Continued From the Previous Post – Real life lessons from Reel world – The Best Movies on Management (Part I)...
300 (2006)
This might seem like an another bloody, gory action movie but is still filled with lots of teachings about Leadership, Teamwork, Facing challenges, building great teams and training. The main character’s (King Leonidas) portrayal in the movie aptly describes the characteristics of a great leader – calm and composed even when facing the huge Persian army; motivates, inspires and coaches the team to face the challenge with confidence and fearlessness; fights and dies for the goal along with the team. The Spartans shown in the movie show a lot of grit, fearlessness and never die attitude even during their dying moments, which has got to do a lot with the way they are trained and brought up in the Spartan world. This has a valuable lesson for managers looking to build great teams – the importance of investing time in training so that their teams could handle challenging projects with ease, just like this age-old adage teaches us “The more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in war“.
Another enjoyable aspect of the movie is that the way the 300 soldiers go about handling the challenge of battling the huge Persian army. They have great fun (example scene, a Spartan says that they are fighting under the shade when a flurry of Persian arrows almost blocks the sun rays, watch the movie for more examples) while battling with the Persians, explains the importance of having fun (without losing focus) while facing greater challenges.
Rush (2013)
Being an avid F1 racing fanatic, I couldn’t resist but enjoy the thrills and frills of racing captured beautifully through some picturesque and breathtaking visuals in this film. Based on a true story which involves the well-known rivalry between the Formula 1 drivers, James Hunt and Niki Lauda, in the 1970s, it teaches the art of risk management and managing competition.
Both the drivers were like the opposite poles in terms of their personalities – Lauda was an introvert, calculative & focused person whereas Hunt being sociable, instinctive and fun-loving. Even though both were fierce competitors on the field, they had mutual respect for each other off the field, which teaches us the value of respecting our colleagues and not to purely look at them as competitors always. Both drivers never employed negative tactics to bring down the other and raised their game to the next level to outwit each other by learning from the mistakes of each other- the key lesson being that there are no shortcuts to success.
Lauda was disciplined and calculative in his approach when participating in the race whereas Hunt was quite an aggressive type and was willing to do anything to win the race. Even though aggressive Hunt was able to win the races and one world championship in the short-term but the well-balanced Lauda was able to better his competitor and win more races and three world championship during his racing career. Aggressiveness could get you success in the short-term but a disciplined and well-balanced approach leads you to long-term success.
There is a scene in the film which has beautifully captured the value of weighing the risks versus the rewards while doing a project or task. In the scene, Lauda is traveling on the outskirts of a town in a car along with a girl, when she asks him to drive fast like a race driver to which he responds – “There is no need to drive fast. It increases the percentage of risk. We are not in a hurry and I am not being paid. With zero incentive or reward, why should I drive fast?”
During the latter half of the film, Lauda meets with an accident and ends up in coma staring at death, but returns to racing after 6 weeks with a disfigured face and ends up winning two more world championships by wearing a special helmet designed to cushion his injured head. This is a great inspiration for people to overcome their disabilities to achieve success.
Jerry Maguire (1996)
The movie tries to break the general stereotype – business ethics is an oxymoron. A successful sports agent (Tom cruise) at the top of his career, loses his job and his prestigious clients for expressing his thoughts about the prevailing dishonesty in the sports management business. Dejected by the company’s treatment, he puts his philosophy to work with the only client (Cuba Gooding Jr.) who decides to stay with him and succeeds as well.
This movie teaches the importance of sticking to your values/mission in spite of changing business conditions and building a business not just for the sake of earning money. It also sends a very powerful message for people who constantly complain about their work “You don’t like your job, just quit and do what you love” (Warning: Be prepared for rough weather ahead). Leaders/Managers who want to prepare a clear mission statement, watch out for this detailed and razor-sharp vision proposed by Tom cruise to his client: “I will not rest until I have you holding a Coke, wearing your own shoe, playing a Sega game featuring you, while singing your own song in a new commercial, starring you, broadcast during the Super Bowl, in a game that you are winning, and I will not sleep until that happens.”
P.S.: If you’re watching this movie for the first time, don’t miss the scene in which Tom cruise shouts this famous dialogue “show me the money” (well how many times, count it for yourself).
