Leadership Hacks From The Movie : Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan is one of those movies that we can watch a couple times and still feel like the first time. I would tread lightly on discussing the gore of war, but it is more than just a war movie. The depth of emotions that came with each scene is just a few of the ingredients that made it amongst the greats.

I still remember the first time watching it. There were no online streaming sites, Netflix was not around and the internet was primarily for business or education, so we did what any movie fan would do in the early part of 2000’s–rent a VHS. If you are unfamiliar of what that is, well…, you missed a good chunk of your life so Google it now. I just remembered we still have the old player in my family home, it would be good to advise them to keep it, that piece of technology could become antique.

Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 American epic war film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Rodat. Set during the Invasion of Normandy in World War II, the film is known for its graphic portrayal of war, especially its depiction of the Omaha Beach assault during the Normandy landings. The film follows United States Army Rangers Captain John H. Miller (Tom Hanks) and his squad (Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Adam Goldberg, and Jeremy Davies) as they search for a paratrooper, Private first class James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon), the last surviving brother of four, the three other brothers having been killed in action. (Wikipedia)

The internet has volumes to say about the film. From behind-the-scenes stories, to trivia, to how Spielberg played with paradoxes. This article, however, will focus on some simpler perspectives, which is finding coroporate lessons that we can take away from the movie.

War educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in critical moments that man measures man

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Lesson 1 : Teams Need A Common Goal

In any organization, from the ground to the highest echelon of corporate structure, teams are seldom built by the leaders that will be at the helm. Frequently, leaders inherit teams. To have a part in building an entirely new team, collecting a preferred selection of talents, is a priviledge, not a lot of young leaders in today’s coporate context get the chance to (so if you have, count yourself lucky)

In the context that we will employing scenes from a war movie and relating it to coporate leadership, perhaps, it is safe to assume that just like in the military, especially in that of World War II; where units must be made and gathered to work seamless almost overnight, it is not unfair for organizations to ask their leaders to jive, mesh and integrate into their inherited or newly-built teams in the shortest time possible.

After all, the business world, would not have read Sun Tzu, if we cannot relate how they feel and think everyday to war (no pun intended).

The current challenge is, which is most likely a serious strain also since back then, is that teams need time to trust each other–which is fundemantal to any cooperation, collaboration and teamwork. Every team, is made up of diverse individuals with varying backgrounds, beliefs, experiences, personalities and preference. To expect them to simply be united in a matter of weeks or months, is a steep order indeed. Weirdly, how much time is needed, is yet to be fiured out–we just know, deep inside, that it needs time. Somewhere between a month, ideally, but no more than an eternity.

Team performance, unlike what most would think, is not simply a question of leadership. The success of any team goes far beyond education, experience and competency–of the individual members and the leader.

When a group of individuals are clustered together, may it be in a confined space or the proverbial boat, differences will arise. This is what we exactly see in the move as the unit received the order of going ahead to the frontlines, away from the from the action, to recover a Private named James Ryan. Yes, even a seasoned team that had been in many death-defying missions still disagree, argue and fight internally.

A compelling scene of how team dynamics really work and how leadership plays a crucial role in guiding talented individuals, is when the unit encounters a machine gun nest defended by an isolated crew of German soldiers.

Order, though, in his manner of communicating, proposing that the unit takes the machine gun nest down, Captain Miller was met with varied opinions and objections. The more prevalent ones being that, that it is needeless to take it down, that incoming forces can deal with them with the minority vote on taking it down so it will not be able to ambush others.

^{Unit discusses, then argues need to take down machine gun nest.}

Imagine that! Battle-hardened soldiers, who earlier, had just been so frustrated to not see action, was now avoiding, what they considered to be needless conflict. We can only imagine, how peculiary frustrating it must have been for the Captain, but this is where leadership in the process of building teams come to life.

Seeing the hestitation and hearing the obviously selfish recommendations; Captain Miller demonstrates a lesson in what is right and leadership by initiating all preparations and even spearheading the attack.

In moments of hesitation, where teams break down as individuals, it is the leaders who cement trust, confidence and purpose. The best line ever said on the scene perhaps was the captain telling the boys, the objective has not changed, the objective is to win the war. A fine lesson in redireting teams towards something that will unite diversity in moments of discord–a relatable and sensibile goal.

