Glengarry Glenross, Jerry Maguire, Executive Search & Controlled Aggression

There are two great movies which every guy interested in sales must see: Glengarry Glenross and Jerry Maguire. GG is about a failing real estate office where 4 real estate sales people work, Al Pacino( Ricky Roma in the movie) being the best. Jerry Maguire is about a sports agent played by Tom Cruise who manages a football receiver called Rod Tidell.Both movies have acquired a cult status. Not many have seen GG though it came out in 1992 because it will never be on network television...reason? There are too many profanities to clear up..the word fuck is used 138 times!!! The question to ponder is: Who should a sales guy emulate: Jerry Maguire or Ricky Roma?

My contention in this post is that a sales guy should be a Jerry Maguire and never Ricky Roma. Ricky Roma is smooth when it comes down to talking to his customers and closing the sales...but it seems that too often,at least in one instance shown in the movie, he dupes his customers. Jerry Maguire on the other hand has his fortunes tied to one guy he is managing. Executive Search is an interesting business. Like any sales situation, you have a target and you are trying to achieve it. What is different about it, lets say from selling credit cards or a pound of milk, is that the commodity you are trying to sell(which is a job) would be consumed by the customer only 4 or 5 times in his life. The sale should accomodate this important fact. That brings in certain gravitas to the situation. You cannot just return the job you just picked up like you would a pound of bad milk you bought at Ralphs. It could be said that trying to sell real estate( as Ricky Roma does in GG) or managing a football player also requires certain extra consideration. The important thing to remember here is to look at customer life time value rather than just an instantaneous sale. A good experience with a head hunter would definitely result in two sure shot down stream revenue sources 1) Every time the guy needs to change a job, he would get back to you 2) He would refer to you every one he knows who is looking out. These two conditions would hold if you close the sale or not for the current positions you have.

Now I do not mean that you could keep waiting for future sales without closing a single candidate for the current position. The challenge is in accepting the gravitas of the situation with a sense of controlled aggression in trying to close the current positions. The trick lies in widening the net and trying to find the right candidate...and believe me, there are far more than just one or two for what you have. So the receipe for success would be a strong research effort, a good pitch( in good faith considering the long term downstream revenues from individual relationships)and playing the role of a match maker. Treat it as a partnership with the candidate, take care of him like Jerry Maguire does for Rod Tidell and you will see the fruits of your labor. It makes good business sense and it would make you happy too.

Now Glengarry Glenross has inspired a lot of people to develop sales organizations with the two mottos 1) Coffees for Closures only 2) First prize is Cadillac, second prize is a set of steak knives and third prize is " You're Fired". I know someone who worked in settings like these. I am sure it is absolutely wrong. The pressure to deliver immediate results at any costs will ultimately lead to what happens in the movie. The need is to, if the situation permits, work with your customer like Jerry Maguire does.

So two quick recommendations before I finish up this post.If you are looking to become a sales guy: 1) Check out these two movies 2) Be a Jerry Maguire even though you are tempted to become a Ricky Roma.

War, Existentialism and "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly"

I am finishing up on my back log of great movies and yesterday I watched The Good,The Bad and The Ugly. As you know, the core of the movie is a simple treasure hunt in the Wild West that intertwines the fate of Blondie( Clint Eastwood), Tuco(Eli Wallace) and Angel Eyes(Lee Van Cleef). What wraps this basic plot are crisp dialogues, pure style and the best Original Sound Track ever. Imagine that the lead actor hasn't got a name and has to do with the name Blondie!! I am not sure if I understood what makes Blondie Good except for one scene in which he shows empathy for a dying soldier but frankly, it doesn't matter.

First fascinating sequence happens in New Mexico. Tuco and Blondie are caught in the middle of the American Civil War fought between Confederate and Union soldiers. These soldiers have been fighting to take control of a bridge over a river. The graveyard where the treasure is buried is near the site of the fighting. So, to end the war and make the two sides go fight somewhere else, Tuco and Blondie decide to blow up the bridge. Interestingly, the river is knee deep!!
This scene is fascinating for its symbolism. Here they are, these soldiers who have been fighting for a useless bridge when a treasure of $200,000 lies buried somewhere near them.But such is the beauty of a war. When you set this juggernaut rolling, it gains a momentum of its own. The reasons to go to war might disappear and new reasons might need to be discovered but the war goes on. What makes the situation even more interesting is the strict command and control structure in these situations where you are not supposed to question any order from your superior. We went into Iraq for WMDs, we found none. Then we decided to work for the noble cause of putting together a democratic government( Now that government representing the majority kills the members of the minority community fuelling a civil war). And, wait a minute, we also wanted cheap Iraqi oil to secure our oil supplies from the Middle East. Well, that has not happened either because of the security situation. But the war goes on...