To be continued in the next post…
300 (2006)
This might seem like an another bloody, gory action movie but is still filled with lots of teachings about Leadership, Teamwork, Facing challenges, building great teams and training. The main character’s (King Leonidas) portrayal in the movie aptly describes the characteristics of a great leader – calm and composed even when facing the huge Persian army; motivates, inspires and coaches the team to face the challenge with confidence and fearlessness; fights and dies for the goal along with the team. The Spartans shown in the movie show a lot of grit, fearlessness and never die attitude even during their dying moments, which has got to do a lot with the way they are trained and brought up in the Spartan world. This has a valuable lesson for managers looking to build great teams – the importance of investing time in training so that their teams could handle challenging projects with ease, just like this age-old adage teaches us “The more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in war“.
Another enjoyable aspect of the movie is that the way the 300 soldiers go about handling the challenge of battling the huge Persian army. They have great fun (example scene, a Spartan says that they are fighting under the shade when a flurry of Persian arrows almost blocks the sun rays, watch the movie for more examples) while battling with the Persians, explains the importance of having fun (without losing focus) while facing greater challenges.
Rush (2013)
Being an avid F1 racing fanatic, I couldn’t resist but enjoy the thrills and frills of racing captured beautifully through some picturesque and breathtaking visuals in this film. Based on a true story which involves the well-known rivalry between the Formula 1 drivers, James Hunt and Niki Lauda, in the 1970s, it teaches the art of risk management and managing competition.
Both the drivers were like the opposite poles in terms of their personalities – Lauda was an introvert, calculative & focused person whereas Hunt being sociable, instinctive and fun-loving. Even though both were fierce competitors on the field, they had mutual respect for each other off the field, which teaches us the value of respecting our colleagues and not to purely look at them as competitors always. Both drivers never employed negative tactics to bring down the other and raised their game to the next level to outwit each other by learning from the mistakes of each other- the key lesson being that there are no shortcuts to success.
Lauda was disciplined and calculative in his approach when participating in the race whereas Hunt was quite an aggressive type and was willing to do anything to win the race. Even though aggressive Hunt was able to win the races and one world championship in the short-term but the well-balanced Lauda was able to better his competitor and win more races and three world championship during his racing career. Aggressiveness could get you success in the short-term but a disciplined and well-balanced approach leads you to long-term success.
There is a scene in the film which has beautifully captured the value of weighing the risks versus the rewards while doing a project or task. In the scene, Lauda is traveling on the outskirts of a town in a car along with a girl, when she asks him to drive fast like a race driver to which he responds – “There is no need to drive fast. It increases the percentage of risk. We are not in a hurry and I am not being paid. With zero incentive or reward, why should I drive fast?”
During the latter half of the film, Lauda meets with an accident and ends up in coma staring at death, but returns to racing after 6 weeks with a disfigured face and ends up winning two more world championships by wearing a special helmet designed to cushion his injured head. This is a great inspiration for people to overcome their disabilities to achieve success.
Jerry Maguire (1996)
The movie tries to break the general stereotype – business ethics is an oxymoron. A successful sports agent (Tom cruise) at the top of his career, loses his job and his prestigious clients for expressing his thoughts about the prevailing dishonesty in the sports management business. Dejected by the company’s treatment, he puts his philosophy to work with the only client (Cuba Gooding Jr.) who decides to stay with him and succeeds as well.
This movie teaches the importance of sticking to your values/mission in spite of changing business conditions and building a business not just for the sake of earning money. It also sends a very powerful message for people who constantly complain about their work “You don’t like your job, just quit and do what you love” (Warning: Be prepared for rough weather ahead). Leaders/Managers who want to prepare a clear mission statement, watch out for this detailed and razor-sharp vision proposed by Tom cruise to his client: “I will not rest until I have you holding a Coke, wearing your own shoe, playing a Sega game featuring you, while singing your own song in a new commercial, starring you, broadcast during the Super Bowl, in a game that you are winning, and I will not sleep until that happens.”
P.S.: If you’re watching this movie for the first time, don’t miss the scene in which Tom cruise shouts this famous dialogue “show me the money” (well how many times, count it for yourself).
To be continued in the next post…
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