Bridesmaid - Problem solving

Topic: Problem solving

Movie title: Bridesmaid

Movie summary - The movie is about a competition between the maid of honor and a bridesmaid, over who is the bride's best friend, threatens to upend the life of an out-of-work pastry chef. The plot centers on Annie (Wiig). Annie has hit a rough patch but finds her life turned completely upside down when she takes on the Maid of Honor role in her best friend Lillian’s (Maya Rudolph) wedding. In way over her head but determined to succeed, Annie leads a hilarious hodgepodge of bridesmaids (Rose Byrne, Melissa McCarthy, Wendi McLendon-Covey and Ellie Kemper) on a wild ride down the road to the big event.

Concepts - In Bridesmaids, in order to prove the ‘number one’ friend of the bride the girls were constantly at each other. Within minutes of meeting each other, Annie and Helen are already vying. After that the movie is a continuing reel of them hurting each other in order to get ahead.  Because of this fight, Annie sees her life turns upside down and her battle with Helen almost screws up the wedding. This situation is very similar to the business atmosphere where a person in a team trying to show their bester performance over other person. This fight has bad effect on the team’s productivity. Not just simple as in the movie, when one of the bridesmaids tells Annie “You are your problem. You are also your solution." To solve this conflict, a team should apply the problem solving process which requires the critical thinking and problem solving skills. The problem solving skills are: Making judgment, analytical skill, decision making, collecting information, and planning. Out of those skills, apply for human, analytical skill is the most important as the more people communicate; the better they get to know each other.

Kung Fu Panda 2 - Managing individual stress

Topic: Managing individual stress

Movie title: Kung Fu Panda 2

Movie summary - Po the Panda is now living his dream as The Dragon Warrior, protecting the Valley of Peace alongside his friends and fellow kung fu masters, The Furious Five. But Po's new life of awesomeness is threatened by the emergence of a formidable villain, who plans to use a secret, unstoppable weapon to conquer China and destroy kung fu. He must look to his past and uncover the secrets of his mysterious origins; only then will Po be able to unlock the strength he needs to succeed

Concepts - Po's martial arts master informs him that the time has come for the next phase of training: mastering inner peace. However, in order to reach that level, Po has to overcome his own stress about his family memories, which has bad effect on his attitude toward the fight with the Peacock. Since he fights alongside the Furious Five his crisis time, he needs to manage his own stress in order not to affect the team’s duty. As Po is a hardy person, he has the sense of commitment, he can respond to difficulty as a challenge and an opportunity, and finally he has sense of control over one’s life. That’s why the fortune teller believes that he will be the one who beats the Peacock up. However, his problem is somehow conflict with his duty that he needs to face his own problem before he can handle his mission. This is just like work and family stress on employee, which can create the depression on employee. In the movie, Po experience both emotional effects (anger, anxiety, lowered self-esteem) and behavioral effects (poor performance, absenteeism).

Apply to organization behavior, when an individual got stress, he/she can manage it by: planning ahead and practicing good time management, having good personal health management practice, maintaining a positive perspective, balancing work life and personal life, and learning a relaxation technique. Besides, as employee working in a team, their stress can have bad effect on the team’s performance; team should understand and help them to manage it better. 

Suits - Power

Topic - Power
TV Show - Suits, Season 1 Episode 8 "Identity Crisis"

Scene Summary - Suits is a show about corporate lawyers in New York. The show centers on Harvey Specter and his protégé, Mike Ross. In this scene, Louis, a junior partner in the firm, is trying to get in to see Harvey. However, he is stopped by Harvey’s assistant, Donna.

Concepts - Managers can amass several types of power in an organization. They use their power to get things done. Organizational bases of power include legitimate, reward, coercive, information, referent, and expert power (Champoux 332).

In this case, Louis is a junior partner in the law firm, and Donna is only an assistant. By being a junior partner in a prestigious law firm, Louis is able to exert legitimate power and influence over Donna. Louis also tried to use coercive power by describing himself in the firm’s food chain as a “humpback whale” while Donna is just lowly “phytoplankton.” He also uses reward power by trying to bribe her.

However, despite Louis’s power, Donna is able to counter it by her location in the communication network (Champoux 335). Although Donna is only an assistant in title, she works for Harvey, who is a senior partner in the firm. Therefore, she can also command great power in her own right. She controls Harvey’s schedule and also acts as a gatekeeper for those wishing to see Harvey. Additionally, she has information power. She knows something about Louis that will get him into trouble with Harvey. We also pick up shades of Donna’s personality in this brief clip that is part of her power. Power can also come from personal attributes (Champoux 332). She is resourceful enough to be able to get this information and use it as leverage. She is not intimidated by Louis, even though he is a junior partner in the firm.

