What if learning was fun? What if you can learn management lessons through the movies you watch? Well, that’s quite possible! With this article, I would try to bring out management lessons from some popular movies and web-series. Unlike many lists available online with generic facts, this list comes from my personal experience. So without wasting anymore time, here’s the list:
1.
Lakshya (2004)
Whenever I felt low, depressed or felt unable to achieve my goals, this is the movie I watched. Karan Shergill (Hrithik Roshan), a spoilt rich Delhi brat, is clueless about what he wants to do in life. He joins army but leaves it as he isn’t passionate about it. Under certain circumstances, he decides to join army back, works his ass off there. This movie is about discipline, passion, courage, determination. You must be thinking, what’s the management angle in that? Well management isn’t just about marketing or finance; it is about managing yourself, struggling and striving hard to achieve the goals.
2.
Everest (2015)
Another offbeat movie in a management movie list! This movie is about Robb Hall, who joined up a fellow trekker to join Everest expedition in 1996. The mission eventually failed and caused highest number of casualty on a single day on Everest. But this movie isn’t about Robb’s death, it is about exemplary leadership that he displayed. Coordination between multiple teams, emergency planning and supporting every team member; this movie is crisp and spectacular. It also raises tough questions about commercialization of Everest.
3.
Rocket Singh: Sales Man of the Year (2009)
Harpreet Singh Bedi (Ranbir Kapoor) is an average B.Com graduate, started working as a salesman at AYS corporation that deals with computer hardware. He got demoted because he didn’t give kickback to the first client he went to handle. His value of honesty made him a laughing stock at his own company. Sometime later, he founded Rocket Sales Corp while working at AYS. He realized that major customer pain point of AYS is the lack of service. At his corporation, customer satisfaction was the priority and he never needed to bribe any of his customer to get contracts. This teaches all the budding sales folks a very important lesson; Always listen to your customers irrespective of the revenue chunk that they provide. Never-die attitude of Ranbir and his incentive scheme that makes his employees a partner at firm are another lessons that one can learn.
4.
Wall Street (1987)
This is the movie that every finance and trading enthusiast should watch. Charlie Sheen is a young stock-broker at a Wall Street firm, highly ambitious, impatient for success with a desire for a high life. Sheen wants to work for a known Wall Street Player M Douglas (Gekko). Inorder to impress Gekko, Sheen gives him inside information from his father’s company. This marks the beginning of a series of insider trading information about many companies that Sheen provided Gekko. This movie has all elements which can make finance enthusiasts get org**m: Insider Trading, Hostile Takeover, HNI Rivalries, Buying and Ripping Companies apart, and yes SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission)!
5.
TVF Pitchers (2015)
TVF Pitchers isn’t a movie but a web-series. You can imagine its popularity by its IMDB rating (9.3/10). This series captures the Indian Entrepreneurship scene very accurately. It was released at a time when Flipkart, OYO, Snapdeal were making news about valuations, funding and fat bonuses. This story is about 4 friends who dreamt of working on their start-up since engineering college but are stuck in their boring day job. When protagonist of the show goes on to submit their resignation, his boss says ‘When Indian graduates are bored of their 9-5 jobs, they see 3 options- IAS, MBA and Start-up’. This show is full of such cult dialogues. With this show, Indian web-series scene exploded.
TVF captured the consumer insights very well in this show; Indian youth, highly educated (MBA, Engineers), living in metros, is bored of the TV shows, they look up to Hollywood for entertainment. They created a show with cult and intelligent dialogues, realistic sets, relatable characters to the youth.
Going further, there are shows and movies like Silicon Valley, Pursuit of Happyness, Margin Call, Up in the Air, House of Lies, etc.
Drop your feedback in the comment section :)
Happy Reading!