Lesson 2 : The Burden Of Leadership Is Heavy

Someone said something about leaders being the ones to climb the tree to update everyone that we are in the wrong forest or something to that effect. For whatever its worth and the actual line is, whether it was Jack Welsch or John Maxwell who said it, it speaks true of the heavy burden of leadership.

Take for example the scene in the movie after the taking of the bunker. Neutralizing a dig fortified with machine guns and heavy artillery did not come easy nor without casualty. Their doctor died, in one of the most emotional scenes of the movies. It is easy to assume that after dealing death and seeing so much, people can just get used to it, but perhaps not. After seeing the soldier through his last moments, the Captain hides to shed tears of sorrow, regret and perhaps guilt. One can only imagine the feeling of losing someone in your command.

Just when you feel sorry for the Captain in the scene and you want to give him respite, he goes back to his unit and finds them arguing about what to do with the captured German soldiers. Do they kill them to ensure that they no longer participate in the war? Or should they let them go following the rules of the Geneva convention, and being that the nature of their mission cannot accomodate holding on to captives? Alot of viewers take this to be a discussion of morality, yet to this humble spectator, what struck me was how the Captain got everyone to harken togehter again as a team.

While everyone was almost pointing guns at each other due to the argument, the Captain takes on a bet that everyone had been having about what he did before joining the war. He asks how much the bet is on and shares that he used to be a teacher and how his decision is not entirely hinged now on what is right or wrong based on the articles of war, but on how he feels that every life he/they take, perhaps needelessly, makes him feel farther and farther away from home. It drove a point to everyone and what was just a heated argument a few seconds earlier, turned cold and everyone just had a reverberating resonance to the lines.

That is the burden of leadership; to cry and be unmoved; to suffer and stay calm, to be confused and yet confident, to be hope, when at times there seem to be none, and to be the epithet of what is right, ideal and good–because teams do not just look for success, much more than many care to admit, teams look for mearning in what they do.

Lesson 3 : Be Like Captain Miller

The movies starts with an elderly man kneeling at the resting place of who we are then introduced as Captain Miller. Miller and Ryan, did not know each other for long, they only spent weeks together in the most unlikely of situations. Yet, the effect Captain Miller had to Ryan was so profound that even after many years, up until his age of white hair, he still held the Captain in such high regard, enough that he would ask him if he had earned it (the last word’s the Captain uttered to him before dying, were, earn it)

Taken into such context, maybe, just maybe, the hallmark of leadership is to leave an indelible positive mark on the lives of others.

A tall and idealistic notion, which is absolutely easier said than done, but not impossible.

Just how did Captain Miller leave an mark on Private Ryan, though?

This article would like to claim that it was the Captain’s selflessness; his willingness to put the need of others before his, and his readiness to sacrifice so others can advance; be safe and progress–that made him unforgettable to the young Private.

Leaders of today juggle an extremely difficult role.

They are to ensure team efficiency in functioning for enteprise success and at the same time, accomodate the individual nuances and circumstances of each member. To leaders, young and old, who have people in their charge and care, these two must come first and second; to the expense of their own needs coming third (that is, if they are single, imagine where it lands if they have spouses, kids and other family members to care for).

It is absolutely exhausting, just imagining it, yet to a true leader, this is the source of fulfilment. True enough, Captain Miller dies in the movie, but knowing that he had ensured that safety of Private Ryan, he passed away, with the look of someone fulfilled. He had mentioned earlier, that every person he kills makes him feel farther away from home, this time, he helped someone get home and for whatever its worth; amidst everything–he felt closer to home.

_{Capt. Miller encourages Pvt. Ryan to live, tasking him to, “Earn It”.}

If you are one of those leaders, who are selfless in helping their teams continually contribute to enterprise success while genuinely supporting the personal career advancement of those in you care–you deserve all the love and recognition!

Yes, the road must have been hard and will only get tougher. But your selfless attitude and fine behavior, amidst any and all circumstance, in every interaction with your team as whole and individually; will and is making ripples that improve human society, in its own little, but no less powerful way.