In an organization, it’s always mindful to pay attention to those who may, on the surface, not command great notice but who hold great power because of their position. Assistants is one of those jobs.

Office Space - Motivation Problems

Motivation Problems
Office Space at MOVIECLIPS.com

Topic - Motivation
Movie - Office Space


Movie Summary - Office Space, at its core, is about employees who hate their jobs. Peter Gibbons is one such employee. He works at Initech, a technology company. The company wants to downsize, so they hire two consultants. In this scene he is asked by the consultants, whose job it is to figure out how to cut costs in the company, what Gibbons does every day.

Concepts - Gibbons displays a poor attitude toward working at this company. He tells them it’s a problem of motivation. He spends the majority of his time spaced out and working just enough not to get fired.

There are other companies out there just like Initech, who have employees who feel the same way Gibbons does about his job. It’s very important for companies to be mindful of their employee’s motivation and job satisfaction to get the most out of their effort. One way to do this is by looking at “job design.” (Champoux 182). Either redesigning their job or by tweaking their job responsibilities, can increase motivation and work effort. Another strategy would be to introduce incentives and increase recognition (Thompson 49-50.) The consults does suggest to him, what about if the company offers you some stock options or equity share. Gibbons is non committal but doesn’t rule it out.

Gibbons complains to the consults that he has 8 different bosses. When he makes a mistake, he has to answer to 8 different people, thus lowering his morale. One solution is by streamlining the management hierarchy. Employees should hear from their boss regularly and not only when they make a mistake ( Thompson 50). Feedback is good for employees, but there is such a thing as too much feedback and not constructive feedback. Another fix to increasing his morale is instituting positive recognition, which can range from simply giving out stationery or merchandise for a specific task, to cash rewards or celebrating successes by having party or going out to dinner (Thompson 50). This a simple task that can result in increase morale as well as increase socialization and commitment to the organization.

Moneyball

Topic – Negotiation
Movie Title - Moneyball

Movie Summary - This movie is a true story based on the Oakland's A's general manager Billy Beane's successful attempt to put together a baseball club on a budget by hiring baseball players based on the input from the computer generated analysis. This movie is less about sports and more about corporate wrangling and intrigue. Bill Beane is played by Brad Pitt has to run and manage his expenditure on a shoe string budget. He plans on recruiting players based on the statistical data and place a value on them. He has to hire, fire, lie and negotiate to get the players he needs.

Concepts - Negotiations is a part of everyday life. Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more people or parties to reach an understanding or resolve a conflict. The main aim of negotiation is to reach a compromise between the parties. Manipulating others to get what you or your party wants is not negotiation. An ethical negotiator does not use the shortcuts or ploys but instead uses a methodical or professional approach to negotiate and reach an understanding. Their are different approaches to negotiations. But they all agree that the individual needs to plan his/her strategy in advance as to what they want, what they think they will get etc. Due to rapid globalization negotiation in forms of teams is widely being used.

The Informant

Topic – Organization Culture
Movie Title - The Informant

Movie Summary - This movie deals with the greed within Corporations. This is a true story of Mark Whitacre played by Matt Damon who works for a lysine developing company who after working for many years is now the vice president in the company. He learns about the price fixing going on in the company and decides to become a spy for the FBI. The U.S. government decides to go after the agri-business giant with a price-fixing accusation, based on the evidence submitted by Mark. But as his incessant lies keep piling up, his world begins to crash around him.

Concepts - Organizational culture is a set of shared assumptions within an organization that guide interpretation and action by defining what is an appropriate behavior for various situations. A strong culture is said to exist in an organization when people in the organization are aligned with the organizational values and a weak culture is said to exist when the employees are not aligned with organization culture or values. Having a strong culture can sometimes be detrimental to the company if the employees are doing the wrong thing and they think it is right as per the company organization culture. Strong culture sometimes leads to 'Groupthink' where employees begin to think in a similar way for the sake of unanimity and do not look at alternative solutions. Apple, Mary Kay are some of the companies with strong organization cultures. In this movie clip 'The Informant', the organization culture prevalent in that particular agro company was greed and the employees would strive to do anything to make money for the company and themselves and hence lead to price fixing.

Legally Blonde: Red, White, and Blonde - Personality and Perception

Capitol Barbie
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde at MOVIECLIPS.com

Topic - Personality and Perception
Movie - Legally Blonde: Red, White, and Blonde


Movie Summary - Elle Woods goes to Washington to get a ban on animal testing bill passed in honor of her pet dog. At Washington, she works for the office of Congresswomen Victoria Rudd. There she must learn to overcome people’s misconceptions about her and learn to navigate the politics of Washington.

