I’ve said before that I am a proud follower of Christ, and I like to think I’m pretty well-versed in the Bible. There are quite a few epic, fascinating stories about the human condition within those pages. The thing, though is that most people know of the stories, and maybe some of the most prominent details, but they don’t really know the stories. They’ve heard the David and Goliath cliche used ad nauseum, but how many know the ACTUAL story of David and Goliath? While doing some bible study one day, I asked myself how these old stories could gain more traction with modern audiences that aren’t familiar with the Bible (and even with those that claim to be familiar but really aren’t). The Apostle Paul said he would be all things to all people in his efforts to get his point across. When Jesus spoke to the masses he used terminology and metaphors relevant to the people he spoke to at the time, namely farmers and people in the courts of the emperor. So with that in mind, what frame of reference would these people use in today’s world?
I found parallels between warfare and conquest and the business world by reading a book adapting Sun Tzu’s art of war for entrepreneurs. There are plenty tales of warfare and conquest in the Bible, but there are few that are more well-known than the building of Israel under the rulership of King David. That was all fine and good, but There was another fascinating story before David’s rule - that of his predecessor King Saul. That guy’s story wasn’t told nearly as often as David’s, but was no less fascinating, and the arc of his rise and fall was perfect material for a novel or TV show. On top of that, corporate fiction was also an untapped resource for quality stories (still is, in my opinion. You have stories that use the business & corporate environment for comedy, but there is potential for great drama there that hasn’t really been tapped into. But I digress). Marry the two concepts and you have the basis for a unique retelling of one of the Bible’s most epic stories, and I had to do a treatment for it.
Will I ever actually write this story? probably not. But I want people to see what I saw in my mind’s eye, so here is my idea in its entirety. Check it out.
Kingdom Corporation (working title)
Overall Concept: a young, hotshot marketing intern is chosen to be the next CEO of his company…and the current CEO will stop at nothing to prevent that from happening.
BOOK ONE/SEASON ONE: THE FALL OF SAUL
Saul Benjamin is the CEO of a large corporation on the rise, but he has fallen out of favor with the shareholders of the company. The former president, Samuel Hanson (who ran the company before it went public), served as a guide and mentor to Saul, but Eventually Saul made some critical mistakes which drew the ire of the shareholders.
Backstory: Samuel was acting president, but the company was basically run directly by the shareholders. Sam’s VP and treasurer – his hand-picked successors – were incompetent and were fired by the shareholders. The employees demanded a CEO because the other corporations had one. Saul, a CPA temp sent by his parent agency to audit the Company, was instructed to “go seek the assets.” The Agency was hired directly by the shareholders, who had contacted Sam and told him his new CEO would arrive shortly. Saul arrives and inquires Sam about the company’s books “I’m looking to speak to the president?” “I am the president, let me treat you to lunch.” Sam briefly talks to the shareholders and confirms their choice. Sam talks to Saul like an Executive, but Saul shrinks away from the CEO position at first. He is afraid of all the responsibility and doubts he can handle it. Sam eventually talks him into taking the spot.
Initially, Saul is well received and the company’s profits soar. They greatly increase their market share, edging out Moabite LLC, Ammon Inc., The Edomite Collective, Aram Rehob and Associates, Zobah Inc., the Philistine Corporation, and Amalekite Inc. But at the peak of his success, Saul gets overconfident and ignroes the counsel of both Sam and the shareholders. This leads him to make some crucial mistakes.
Saul’s Mistakes:
1. Samuel, who had sole authorization to make a transaction on behalf of the shareholders, left to make some final preparations. While Samuel was a way, Saul heard of a possible downturn in the market, and tried to make the transaction himself. Saul’s inexperience with negotiations ensure that the transaction would fail, costing the company a few million dollars in potential profits. Samuel is furious at Saul upon his return.
2. Still worried about a potential market downturn, Saul ordered a media silence within his company. No one was to leak any information on any upcoming products or transactions to the public in any way…not even to any shareholders, despite being told earlier by Samuel to always keep the shareholders informed of goings on within the company. Plus, anyone who did leak information would be fired. Jonathan Abiel, head of R&D and one of Saul’s most brilliant and trusted staff, leaked the development of a new product to Wall Street in an effort to boost interest in the product and their brand. The ploy works, and the company’s market share increases by an unexpectedly large margin. But Saul is more upset that Jonathan disobeyed one of his orders, and has to be talked out of sending the order to fire him by some of the rank and file.