That time helped a new colleague finish his work, because he had just started at the expense of you staying longer in the office; that instance when you covered for a single mother who could not make it work to tend to her child even if you had to come in earlier to work on your items; that time when you genuinely thanked someone for their hard work; and most importantly that time when you made everyone feel that they are all valued, cared for and appreciated even if you had not been made to feel so yourself–is perhaps, how leaders can be like Captain Miller and leave an indelible positive effect on the lives of others.

Corporate Hacks From The Series : The Mandalorian

Star Wars undeniably, will eternally hold a special part in our hearts, minds and souls as a species (okay, I may have taken this a step romantic here, but forgive me, it just feels good to say it). If you are a fan, needless to explain, if you are yet to watch a movie or any of the series related to it, you are strongly encouraged to do so.

As a kid, what took my imagination the most is the conflict between Jedi and Sith. Later on, it was the mythos of the Force. Eventually, as age caught up with me, the interest shifted to the characters–their lives, history, struggles and personal take in the great divide between universal freedom or monocratic despotic rule.

This blog, however, is not about any of that. This is about the latest addition the great epic tale, that had been faciltated by Disney since its purchase of the franchise. This time, as interesting as it is to talk about the old accepted cannonical story line, we will digress to glean lessons, corporate lessons, to be exact, from the series, The Mandalorian.

The Mandalorian is an American space Western television series created by Jon Favreau for the streaming service Disney+. It is the first live-action series in the Star Wars franchise, beginning five years after the events of Return of the Jedi (1983). It stars Pedro Pascal as the title character, a lone bounty hunter who goes on the run after being hired to retrieve “The Child“. The Mandalorian premiered with the launch of Disney+ on November 12, 2019. The eight-episode first season was met with positive reviews, was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series at the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards, and won seven Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards. A second season premiered on October 30, 2020, and a third season is in pre-production. (Wikipedia)

I have managed to find three corporate lessons from the series, that hopefully, will be helpful in a fun way.

Lesson 1 : Teamwork Needs A Just Cause

Bounty hunting is not a job that invites teamwork. It is dangerous business, and the level of risk goes ultrahazardous the more people are involved. While we can surmise, that Mandalorians, are not necessarily raised to be bounty hunters, their preference for solitude is evident,too. In the series, we see them operate alone, even when there are still a handful left of them after the destruction of Mandalore.

In Chapter 7, of Season 1, titled The Reckoning, however, we see that individuals, equally distrusting of each other, with differing agenda, experience, background and ethnicity/race can organically come together as a team.

This episode showed us how a rebel-fighter-turned-mercenary, Cara Dune and a former Imperialist, Kuiil living in solitude to enjoy his freedom and repay his faults from his association with the Galactic empire, enemies at best, work together in helping Mando and Grogu ( (the little Yoda-looking Padawan). This is revolutionary. Teams of today do not have to come from the same background as Cara and Kuiil, we do not have to be and will never be from opposing sides of an intergalactic war, but we face the same challenges of teamwork, trust, effectiveness, efficiency and fulfilment.

We have a skewed understanding of teamwork. The corporate world had misunderstood collaboration, cooperation and coordination as teamwork, whereas, these are all its component, teamwork is something more. Teamwork, is about people working for each other and together. It is about understanding our individual goals, perspective for success, difference and competencies acceptingly, compensating, adjusting in a safe environment of trust, mutual success and shared responsibility should the enterprise fail.

Leaders of today, must learn how Mando gathered his team–they must have something greater than financial goals, a task or an objective, they must have harken everyone to a just cause, an ideal, a sense of a terminal goal that will inspire, motivate and drive individuals to the pinnacle of human attainment–self-actualization.

In the case of Cara, Kuiil and Mando the just cause was not complicated. They gathered amidst their differences with the knowledge of certain doom, to protect Grogu and ensure his safety. Simple, yet potent enought to allow them to bridge wide divides of differences and for Quiil to give up his life.

Today, we do not have to protect anyone in our corporate settings, but we all have someone or something dear to us. Our families, dreams, aspirations and the search for meaning are seldom spoken, but are the actual motivating factors of our actions. These and many more that are actually unrelated to perks, salary and financial stability–should be the just cause, if the coporate setting is to create a team such as the motley crew of Cara, Quill and Mando.