Concepts - Grace is reading Elle Woods profile to the other staff members. In that profile, Elle is describe as “one of the leading political minds of our time.” When Elle Woods does actually walk into the office, the rest of the staff are shocked to find that this is the same person as the description. Elle come in wearing an all pink outfit, which shocks the other members of the office. They are dismissive of her appearance, and they mistake her for an intern. All the other members wear dark or black colors. Grace, Congresswomen Rudd’s chief of staff, Grace also dismisses her intelligence by telling her slowly where the interns orientation is.

Grace and the other office staff have biases and stereotypes. They stereotype Elle Woods as a dumb blonde Barbie and calling her Capitol Barbie. Grace mocks her, calling her an intern and telling her where to go. Not only does her appearance shock the staff. Her personality also stands out. Elle Woods is a type A personality. However, the atmosphere at Washington is more serious, subdued. And Elle stands out there.

Personality has great effect on team group dynamics. It affects everything from the way each person communicates to how they go about their work. In designing teams, acknowledging each person’s personality similarities and differences can help get the best out of the team and can help forge team synergy. Each person can bring something unique to contribute.

Congresswomen Rudd says of her staff, “this is one of the most collaborative bunch on the Hill.” This is important because Elle and the rest of the staff have to learn to overcome their own perceptions and personality differences to work together on the bill. Although Elle is unconventional by Washington standards, she is actually smart and capable of the task. She just does things a little different, but her methods are effective. It takes a while for the team to see that, but they eventually give her respect.

Finding Nemo - Team work

Topic - Team work

Movie - Finding Nemo, By Pixar (2003)

Movie summary - Marlin is a more-than-slightly paranoid Clown Fish who is extremely devoted to his young son, Nemo, the only survivor after an undersea predator swallowed up Nemo's mother and her other offspring. It's not Marlin's nature to explore unfamiliar waters, but when he and Nemo are accidentally separated near the Great Barrier Reef en route to Nemo's first day of fish school, Marlin gathers his courage and sets out to find his son. What Marlin doesn't know, however, is that while Nemo was looking at a boat passing on the surface, he was caught in a net and given a new home in a dentist's aquarium. As Marlin searches for his son, he makes friends with a friendly but absent-minded Regal Blue Tang named Dory, a Great White Shark named Bruce, who is trying to cut fish out of his diet, a beach-rat Sea Tortoise named Crush, and Nigel, a Pelican who can take Marlin's search from the ocean to dry land.

Concepts - The movie's key messages is that teamwork can help you achieve more than you can achieve by yourself. Clearly, teamwork and cooperation are vital to success and achievement. I especially love the scene when the net caught hundreds of fish including Marlin and Dory. At first, the hundreds of fish were just swimming frantically in every direction, then as Nemo’s found out that the fish better to swim down together and chanting the phrase in unison. They make headway, putting pressure on the part of the boat that held up the net, and it eventually snaps, allowing the net to crash into the ocean floor and free lots of gleeful fish. The event also rightfully shocks the men on the boat! I get so much from this scene. First of all, how often do people go in their own direction when faced with a problem rather than collaborating efforts and sticking together? The effort is always more impactful when there is a team rather than an individual. Also, how rare are Nemo and Marlin as leaders in this situation? They were not the ones trapped, but out of compassion for those that were, they stepped in and led. They did not sheepishly yell from the sidelines, thinking that no one would listen, but they aggressively chanted with faith that others would catch on.

Slumdog Millionaire - Motivation

Topic - Motivation

Movie - Slumdog Millionaire, (2008) by Fox Pictures

Movie summary -  Slumdog Millionaire is the story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to win a staggering 20 million rupees on India's "Kaun Banega Crorepati?" (Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?) But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show's questions. Each chapter of Jamal's increasingly layered story reveals where he learned the answers to the show’s seemingly impossible quiz.

Concepts - The questions were raising between the audience sand the program crews that how come like Jamal, a self confessed non-genius who grew up in the slums of Mumbai, can be doing so well on the show when others who are brighter, more educated and wealthier than him have failed. Is Jamal cheating? Is it purely luck that they have asked him the questions to which he knows the answers? Seeing Jamal's life journey to this point ultimately answers these questions. His life journey includes being orphaned at an early age; growing up with an older brother, Salim, who was both his guardian/protector and antagonist; and having a relationship since childhood with another orphaned child, a girl named Latika. His motivation for being on the show may provide the key to his success. Clearly, he got both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. He not only wants to get the big prize of “Who wants to be a millionaire?”, but also he wants to find the answers for his life and his love life, and he’s very persistent to his goal. After observing his chapters of life, we can see all his elements of his motivation: His direction of behavior, his level of effort, and his level of persistent. It probably that his motivation and his effort to achieve the goal is one of reason why the movie got the Oscar Award for the best film in 2009.

