its entirety, he could discuss a concept and follow it up with a small business film clip.

Our event was a “Great” success. Sam could see that this format was perfect for a mixed group audience of business owners, CPAs, attorneys, bankers, and the like. He also noticed that this type of event was put together only through the hard work of volunteers.

So Sam has developed a new program called The Arc of Greatness.

The Arc of Greatness is a turn key event solution that local business communities can use to bring together small businesses and professional service providers to be inspired and motivated to work together to create truly GREAT businesses.

The turn key portion will provide the event organizers with tools, templates, suggestions, hand outs, follow up material, and on going support to streamline the event planning process.

The presentation itself covers the management revolution that started with Tom Peters’ In Search of Excellence and concludes with Jim Collins’ Good to Great. The presentation is a combination of film clips, case studies, discussions, and Sam’s personal insights. All-in-all, the presentation is like having Tom Peters, Stephen Covey, Walt Disney, Jack Stack and Jim Collins in the room at the same time.

In addition to being an event that can enhance your business community, it can be organized to serve as a fund raiser.

For more information on The Arc of Greatness, please contact:
Brenda Richter, CPA
Brenda@BrendaRichterCPA.com

For more information on Sam Tyler, visit: http://tylertalks.com/