3. The shareholders have decided to make a hostile takeover of Amalekite Inc., which Saul is more than happy to do to make up for his last few blunders. The shareholders order him to seize and liquidate all of the company’s assets and fire all of their staff, including their president. But once the takeover is finished, Samuel gets an email from the shareholders. They are not pleased, even to the point of regretting the hiring of Saul. Apparently Saul performed the hostile takeover, but kept office equipment, certain intellectual properties and some of Amalekite’s best and brightest staff…and also the president. Saul’s argument is that the company can surely use these assets to further its own cause, and the shareholders would be pleased by the goods he offers to them. Samuel is not amused, arriving at Saul’s office with a message from the shareholders.
(1 Sam 15:17-19) Saul is taken aback, saying, but I did what they asked me to do! I kept these things to offer for the betterment of the company! They should be pleased!
Sam’s response: The shareholders value compliance more than any asset, Saul. You have rejected the orders of the shareholders for the last time. They have now rejected you. Even now they search for your replacement. Saul argues that Jonathan was rewarded for disobeying Saul’s authority, but he gets punished for taking initiative?
The difference is that Jonathan’s moves –while against Saul’s rules – fit in accordance with the shareholder’s wishes. Saul’s moves were a direct violation of a direct order given to him by the shareholders themselves. And besides, what kind of leader expects obedience out of his employee, yet can’t obey his own superiors?
Samuel promptly goes about fixing what Saul screwed up, firing the Amelekite staff on the spot.
4. A non-aggression clause was signed between the Kingdom company and Gibeon LLC. Saul decided to ignore that pact and buy out all of Gibeon’s assets in a hostile takeover. Samuel is exacerbated.
Samuel sits in his home office, dreading the possibility of having to run the company again. He is old, and was happy in his mentorship role. He did not want the mantle of responsibility again, but was prepared to be the interim CEO if the shareholders asked it of him. He gets an email from them telling him to stop worrying about Saul, they’ve already found his replacement. He is sent to a prominent Business College, where they have discovered a talented Marketing MBA candidate they would like to groom into their next CEO. At the college he asks the Dean to see his best and brightest students. Once he sees them (all seniors in the midst of writing their dissertations), he places calls to the shareholder collective about each one, and they tell him none of them are it. Samuel asks if there are any other students with promise. The Dean (Jesse Beth) says there is one, but he is too young, and he had just started his MBA program. Jesse fetches David Nahshon, and the shareholders all agree that he is The One. Sam immediately offers him a paid internship at the company.
One day, Saul finds himself in a foul mood. He is stressed, and does not like running the company as a lame duck. He thinks he might be able to save his job if he can make a significant increase on market share, but he is blank as to how. Someone tells him David has been good at offering advice to other people in the company who were feeling down, so he sends for David. David offers some words of encouragement and a poem he wrote during his undergrad years, and it immediately cheers Saul up. From that point on, David becomes one of Saul’s favorite interns.
In David’s second year with the company, a rival corporation launches a vicious ad campaign against the company, aiming to sway consumer interest and topple the company’s market share. Insiders call it a “Goliath”-sized campaign. Everyone at the company is clueless of how to counter what the relaunched and rebranded Phillistia LLC is doing to them. Saul puts the edict out that whoever can figure out an effective way to counter Phillistia would receive an immediate raise and promotion, a company car and an executive office (with one of his own secretaries). Still no one steps up, afraid that an ineffective strategy would cost them their jobs. David is fetching coffee for an executive when he sees some ads either in a magazine or on television. He is disgusted that the competition would stoop so low. His peers (the MBA candidates from earlier, who now work at the company) are angered about him sticking his nose in, but he has an idea. In his next meeting with Saul, he volunteers to put together a response. Saul tries to discourage him because he is just an intern, but David gives plenty of examples of how he has overcome obstacles in undergrad, all with timely help from special people… people Saul recognize as prominent shareholders of the company.