Career Builder - Employee Satisfaction

Synopsis- The commercial is aimed at employees who feel like they are the only ones doing any real work at their job; or feel like they don’t have the same work ethic as their co-workers.

Concepts- I think this commercial touches on two key organizational behavior concepts; corporate culture and employee satisfaction. Corporate culture is the collective way an organization does things. At the man’s office, the corporate culture is that they monkey around a lot (which could be because they are monkeys). He seems unwilling to conform and unhappy with that culture. Which leads to the next concept of employee satisfaction; employee satisfaction is the terminology used to describe whether employees are happy and contented and fulfilling their desires and needs at work. Many factors contribute to employee satisfaction, such as treating employees with respect, providing regular employee recognition, empowering employees, and positive management within a success framework of goals, measurements, and expectations, just to name a few. Greater employee satisfaction has been linked to higher productivity. It’s easy to see from the clip that neither the guy that works with the monkeys nor the lady that works with the donkeys is very satisfied at their current job, which is why they would use Career Builder to find a new one.

Yo Gabba Gabba - Norms

Topic- Norms
TV Show – Yo Gabba Gabba

Synopsis- Yo Gabba Gabba is a children’s show that attempts to engage children through music and teach them educational lessons and social skills.

Concept- This clip is a song titled “Don’t Bite Your Friends.” It’s an interesting illustrations of how norm are established. As adults there are many norms that are so ingrained in us, that it’s hard to pin down when you learned them or who taught them to you. Many things you learn through parenting and modeling without having to be specifically taught them; but that is not always the case, and not for every child. This song is an example of just that. From a very young age children explore everything with their mouth. Around the age of two some commonly begin to “bite” things. Through music Yo Gabba Gabba teaches the social norm that we don’t bite our friends.

Avenue Q - Biases

Topic- Biases
Broadway Play – Avenue Q

Play Synopsis- AVENUE Q is a musical that tells the story of a recent college grad named Princeton who moves into a shabby New York apartment all the way out on Avenue Q. There, he meets Kate (the girl next door), Rod (the Republican), Trekkie (the internet sexpert), Lucy (the slut) and other colorful types who help him finally discover his purpose in life!

Concepts- This clip is of one of the songs in the musical that talks about racism. The song is called, “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist,” and attempts to address a serious matter in a very light hearted way. This song actually addresses internal biases that everyone has regarding different ethnicities and cultures. While racism is a very serious threat to diversity, it’s also important to realize that we all make judgments and we all have biases, even though rationally we may realize they don’t apply to everyone. Having awareness of our own biases, and acknowledging where they come from (experiences, second hand knowledge, cultural ignorance) can actually help to avoid letting stereotypes affect decision making and relationship building.

Firefly - Distributive Negotiations

Topic - Distributive Negotiations
TV show - Firefly, "The Train Job"

Scene Summary - Firefly is a space western that depicts the adventures of the crew of Serenity. The crew had been hired by Niska, a criminal, to steal a cargo. However, Captain Mal and the rest of the crew do not realize that they are stealing. When the realize they are stealing medical supplies away from a group that is needed, the crew of Serenity decided to renegade on the deal they had with Niska. In the scene, Mal is telling one of Niska’s lieutenants to take back the advanced money they were paid for taking on the mission.

Concepts - Distributive negotiations are characterized by win-lose mentality where one party gains, while the other loses. A strategy of distributive negations is the use of Hardball tactics, which are on display in this scene. One such hardball tactic is the use of intimation, which is described as an attempt to "force the other party to agree by means of an emotional ploy, usually anger or fear" (Lewicki et al. 57).

In this scene, Captain Mal is presenting his opening offers to the first prisoner. There are several ways to respond to hardball tactics including: ignore them, discuss them, respond in kind or co-op the other party (Lewicki et al. 57). Here, the prisoner responds in kind. He doesn’t back down or accept the offer. He uses the intimation tactic by making threats of his own toward Captain Mal. After Mal realizes he not getting what he wants, he pushes the captive, Crow, into the engine. This is an extreme example of hardball negotiation tactics. The prisoner pays with his life. However, it sets the tone for the next prisoner, who sees how serious Mal is, and how he won’t back down. The Captain will get what he wants or you pay for it with your life.

Then Mal offers up another prisoner the same deal, who immediately says, “Oh, I'm good. Best thing for everyone. I'm right there with you.” The 2nd prisoner realizes there are two choices—accept the terms as Mal has laid out, or end up like the first guy—kicked into an engine.