The second fascinating sequence is the conversation between Tuco and his brother Pablo who has now become a priest. Tuco says to his brother:"Where we came from,if one did not want to die of poverty, one became a priest or a bandit. You chose your way and I chose mine. Mine was harder. You talk about mother and father. You remember when you left to become priest, I stay behind. I must have 10-12, I don't remember which but I stayed. I tried but it was no good.Now I'm gonna tell you something.You became a priest because you are too much of a coward to do what I do"...awesome...isn't it? Sartre would have smiled for the pure existentialism of this situation. For us to appreciate Pablos of the world, Tucos have to exist and for good people to exist, you need bad people to compare them with. And bad people deserve, at least, some credit for the role they play in this game of allocating moral judgements.Tuco does have a point, and in general he has one whenever he speaks, that it is not easy to be a bandit!!

Standing Up To Evil

I just came back watching Grindhouse by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. The first part Planet Terror leaves you so helpless( and numb) that the second feature Death Proof feels like pure heaven.
Death Proof is about a serial killer Mike(Kurt Russell) who is a stuntman and likes to kill women on the road by hitting them with his stunt car( and he always survives in the crash, and so calls his car Death Proof). He peacefully kills 4 women in Texas and is able to get away with it because they were drinking and he wasn't. He then goes over to Tennessee and tries to do it to 3 other women, one of whom is a stunt woman from Auckland. These 3 women decide to test ride a 1970 Dodge Challenger and Mike decides to go after them. And guess what? The women fight back...against all odds...fascinating. Not only do they survive, they give Mike a full pay back. It is great to see the glee in his eyes turn first to surprise, then terror and then pure helplessness. Ah!! the full force of retribution.

Well, we all know that not all stories take such a dramatic turn. None the less, they do provide inspiration and they do prove that there is a way to stand up to evil. Even psychopaths feel the pain and even they die...its just a matter to time and it is the matter of someone standing up to the tyranny. I can still feel the joy when Zoe Bell gets out of her car and starts smashing Mike with a metal pipe. I am sure that I am not the only one cheering her in the theatre..and then the whole chase and the final end to all misery with the axe kick. By the way, another lesson from the story. The first 4 women who got killed were drunk, the latter 3 were not...so if a serial killer is on the road, your chances of survival are better if are not drunk.

Blades of Glory & Balls of Fury: The New Hope for Fringe Sports?

I just watched Blades of Glory and I thought the movie was fascinating. I would put forward a business opinion about the whole idea of making a movie about Ice Skating.

Figure skating is a wonderful sport to watch but is hardly seen except during Olympics. Blades of Glory does a great service to this sport by exposing it, albeit from an entertainment perspective, to a huge audience. While other recent sports movies like Talladega Nights( about NASCAR), Coach Carter( Basketball) and Invincible( American Football) consolidate already popular sports, movies like Blades of Glory can open up completely new territories. Another sports movie recently released( Pride) brings the sports of swimming to the fore.

While the hard core followers of sports like swimming, ice skating or ping pong( table tennis) might argue that these movies hardly represent sporting excellence, these movies do bring in the much needed exposure to these sports. If people go to see beach volleyball for some sports and some bikinis, lets not worry about it for the time being. Don't worry too much if there is no routine called Iron Lotus in figure skating in which people get decapitated. Entertainment can be used effectively to build a critical mass and sports administrators should not hesitate in using this medium. I am sure that a some people will swtich on to figure skating events next year in Beijing Olympics because of Blades of Glory and when that happens, some of these administrators should send a thank you letter to producers of this movie.

Finally, look out for Balls of Fury. Balls of Fury will introduce a very popular but relatively lesser followed sports, Ping Pong to the American public. The movie is positioned as a classical marshal arts comedy but in this particular case, Ping Pong has replaced Kung Fu. And of course, you get to see the fabulous Christopher Walken in action!!!

By the way, if you did not observe it, I thought the placement for Robeks juice was pretty cool in Blades of Glory.

Trusting A Dictator..

Just came back watching "The Last King Of Scotland"....the movie is about Idi Amin and his Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan. I won't tell you why a movie about a Ugandan dictator is called The Last King Of Scotland but in general the movie is good. It is a grim reminder of the reality in a forgotten part of the world. Dictators in Africa are not a thing of the past and movies like these do contribute in generating awareness about plight of a whole continent.