“The shareholders delivered me out of the paw of the lion and the bear, they’ll give me what I need to take out Goliath.”
David goes to marketing and finds the department in a conundrum of complex strategies to respond to the damaging ads. Profits have plummeted in the month that the ads have been circulating, and they are at the point of desperation. David easily sees the answer: simplicity. They come out and state firmly who they are and what they stand for, and what purchasing their products stands for. He suggests playing the integrity card, possibly insinuating that their competition is succeeding by underhanded means. Play to the moral fabric of the consumers, and they will respond. They do, and profits shift quickly in response to David’s ideas. “Goliath” had been felled by a single stone.
As a result of David’s resounding success, Saul sees fit to immediately end David’s internship and hire him directly into the company. There he immediately begins on-the-job executive training in marketing, and he also builds a strong friendship with Jonathan. Over time, David’s innovative, aggressive strategies and unique ideas make him a superstar in the executive world, to the point where he is the talk of the industry, and the one being interviewed and featured on trade publications. The company experiences a rejuvenation and a massive increase in profits under David’s watchful eye, and the word goes out that it is only a matter of time before David is the number one man at the company. None of this is lost on Saul, who can only watch his grip on the company slip away into David’s hands.
One day, David visits with Saul to discuss expanding their market base, and finds Saul in one of his foul moods, playing darts. David asks what is bothering him, and Saul answers “You” before throwing all his razor-tipped darts at David. David somehow makes it out of the office unscathed. David tells Jonathan what happened, and Jonathan says David should go to the police, but David declines. “Saul just needs time to sort himself out, that’s all. The company can’t afford to have its president fall to a scandal like that. Not now.” Saul tries to put a spin on the incident, as a result stripping David of his executive title and simply putting him in charge of marketing. David doesn’t understand why, but he agrees, and still remains productive.
Saul is depressed. He realizes that David is the one hand-picked by the shareholders to be his successor. But he feels maybe if he can prove David unworthy of the job, he can redeem himself. He allows David to expand the company to new markets, even sending one of his top subordinates (Merab) to work with him. David is awestruck at the vote of confidence Saul has given to him. Unfortunately, Merab was sent on an assignment elsewhere.
Saul noticed a young female executive who seemed especially enamored with David, but she was too frightened of Saul’s wrath to say anything. Saul saw this as an opportunity: maybe an office romance could be the necessary distraction to keep David from succeeding. The resulting scandal will discredit the wunderkind, and Saul’s job would be safe. So, with his blessing, he sends Michal to be David’s special assistant…just at the time when Saul sets an impossibly high profit level for David to reach with his market expansion. Saul even adds to the challenge by promising to name David Vice-president is he can pull it off. Just as Saul predicted, romance blooms for David and Michal, but it has the opposite effect: David, with Michal’s help, almost doubles the profit expectations set by Saul, and he has no choice but to name him VP.
Now Saul is desperate, and decides to launch an all-out smear campaign against David, in an effort to destroy his name and reputation by any means. Jonathan is privy to the plot, and tries unsuccessfully to talk Saul out of it. Saul even threatens to fire Jonathan – again – if he interferes. But Jonathan finds David and warns him anyway. So for the next few weeks, Saul hatches plot after plot after plot to compromise David’s integrity, but David (with help from Jonathan, Michal and even the three shareholders themselves) always manages to stay one step ahead of Saul, while still finding a way to lead the company.
Eventually David decides he needs someone who knows Saul to try to reason with him. He seeks Samuel, who is working with underprivileged children at a community center (he didn’t want the corporate life, but he still wants to help people). He asks if there is any way to put some sense into the man to get him to stop his smear crusade. Samuel has no physical way to do it, but offers to lend his voice to refute everything Saul has been saying about David’s prowess and character. He then proceeds to contact all the media outlets Saul has leaked false information to, and use his standing as a former CEO to fiercely defend David, and when personally asked and confronted with the facts, even Saul himself had to concede the truth.
But does that deter Saul? Of course not. He vows that one way or another, he will destroy David, and he is not giving up leadership for his company without a fight.
END BOOK/SEASON ONE
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