Weekly series. Do please send suggestions via email, twitter etc. You can send a theme and/or specific movies. Each week we feature three movies with meaning, so send in a movie with a sentence or two on the core meaning you take from it and a clip from the movie that speaks to that meaning.
A consciously created Culture in any business, organisation, team is vital to success. I’d go further and say that such a “soft skill” measure is, in fact, the area where Leaders must be hardest and toughest to be absolutely sure it is adhered to.
I love the Netflix “Culture Deck”, and today reference this section :
“On a dream team, there are no “brilliant jerks.” The cost to teamwork is just too high. Our view is that brilliant people are also capable of decent human interactions, and we insist upon that.”
So often over the years, I have seen businesses tolerate “brilliant jerks”. Perhaps they have technical skills that are deemed difficult to replace. Perhaps they are “top performers” in terms of revenue generated. So many justifications, but if you take only one piece of advice from me based upon all my experience it is this. Get rid of the brilliant jerks. Do it now. The long-term cost to you, your team, your business is far higher than the short-term pain and cost of making that hard choice right away.
Refusing to tolerate “brilliant jerks” is a matter of integrity. My simple definition of a leader is “a leader is someone others choose to follow”. A leader must be of the highest integrity for me to follow them. Each of these movies talks about such integrity.
Hoosiers (1986)
Friends, family and regular readers will know I am passionate about the sport of Basketball, including parallels for leadership (I’ve written about this several times already on this site, particularly about the San Antonio Spurs).
Hoosiers is my favourite sports movie ever, about how a tiny school made it to the state championship game in the state of Indiana, back in the days when high school basketball had close to religious status there.
This scene sets the stage of the coach focussing on discipine in the team. No brilliant jerks tolerated.
Rush (2013)
In 1976, Niki Lauda, the greatest racing driver I have ever had the privilege to watch, was in a season long contest with James Hunt for the Formula 1 world championship. I was 10 when my father took me to the British Grand Prix.
Shortly after that, Lauda had a horrific crash at the German Grand Prix where he nearly died (and that circuit has been closed to racing ever since).
In his hospital bed, a priest administered the last rites, yet Lauda was not for dying. After an amazing recovery, and with horrendously painful burn scars (and remember, few things are hotter than the temperature inside a flameproof race suit), Lauda came back to racing.
The final race of the season was the Japanese Grand Prix. Lauda was three points ahead in the race for the title, so only had to finish close to Hunt.
I stayed up into the night to listen on the radio.
The rain was torrential, and on the second lap, Lauda pulled off the circuit. Hunt came third and won the title.
Lauda said: “my life is worth more than a title”
As a ten year old, Lauda inspired me and still does.
This scene, with no words, captures that moment. I highly recommend the whole movie, it accurately depicts that amazing season.
Senna (2010)
An incredible documentary by the brilliant Asif Kapadia, Senna tells the story of another of the all-time great racing drivers, whose death in a Formula 1 car resulted in radical safety changes.
It is an amazing movie, where the audience knows the end, yet every moment feels vital, real, compelling.
I have repeatedly seen that those who are absolutely the most brilliant are often on the edge of insanity, often fragile souls who burn bright and burn out. Kapadia then followed up with “Amy” about one such soul, Amy Winehouse. Another brilliant movie.
So, to integrity. This scene is so powerful, Senna arguing about driver safety with the head of Formula 1, Jean-Marie Balestre.
Not a dramatisation, documentary footage, and told the story of what actually killed Senna. it is important to note that Balestre was all powerful. To stand up to him in a drivers meeting as he did was an act of powerful integrity.