Forest Whitaker has done a great job playing Idi Amin. Idi like tons of other dictators we know about is unsecure and supremely unpredictable. One day the Scottish doctor is his advisor, his best advisor and the only one he can trust, and next day he is nobody. The doctor soon enough knows that for anyone around this monster, the days are definitely numbered. Think of Saddam Husein( and his legendary purge right at the beginning of his reign) and Musharraf's famous purge of folks like Muhammad Aziz( guy who orchestrated the coup for Musharraf when he was in the air)....not to forget the biggest monster of all, Stalin.

Leave Your Work At Your Office

I just finished watching this wonderful movie called The Lord of War. I want to talk about one aspect which I found fascinating about the movie..the whole idea of leaving work at office.

Before we get going, lets look at some statistics quoted in the movie about small arms trade around the world:

a) 600 million small arms around the world out of which 250 million are in US, 84 million in Europe and around 30 million in Africa

b) Arms produced in 90 countries around the world in 1200 factories

c) Small arms trade is worth 4 billion dollars on the legal side and 1 billion on the illegal side annually.

In one particular scene, Nicholas Cage has just had the brown powder: a combination of cocaine and gun powder, generally given to child soldiers before they go to war to immunize them against what they will do. Cage is delirious after a couple of big sniffs and finds a child in front of her who has nothing below the elbow. She says to her friend" There is a white man, he would know" and comes up to Cage to ask her when would her hand grow back.

This movie is almost a documentary but has its moments...moments where you begin to question what a business should be and what should be the objectives of it. And more importantly, for how long can you keep your professional and personal life separate in businesses like arms dealing. You can think of a lot of other businesses which would qualify in the same category though with moderate levels of monstrosity. The dynamics of this business are such that everytime there is a truce amongst warring factions, your business goes down!!

In the end, Cage loses his family, his brother gets killed in Sierra Leone and his trophy wife leaves him with their son.The movie ends with a beautiful line where Nicholas Cage has just survived another brush with the authorities :
"You know who is going to inherit the world? Arms Dealers. ..because everyone else is so busy killing each other. Thats the secret of survival: Never go to war, especially with yourself."

Borat & The Birth of New Media

For all of us who have found ourselves flooded with news items about Borat, aka Sacha Baron Cohen, and his new movie 'Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan', it is again a reminder of the coming of age of the new media. Sacha in his earlier role as Ali G first in UK and then on HBO got some of the brightest people in America answering the stupidest questions in the world. In one of his famous interviews, he asked the Deputy Director of CIA about how to punish suicide bombers!!

His new role as Borat has the potential to paint a whole nation in so tainted colors that it would take some effort to come out of that image. The Kazhakhstan which he supposedly left to come to US to meet Pamela Anderson drinks fermented horse urine, gives death penalty for baking bagels, and exports over 300 tonnes of human pubis per year. Borat's favorite hobby is to shoot dogs. Clearly, most of the Kazhak people are deeply offended by this spoof.

Beyond the spoof part, this again proves the massive power of the new media to disseminate content to segments of audience which are big enough to make such ventures viable. This also proves the loosening of grip of traditional media houses and their ability to target every audience which is there in the world. No matter how offended certain people are with Borat, there are an equal number of people who love this character. How do you as a big company associate with such a story, reap the benefits of reaching a certain audience but avoid the wrath of the opposite audience? Ownership of distribution channels is definitely not going to help..in fact, owning such content like Borat's movie might also become a headache!! The big question is whether there is some way of owning the audience by delivering content( produced inhouse or otherwise) by having a vast array of characters, story lines and delivery mediums? How important are open forums like YouTube or a MySpace in such a scenario?

Meaning of " A Clockwork Orange"

Finally I got to watch " A Clockwork Orange" and I ended up with no feelings at all. Sometimes, too much thought leaves you with no thought. Out of curiosity, I also decided to google the meaning of this title, "A Clockwork Orange". I found a nice elaborate explanation on Wikipedia which I am pasting below..


Burgess wrote that the title came from an old Cockney expression "As queer as a clockwork orange." ¹ Due to his time serving the British Colonial Office in Malaya, Burgess thought that the phrase could be used to punningly refer to a mechanically responsive (clockwork) non-human (orang, Malay for "person"). The Italian title, "Un'Arancia ad Orologeria" was interpreted to refer to a grenade. Burgess wrote in his later introduction, "A Clockwork Orange Resucked," that a creature who can only perform good or evil is "a clockwork orange—meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil."

In his essay "Clockwork Oranges"² he says that "this title would be appropriate for a story about the application of Pavlovian, or mechanical, laws to an organism which, like a fruit, was capable of colour and sweetness." This title alludes to the protagonist's negatively conditioned responses to feelings of evil which prevent the exercise of his free will.

