Cities don’t become great by accident, they get there when people from every corner of the built environment share a clear purpose and a practical playbook. We sit down with Wes Craiglow, executive director of ULI Northwest Arkansas and founder of Skyline AMC, to unpack how a neutral convener can transform regional momentum into measurable outcomes. Wes shares the story of launching ULI NWA just six years ago and scaling the three-day Place Summit to 400+ attendees by breaking silos and putting developers, engineers, architects, planners, and regulators in the same room with real problems to solve.

Wes reveals the operating system behind that growth: mission-first leadership, written intent, and decentralized control. Drawing on a 25-year Army career, he maps command principles: purpose, end state, and key tasks, directly onto business. The result is a team that acts fast in ambiguity because they know why they’re acting and what success looks like. We dive into practical tactics: tracking time to balance working in the business and on the business, pricing to create margin for improvement, and fixing processes instead of blaming people. Reps and sets matter, he says, but only with good form, systems before repetition, so practice makes permanent in the right direction.

This conversation is a field guide for association leaders, real estate pros, city planners, and entrepreneurs who want to scale without losing their soul. If you care about quality of place, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and building teams that can “lift heavier” missions over time, you’ll leave with a sharper lens and a clearer plan. Tune in, take notes, and then apply one idea this week, track your time, write your intent, or push a decision down with top cover, and watch your momentum build.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a colleague who loves cities and systems, and leave a quick review to help more people find it.

Subscribe and tune in for new episodes of Big Talk About Small Business with Mark Zweig and Eric Howerton. Each week we focus on practical insights and real-world strategies to grow your business!

Stay Connected:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigtalk.pod/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61564547079280
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/big-talk-about-small-business
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bigtalkpod
https://www.bigtalkaboutsmallbusiness.com/

How to Lead When Everything is Falling Apart (Lessons from a Lt. Colonel)