Bleak choices

Sicario paints a picture of Juarez in Mexico that reminded me of the hell depicted in Dusk Till Dawn. This is a deeply depressing and bleak film which purports to show a world in which the police have lost control and the drug cartels are in charge. In a word: chilling (to your core).

This is an uncompromising film that suggests the only way to tackle the brutal crime regimes depicted in the movie is to deploy 'righteous' brutality against them. The 'good guys' just kill a few less people in slightly less horrific ways. There are images in this film that will stay with you for a long time: do not see it if this concerns you. But do see it if you want to see a tight and crisply acted, well edited and filmed movie. A raw and uncompromising film.

This film poses that timeless moral question: do the ends justify the means. Of course, there are no simple or glib answers. This film should make most people feel very uncomfortable when they observe the ethical compromises being made in pursuit of a more (??) just result.

As this series of blogs has raised on more than one occasion: leadership is all about making (often difficult) ethical choices. And having made them, being prepared to stand by those choices. For example if a large business is hacked (yielding many lost personal details of customers) but then it emerges that a previous decision was made not to invest in better security for just commercial reasons... what then? All leaders need to be aware of the ethical dimensions of each and every decision they make.

What were the ethics in your last decision?

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This is Blog 120 in my 2014/2015 series of blogs about leadership ideas to be found in the movies of our time. You can read here as why I began doing this (with an update at the end of 2014). Please subscribe to this blog if you want to read more. Thanks. Click the label 'film' to see all the others.

What is a vote?

Frankly I am astounded it has taken a 100 years to make Suffragette. This is but one story of the movement that campaigned for decades to win women the same rights to vote as men. There must be many more stories to tell. Perhaps there will be Suffragette 2!

Unsurprisingly, the film is not without its critics and many people, I expect, will have been looking to find fault with it, given its subject matter. But, in my view, the narrative holds together well and whilst the acting is not Oscar winning it is fine acting. The film comes close to being a documentary at times which makes it all the more powerful, emotional and uplifting. This is a film to be seen.

It is often not remembered, how long some campaigns take to achieve their ambitions. The Suffragette movement was one, another was the campaign to outlaw the slave trade which took more than 20 years. In these and many other cases, their leaders and activists knew they were right: they simply had to carry on.

Good leaders don't give up when they are sure their position is the correct one, no matter what the opposition. Strategy might develop and tactics might have to change: but the goal remains the same. Leaders will flex methods but do not compromise on what they know to be right.

What do you know to be right?

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This is Blog 119 in my 2014/2015 series of blogs about leadership ideas to be found in the movies of our time. You can read here as why I began doing this (with an update at the end of 2014). Please subscribe to this blog if you want to read more. Thanks. Click the label 'film' to see all the others.

Stranger on the shore

The Intern is a delightful intergenerational film that, whilst not looking for side splitting guffaws, will quietly make you smile and chuckle. This is a uplifting film that will appeal to a demographic that values ageing, tenderness and the application of wisdom.

This is film embedded with the hope that there is always something to learn, it is always possible to make amends to move on and it is always possible find love, even when that seems unlikely. De Niro, Hathaway & Russo give this film a warm vibrating timbre.

In most organisations, the barriers between people learning from each other are legion. These barriers can include status, gender, age, experience and so on... Often people not so much refuse to learn from others but simply do not conceive of the possibility that they might.

The job of a good leader is to break down such barriers and enable, persuade, nudge and maybe even cajole people to search out colleagues to learn from. As humans, we are learning all the time: why don't organisations harness this knowledge as much as they can? Good leaders make that happen.

How have you helped people learn from each other?

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This is Blog 118 in my 2014/2015 series of blogs about leadership ideas to be found in the movies of our time. You can read here as why I began doing this (with an update at the end of 2014). Please subscribe to this blog if you want to read more. Thanks. Click the label 'film' to see all the others.

No Hal

The Martian is a triumphant film: pure Sci-fi story about an astronaut surviving against the odds on a hostile planet. There's no artificial intelligence involved: no Hal present to slowly and inexorably undermine the central character's mental health.

The editing and direction are seamless - and the acting about as convincing as it could be. You will believe you are watching a film made on the red planet. This is a hopeful and optimistic movie - one to definitely see.

This is a film about resilience and creativity.  Mars is the classic burning platform which drives the marooned astronaut to higher and higher levels of risk and innovation. There is nowhere else to go.

Should every business or organisation spend some time on Mars, metaphorically? How can leaders create this compelling urgency to shed all past attachments to practice and think afresh about just how to deliver superlative and competitive services? This will hinge on whether people will really believe the leader's request to innovate because there is no alternative...