The book was partly inspired by an event in 1944, when Burgess' pregnant wife Lynn was robbed and beaten by four U.S. GI deserters in a London street, suffering a miscarriage and chronic gynaecological problems³. According to Burgess, writing the novel was both a catharsis and an "act of charity" towards his wife's attackers - the story is narrated by and essentially sympathetic to one of the attackers rather than their victim.

What is Better: Perception or Usage of Power?

I saw Ramgopal Verma's Sarkar a few days back. I have one perspective about the situations in the movie and would like to hear what people have to say about it. Hence this entry.

Contrary to a lot of Godman movies, Amitabh (who is Sarkar) hardly does anything gangster like in the movie. The aura around him is larger than life and when people come to meet him, first thing they are supposed to do is touch his feet.Sarkar wields his power not from actual usage but from perception of his power. In very subtle ways, he tries to explain this to his elder and unruly son who loves to flaunt this inherited power.

Looking at it from a much larger perspective of world diplomacy in modern context, I think America has a lot to learn from this point of view. Its true that negotiations always have to be backed with a credible threat of use of power but the beauty also lies in never letting those negotiations reach a point where use of power becomes imminent.

One look at Iraq and it doesn't take much brains to conclude that the aura which was associated with American power no longer exists. American used their power, and all of it, and now has no clue about what to do next. Because when your power fails, there are no backup options. There are no threat perceptions, no mind games. Mr. Zarqawi has given ample examples to the world in last one year on how to deal with American military might.

To Be Or Not To Be..

Carrying on a somewhat similar train of thought which I wrote in my earlier entry on Samskara, I would like to share my thought on a monumental scene from Silsila.

This is one of the best movies you will see and especially I like one scene when Shashi Kapoor dies in a plane crash and his brother Amitabh Bachhan comes to console Mr. Kapoor's fiancee Jaya Bhaduri. Very peacefully, he tells her, you are young, beautiful...who wouldn't marry you. Jaya Bhaduri turns around and asks him, would you marry me? Classic scene. Amitabh Bachhan not knowing what to say tells her what a lot of us would do. Yes, I will marry you. Very conveniently, he takes a position that places him on a moral high ground. What happens in the rest of the movie is the struggle between keeping this moral high ground and an itch to become a trivial lover of Rekha (which requires climbing down from the exalted position).

How many of us find ourselves in such situations in our everyday lives? I have struggled so many times that I have lost count (though the circumstances have not been similar or identical). It's so easy to go up and take this high ground but to climb down from it is so difficult, almost impossible. So this is my moral. People say that sacrifice, do the right things, become a righteous person, an example for the society to follow...all of it is right and desirable but before you start walking on this path, think about where it would lead you.

IVORY TOWER AT THE MORAL HIGH GROUND IS A LONELY PLACE.

On the best scene from" Scent of a Woman"

Following is a part of what Al Pacino says in style and with full force in the defence of Charlie in the movie "Scent of a Woman"

Out of order, I'll show you out of order! You don't know what out of order is Mr. Trask! I'd show you but I'm too old, I'm too tired, and I'm too fuckin' blind. If I were the man I was five years ago I'd take a flame-thrower to this place. Out of order, who the hell do you think you're talking to? I've been around you know? There was a time I could see. And I have seen, boys like these, younger than these, their arms torn out, their legs ripped off. But there isn't nothin' like the sight of an amputated spirit, there is no prosthetic for that. You think you're merely sending this splendid foot-soldier back home to Oregon with his tail between his legs but I say that you are executing his soul. And why? Because he's not a Baird man. Baird men, you hurt this boy, you're going to be Baird Bums, the lot of ya. And Harry, Jimmy, Trent, wherever you are out there, fuck you too.

On Superman and Spiderman..

This has been conveniently and shamelessly borrowed, word by word,from Bill's rendition to Beatrix Kiddo in Kill Bill 2)

Superman, not a great comic book, not particularily well drawn..but the mythology is not only great but its unique.A staple of a superhero mythology is that there is a superhero and there is the alter ego..that man is actully Bruce Wing and SpiderMan is actually Peter Parker..When that character wakes up in the morning, he is Peter Parker..he has to put up a costume to become Spiderman and it is in that charaterstic, Superman stands alone...

Superman didn't become Superman, Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he is Superman..His alter ego is Clark Kent..His outfit with a big red ass...thatsthe blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him..those are his clothes...what Kent wears is the glasses and the business suit...thats the costume..thats the costume Superman wears to blend in with us..Clark Kent is how Superman views us..and what are the characterstics of Clark Kent..he is weak, he is unsure of himself and he is a coward..Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race..