The corporate Shamitabh

Learning management and leadership lessons from movies is fun! “Shamitabh” is one such movie in recent times that can teach us a lot. What a wonderful movie it was! It was very analogical to corporate behaviour. I have quoted below some interesting thoughts shared by one of my team members as I found the interpretation very thought-provoking!

While Dhanush makes a high impact mark in Bollywood with his tremendous acting skills, Amitabh yet again proves his genius and redefines the boundaries of excellence! Ilayaraja’s wonderful background music strengthen’s the script. A special mention should be made of Akshara Hassan for her good debut performance. I am sure she would have felt like a fresher making her first corporate presentation in front of her boss!

Balki's excellent efforts of narrating an intelligent and gripping story about the evolution and journey of a successful duo (a muted actor and his dubbing artist) pretty much relates to the happenings in the Corporate World. There is so much to relate to the real life, especially for professionals.

Synergize: When the muted character Danish (Dhanush) becomes a superstar with the help of Amitabh’s (his dubbing artist) voice, it emphasises the importance of collaborative efforts. This pretty much applies to our workplace too. We all have different sets of abilities. Only when we complement our competencies with one another’s, the collaboration drives us towards a synergy and helps us achieve a bigger goal. It does remind us of the popular quote which says, “The total is greater than the sum of its parts”.

Credit Sharing: As the movie progresses, the collaborative effort of Danish and Amitabh makes for successful story in the movie. Interestingly, both start claiming to be the sole reasons for the success, a behavioural pattern akin to the craving for credit in organizations. In fact, they start making arrogant statements to each other ‘Main finish toh tu bhi finish’ (If I am gone, you are also gone).

We see numerous such incidents in our professional circles where professionals crave for fame. We essentially need to ask a couple of questions ourselves, ‘Did we succeed in isolation?’ and ‘Is this the right way to treat our colleagues once we taste success?’ They might have played a very crucial part in your success. Instead of undervaluing them, give them the respect they deserve.

Show Gratitude:Realise that ‘If you are a superstar to the world, it means that there are a bunch of other superstars behind the scenes who made you a superstar”. Always show some gratitude! Remember and acknowledge them! Make your peers feel good. They will reciprocate. We need to think and understand that a single achievement is not the end of our success story. We have a lot of success stories to write and that can only happen with mutual respect and inclusion of all on board.

It Is not all about money!: When Danish gets all the fame and Amitabh gets nothing except a big money cheque (which doesn’t make him happy), it reminds me there is much more to a professional’s journey than just money. In most of the job interviews people end up talking a lot about the word ‘CTC’ and negotiations. Well, that is definitely important.

But there are other equally important things like understanding your responsibilities, your contribution to the organisation and a lot of other factors that bring you professional satisfaction. In the corporate environment, money alone cannot bring you satisfaction, especially in the long run. We all need achievements and visibility, which will make us happy down the line.

Manage your ego for enduring success: Shamitabh deeply reiterates the aspect of handling egos. Success can make us feel greater than everyone and beyond everything. However, sometimes we forget the contributors of our success. Seldom can we succeed in isolation! The “I am everything” attitude may work out positively only when you are running a Kirana store. In the corporate eco system, co-existence and interdependence is a bare necessity. Having pride is good. But how far is ego correct?

There is a lot to learn from the heart-touching climax of Shamitabh. A tragedy hits one of the lead characters and leaves the other in deep grief.

By:Dr Raj