Can you command that level of trust?

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This is Blog 117 in my 2014/2015 series of blogs about leadership ideas to be found in the movies of our time. You can read here as why I began doing this (with an update at the end of 2014). Please subscribe to this blog if you want to read more. Thanks. Click the label 'film' to see all the others.

The Scottish Film

Shakespeare purists will probably raise an eyebrow or two at Macbeth, as the script is closely based upon but not completely faithful to the original play. But wow...!!! This film is as brutally beautiful as a film could be. This is a harsh depiction of life in early Scotland which will make you shiver with the cold and the damp on screen... and the unforgiving, horrific 'justice' meted out to its warriors, citizens and court will chill you. You wonder how anyone survived such a world.

The acting is stupendous: raw, subtle, powerful and compelling. Macbeth's descent into madness and witchery is complete whilst Lady Macbeth is painted much more sympathetically than in other productions I have seen. There are no soft edges in this film: even Macduff seems to be made from angled welded steel. This is a must see film!

Much has and will be written about the leadership lessons in Macbeth (just google it!). But I will take a different angle: much leadership is involved in daring to offer another interpretation of a well worn path. You can imagine the writers and directors meeting and saying "I know, let's do another film of Macbeth!" But true leadership is to be found in making this challenge and then following it through to completion.

Leaders in business and the arts are to found amongst those who take an old idea and re-imagine it in a way that is fresh, contemporary and persuasive (as this film has done). All this involves the courage of Macbeth, the tenacity of Macduff, the goodwill of Duncan, the strategy of Lady Macbeth and the nobility of Banquo. (I could go on...)

What is the next old idea to be refreshed? 

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This is Blog 116 in my 2014/2015 series of blogs about leadership ideas to be found in the movies of our time. You can read here as why I began doing this (with an update at the end of 2014). Please subscribe to this blog if you want to read more. Thanks. Click the label 'film' to see all the others.

To bill or not to bill

Bill is an enjoyable romp through one version of how William Shakespeare came to write plays. I am not sure how accurate this version is, but it is quite funny and occasionally laugh out loud funny. This is a low budget jump across from the Horrible Histories TV series, indeed so low budget that quite a few actors play multiple parts (which adds to the humour...)

Is this film made for children? Well yes.. and no: it is probably pitched squarely at the family market with plenty of subtle wit to keep the parents amused as well. It is not a great film and certainly does not have a script to match anything that the Bard wrote, but on a rainy Sunday afternoon, you won't be disappointed.

The leadership theme for me from this film was about finding your talents. Sometimes, we get stuck doing one thing (lute playing in this narrative) but really our calling is elsewhere (being a playwright). The mark of a good leader is not only one who recognises her/his own talents (and exploits them) but one who is also great in spotting (and nurturing) talents in others.

Spotting talents in others means going beyond what is on obvious display and looking for the clues behind the presentation. It also means asking good questions, listening and creating opportunities in which people might discover their talents, ones they may not have known they had.

How good a talent spotter are you?

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This is Blog 115 in my 2014/2015 series of blogs about leadership ideas to be found in the movies of our time. You can read here as why I began doing this (with an update at the end of 2014). Please subscribe to this blog if you want to read more. Thanks. Click the label 'film' to see all the others.

Not so hot

I really wanted to like Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials as I felt a little guilty after being not especially enamoured with the first film (see my write up here) due to seeing it in a Serbian cinema with subtitles, while the audience talked all the way through it... Perhaps the sequel would be better...? Sadly, it isn't.

The film comprises of a tedious set of scenes of people running all over the place, sometimes across post apocalyptic deserts or through cavernous industrial buildings. Yawn. Why don't they just leave off the film making and make a computer game instead, to which the narrative is much more suited. Sadly these are forgettable characters in a forgettable plot. I will not be bothering with the third one.

The job of a leader is to lead which often (though not exclusively) means being out in front, setting the pace. Sometimes leaders set too fast a pace and end up some distance away from those they are seeking to lead. The bigger the gap, the less the leadership in my view.

The art of good leadership is keeping the gap within reach and where necessary increasing the acceleration, but not by too much. Leaders can and should be pacesetters but they are not in a race. Pacesetters draw people on to greater performance but they are not competing.

How is your pacesetting?

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This is Blog 114 in my 2014/2015 series of blogs about leadership ideas to be found in the movies of our time. You can read here as why I began doing this (with an update at the end of 2014). Please subscribe to this blog if you want to read more. Thanks. Click the label 'film' to see all the others.