Is Grimsby that grim?

Grimsby paints a pretty bleak picture of the town. What Borat did for Kazakhstan, Nobby has now done for Grimsby. Unsurprisingly, the townsfolk are less than happy. But it is a film you ought to go and see nonetheless: this is satire after all.

Though I feel I should warn you: the humour is not just irreverent, it is decidedly scatological, silly, shocking and at times, violent. But I enjoyed it! Whilst there are jokes at the expense of a caricature of Grimsby folk (and others), there is also much about family loyalty and love in there too. Line your stomach first, but then go and see it!

Part of the narrative of this movie centres on Nobby suddenly discovering his inner secret agent skills. Yes... it's a stretch! But it reminded me of some research in an organisation that sought to discover the profile of the people who were the most innovative. Was it their education, their job role, their family background etc? What they found was that the people who were most creative and innovative were those who defined themselves as such. And that was the major difference that made the difference...

So in my view, one of the things good leaders do is to encourage people to define themselves differently, and then discover how much talent they already have.

How are you helping people to redefine themselves?

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Blog 154: in my 2014/15/16 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 and 2015). Please subscribe to this blog if you want to read more. Thanks. Click the label 'film' to see all the others.