"Business Life Lessons Learned From the
Movies"
Following essay was
posted to monthly magazine "Staff Adviser " home page.
http://www.staffad.com/bilingual/shinbori/shinbori05_en.html
Business Life Lessons Learned From the Movies
●Movies
featuring business situations are enjoyable:
I may be someone
who watches a large number of movies compared to other people of my generation.
I count the number
of movies I watch in the theater in a year. Last year, it was 43. Two years
ago, it was 47.
I like action and romance
films.
I also like movies
featuring business enterprises.
It is a very
useful reference for me in my work to watch scenes from movies representing the
way business negotiations are carried out, the way meetings are held and
conversations between those in senior positions and their subordinates.
Movies featuring business
enterprises provide me with fresh material from which I can learn about American
society.
Movies that
particularly impressed me were: “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,” “The
Informant!” and “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.”
●Movies
featuring corporate downsizing:
I watched a movie
on DVD this New Year’s holiday.
It was “Up in the Air”,
which was released two years ago.
The movie deals
with corporate downsizing.
A handsome George
Clooney acts as someone who fires people on behalf of other companies.
He is contracted
by companies to travel all over the United States by airplane and tell a person
that he or she no longer has a job.
His goal is to
reach ten million frequent flyer miles.
Dismissing
employees is originally the job of the employee’s boss or the personnel manager.
But they outsource
this nasty and unpleasant job to outside the company.
Aggressively taking
full advantage of outsourcing is a typical element of American management.
The employee who
has been told they no longer have a job trembles with anger.
Even though they
want to explode in anger, they can't release their frustrations because the
person in front of them is just a contracted employee.
Outsourcing
downsizing tasks to outside the company is a great convenience for the boss of
employees to be dismissed and personnel managers because they can dismiss someone without getting their hands dirty.
●Dismissing
someone and being dismissed:
Dismissing someone
when a company is downsizing causes great pain to those being dismissed. At the same time,
the act of dismissing someone is also usually a very difficult thing to do.
15 years ago, I was
suddenly dismissed.
Moreover, on the
following day, I switched roles and found myself having to dismiss other
employees.
At that time, the
dot-com bubble had almost completely collapsed.
I was the head of a
venture company (R Corporation), which had its head office in Silicon Valley in
the U.S.
The business in
Japan began well by successfully securing a sales alliance contract with a
major advertisement agency (D Corporation)
Without any
advanced notice, the VP from the U.S. HQ showed up at the Tokyo office.
He told me that:
"Our company
will be liquidated by the end of next month. Because the planned capital
increase fell through the company’s cash reserves have almost run out.
Consequently, the business cannot continue in this state."
“The U.S. HQ will
be liquidated” meant that the Tokyo office would be shut down. That is to say,
I myself was to be dismissed. This sudden news upset me very much.
The liquidation of
the Tokyo office didn’t just mean my dismissal, but also the dismissal of the
26 employees in the Tokyo office.
One of my roles as
the head of the Tokyo office was to tell the employees that our office is being
closed and that all of you will be fired by the end of the next month.”
I immediately met
with an attorney and discussed how I should proceed.
Both employees and
I went through a very hard and bitter experience.
However the
liquidation process was somehow completed by the given period.
Even now I can’t
forget this painful incident.
●Movies
are packed full of life:
In the movie “Up in
the Air”, there is a scene where George Clooney makes a speech in front of an audience
of people who were fired. He asks the audience: “What’s In Your Backpack?”
By comparing life
to a backpack, he asks “what are you packing into your backpack?” in his
speech.
The title of this
movie, “Up in the Air,” refers to an idiom that means “not yet decided” or “no
idea at all.”
The movie provides
us with the opportunity to reflect on our own lives. The movie includes a cast featuring
various people that act out many different lives.
We are now living
in chaotic times, searching for the direction we should be headed
Someday, we may
discover this direction through the people or the events that appear in the
movies.
I am going to continue
to watch movies as before with an inquisitive mind, always looking to learn new
things.
