Corporate Lessons from Bollywood Movies

It may sound a bit weird but our Bollywood movies have actually provided us with some of the best corporate lessons. Yes for that matter we have to come out of the decades-old story structure of Hero, Heroine and Villain. I was able to accumulate ten such lessons which are as follows: -

Lesson – “Innovation is indispensable for survival and tools for brand-building”Movie – Do Aankhen Baarah Haath
The actor-director V Shantaram depicts how animal-like hard-core prisoners can be transformed into humans. This was the first ever movie to bring a concept like this where we found socialism for prisoners which was patronized by Kiran Bedi. Yes this required perseverant efforts, unbeatable spirit and team-work to make the thought become a movie. I am not sure whether the movie was a hit or loss but I believe that it long ago paved way for sensible and bold cinema which is required to mature the audience.

Lesson – “Do what your passion is, to reap best returns”Movie – Tare Zameen Par
One more actor-director, Aamir Khan, shows his magic. The movie was about spreading the message that each child is special and has a distinct skill / art. But I felt that this new-age bollywood movie is telling that do what you want to do and know that you can do in the very best way. The young artist Dharsheel, Ishaan Awasthi, is has a bent for painting but fears from Maths, English and other subjects. However, this did not stop him to defeat his fellow student and teachers including his art teacher (Aamir Khan). Moreover it does not matter what we are doing is already being done by many others, until we have a fire to be No. 1. The result : He turned out to be a winner.

Lesson – “Criticism should not break but build confidence and give that spark to perform”Movie – “Laskshay”
The story is about a college guy who is perplexed with the career choice he should choose. Accidentally he gets fixed in the Indian Army’s Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehradun. He finds himself unfit for the discipline in the Academy and returns home where he is looked down upon by the family and fiancé. He is scolded, disrespected and deserted. But this works in his favour. He gets the little spark that he required to realize his goals. Not only does he shocks all by becoming an officer in the Indian Army but also achieves the honorable title to become one of the best in his Regiment by showing outstanding bravery and courage in a war.

Lesson – “A mentor can make us realize our capabilities and abilities”Movie – “Tare Zameen Par”
Again it is the Aamir Khan, actor-director of the masterpiece, who believes that one of his students, Dharsheel (Ishaan Awasthi), has what is required to be an ace painter. This belief is also respected by the pupil, who makes diligent efforts to move in the direction which is shown by his mentor. The once-conceived-as-mentally-retarded child is turned around by Mr Khan into a star painter.

Lesson – “If you can’t fight them, join them”Movie – “Naya Daur”
The movie showed the war between Men & Machine. Dilip Kumar, a horse-kart owner, challenges Jeevan, owner of passenger bus, for a race between his kart and bus. Idea of Dilip saab is to construct a short cut to the destination. But in the way of short cut, there is a piece of land which is under ownership of a person with whom Dilip saab’s village was enemy. Since, Dilip saab was out of options, he had nothing else to do but to shake hand with the enemy.

Lesson – “Focus on long-term growth, not short-term gains”Movie – “Saudagar” (Old)
Mr Amitabh Bachan plays role of a farmer (Moti) who extracts sugar from trees which is processed into jaggery by Nutanji, a widow and a quality jaggery producer. AB has a crush on another woman, Padma Khanna, with whom he wants to marry but faces huge dowry demand. To accumulate that money, AB marries Nutanji, thinking that he would save on the processing charges he used to pay to Nutanji. As the dowry amount gets collected he divorces Nutanji and marries padma khanna. Here he finds it difficult to survive as the new wife of AB is not keen on the processing sugar into jaggery. This makes AB’s life a hell as he had huge debt taken for trees.

Lesson – “It require intention and not determination to build a team”Movie – “Chak De India”
A SRK movie which depicts his efforts to make Indian Women Hockey Team out of state-centric players. He states that according to him a player should first play for its country, then for fellow players and then for himself. Taken in business context, it is that each employee should first work for the company, then for team and then himself. If this feeling of contribution is injected in an organization’s workforce, then it won’t be a challenge to realize objectives of organization effectively and efficiently.

Lesson – “Fast and dependable will win the race”Movie – “Guru”
Mani Ratnam directed and Abhishek Bachan starrer, this movie shows struggle of a man from dust to diamond. The only thing he had with him was his confidence to be number one, but in least possible time. This was because he knew that he in a world where there are billions of heads carrying the aim to be on the top. This is actually the time when we changed that ear-old idiom of slow and steady wins the race. Because in that race there were only two participants but here we have countless competitors.

Lesson – “Smart work, not just hard work, is key to success”Movie – “Shree 420”
Raj kapoorji clutched the desire of every common man to be rich. In a world where millions of millions of people are struggling to survive, a universal strategy can’t be used. One can not depend only on hard-work and luck. There has to be a way that each one of us has to plough which is different from others. We need to have an edge, a different perspective and SMART-WORKING skills. The movie shows how RKji, who is an unemployed graduate, does his best to make a life in Mumbai in the most legitimate manner. But until he changes the way he looks at life and people, he consecutively fails. It’s the smart work, and not hard work which his fellow people have been doing for ages, which helps him make a mark in the world.
NB – It is not my intention in any way to encourage, advice or advocate anyone to do illegitimate tasks. My point is that a twist in our way of thinking, acting and analyzing is overdue. We need to harness abilities in ourselves to take risks, grab opportunities and even create opportunities if they don’t exist.

---------------------------------

I believe many more lessons are being taught by our bolly-movies but we need to find them.