07 Aug Add a bit of ‘movie mindset’ to how you work
At a recent Growth Summit conference I was talking to a guy who works in the movie industry. His company provides studios and online games with VFX and film location work. And while we took a break after the coffee cart rush had passed, I asked him a question I’ve pondered on and off for a few years.
The model for making movies requires transitory teams to successfully and quickly come together. So, what are the secret ingredients that make it work?
Zoom in. A bunch of talented, skilled, motivated people assemble to tell a story. Then they’re done. Off to the next one. With different directors, another cast and crew, new locations and problems to solve. And it mostly works. Sure, there are tales of tantrums and tyrannical sets—people behaving badly happens in every industry. Still overall, spend a few minutes with anyone who makes movies, and they wouldn’t trade it.
The guy I talked to thinks the approach works due to generosity and what I call trust-given. There’s no time to nudge and coddle people into feeling comfortable. Everyone assumes good intent from the outset, and because time is currency, as a professional, they offer their best from day one. People recognise and revel in each other’s strengths, and everyone shows up prepared and ready to play. I’ve dubbed it the ‘movie mindset’.
New York Times op-ed writer Frank Bruni nails what the professional conduct piece looks like. “Professionalism recognises that your job is bigger than you are. It rightly regards teamwork and discipline as handmaidens of accomplishment. And it sweats details, because if you get enough of those wrong, you get nothing at all right.”
During the press-tour for The Odyssey, Director Christopher Nolan and his lead actors further illuminated what a movie mindset looks like, including a few unheroic examples about those details.
Anne Hathaway talked about “one day it was lunchtime and as you can imagine, it’s a whole production to get food from land onto the boat. And I just remember you [Nolan] handing out sandwiches to everybody. You just went straight from director to just like, “Is everybody okay? Does everybody have a cheese sandwich?”
Nolan responded, “these are all examples of what you see on film sets all the time, because everybody needs everybody else to be working at their best. It’s the ultimate version of teamwork. Everybody understands that if Matt can’t stop shivering, he can’t get his lines out, the movie stops. So you see so many little acts of people helping each other along the way to get it done and it’s a really special thing to be a part of.”
‘Ultimate teamwork’ nails it. And I think organisations could use more of it and the accompanying movie mindset. Sure, your terrain may be less exciting. The horizon on your work lasts longer, and who you work alongside changes only when people quit or get fired. But when you look through the viewfinder of making movies, the ideas you see can benefit any organisation.
Start-ups are probably most like a movie, in they use urgency and story to attract and embolden workers. It’s also why, as those companies get bigger over time, a lot of that energy dissipates—the movie mindset doesn’t weather well over the long haul. It does, however, fit projects, skunk works and other outcome-focused situations where something specific needs to happen. Now.
So, try it. Assemble a team of the best people for the ‘movie’. They show up with their strengths, put on their professional hats, extend trust and generosity to each other and get on with the necessary work. Not welcome on the set is siloed thinking or the political games that stymie efforts.
Then when the ‘movie’ is done, everyone returns to their regular roles. And as a side benefit your culture gets a boost as people take fragments of the movie mindset back into their regular teams.
Thanks for reading.