Sports and Business Come Together at the Carlyle

Can the words of a Vince Lombardi, or more recently, the colorful language of Rex Ryan provide lessons in how to manage not football players, but accountants and lawyers?

That's what the National Network of Accountants believe, and to that end, invited HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg to speak at their 2011 Kickoff Breakfast at the Carlyle at the Palace in Plainview on Tuesday.

The NNA offers support for accounting firms, giving them access to services to better serve their clients, including access to the Preferred Provider Network, comprised of professionals from many business sectors.  Synergy between the two groups allows networking, all designed to keep their companies thriving.

PPN member Steve Kramer is a lawyer with Feldman, Kramer, and Monaco, P.C.  He says these events are invaluable to his company, and he says he's learned a lot about time management and business development.

"It's helped me better serve my clients because I'm meeting other professionals who are experts...it gives me a resource of knowledge that I don't have, outside my firm," Kramer said.

"Most of the organizations that help CPA's are really technical organizations, this is trying to get the CPA to understand he's a business owner," NNA founder Joseph Tucciarone said.  "And if he's a good [one], and he wants to be a rainmaker, then he really needs the services of everyone else."

Those services include events such as this.  Ross Greenburg was brought in to talk about his work at HBO, which has netted him 47 Sports Emmy Awards.  He's overseen the production of countless sports documentaries and reality shows.

"What I'm going to try and do is draw the analogy between how professional sports teams motivate and lead their players and then execute on those visions, and how you can apply that to a business sense...trying to figure out what your vision is as a company," Greenburg said.

To illustrate his point, Greenburg showed clips from the recent HBO documentary, 'Lombardi', about the legendary NFL coach, as well as the reality series '24/7 Penguins/Capitals', which followed the two NHL teams behind the scenes.

Greenburg talked about the values of Lombardi that emphasized hard work, which buttons to push on which player, and how managers can do the same in the workplace.

He also highlighted both the lighter and more emotional moments of '24/7', and spoke of giving creative folks (in his case, the producers of the show) the freedom to explore and tell stories.  Greenburg stresses "it's not the wand, it's the magician," to sum up his management strategy.

A Q & A was held, and a hot topic was the Jets.  HBO's Hard Knocks followed the team last summer, and people were interested in the attitude of their team and boisterous coach in the wake of their season-ending loss to Pittsburgh last weekend.

Greenburg knew the Jets would be on folk's minds, and he came prepared.  While some of the salty language the coach uses may not be appropriate in the office, holding one's head up high in times of adversity certainly should be.

"I'm going to explain how he dealt with the loss, because I think it's important that a good leader knows how to deal with loss, and learn from it," he said.