Lesson 2 : People Can Suprise Us, If We Let Them

In the same Chapter, we see Mando vehemently protesting the company of the IG-11, that Kuiil had reprogrammed. Other than it was the same machine Mando downed to save Grogu, he has a particular prejudice over machines. Several times, he had doubted IG-11, only taking Kuiil’s word, that it has now changed.

More than we care to admit, we have similar predespositions with the people we work for. Not necessarily, that we had either a bad experience with them in the past, but perhaps, our collective experience had just trained us to take things with a grain of salt and people with mistrust.

It will do us well to remember, that after Kuiil died and the Cara, Mando and Karga where in no position to save Grogu, it was IG-11 who secured its safety. The most distrusted, turns out to be the most reliable. Ultimately, in a scene that was quite emotional, IG-11, made the ultimate sacrifice for Grogu and the team. In their attempt to escape the myriad of Empire troops and with no hope of fighting them successful, IG-11 did something, that only creatures with a heart and soul will do. He sacrificed his life, by detonating his self-destruct protocol, only after he had waded through thick lava and ensuring that Grogu, Mando, Cara and Greef were safe.

In coporate settings of today, where deadlines are always urgent, tasks oversimplified amidst its complications and challenges require upskill almost without preparation–it is too easy to judge the competency of a colleague, a teammate, based on how they adapt to the tides. A failure, miss or oversight, can easily be calculated as incompetence and lead to doubts. Leaders and teammates of today’s corporate world, can learn from the experience of Mando, who was disproven, in the most heartbreaking of ways by IG-11, by doing what he believed it can never do–change.

While IG-11 was repogrammed from a total package of destruction to a nurturing and protective robot, we too, have to believe that our colleagues, while not necessarily, reprogrammable by codes, can turn around by how collectively we make them feel safe, integrated, valued and a part of a greater purpose in the success of the team.

Lesson 3 : Leadership Is Influenced By The Culture Of Organizations

Today, Leadership comes together with the role and the title. Not, that this is wrong, a manager must have the leadership skills, if one is to help an enterprise succeed. A leader, likewise, will need to employ managerial techniques, for one to be effective and efficient. In the perfect balance of this is where the success of the team is hinged. Presumably, with the volumes of books written by experts, gurus and industry titans there should nothing more to be added on the recipe.

The Empire is not that different from any organizations. It has the infastructure, chain of command and employee network that make is operate exactly from how companies of today operate. Though, the financial capabilities of the Empire is not something we are privy to in the series of the movies, we can safely say that to employ such vast network or talent, manpower and technology will induce cost.

On the topic of leadership and using the Empire structure as an example, we are introduced to Moff Gideon, who also happens to be the main antagonist of the story. A ruthlessly effective, efficient and calculating task master, whose determination, drive and aim was solely to secure Grogu, for whatever reason it is that he has for the Padawan. All of those in corporate leadership roles would scream foul just thinking about what Moff had and is willing to do to complete his objective, as we all certainly would. It is not far, however, for any of the leaders of today to be like Moff, and perhaps, we all, at some point had operated like he did, outside the realm of our conscious–merely justified by some leadership or business dogma.

See, Moff, as portrayed in the series, was obviously a bad person. He was an Emperial officer and for all we know, the empire seeks to dominate the universe under the rule of Sith, which are a bunch of dark, despotic and cruel force-weilders. This is, however, a one-sided take on things, to dare say.

If it were, in the Star Wars universe, a truly general fact that the Sith and the Empire is awful, how could they have troops, line managers and supporters? Some of them even, willing to fight and give up their lives in battle for the Empire. The Mandalorian was set at a time after the fall of the Empire, it is like, when an organization went bankrupt, but people still choose to work for it scenario. Surely, the opinion around the Empire being the epitome of evil, was subject to debate and perspective in that universe. So, along the same argument, we can say, that Moff, was operating and leading his team, not in the mainstream idea of leadership, as so we see it, but around the culture of the organization he was employed or aligned to.

And so, we can condemn Moff for his evil deeds and claim, we shall never be like him, but truth be said, we had been Moff’s at some point, hopefully not too often. That employee who requested a leave for some family event that we talked out, becuase we need them, that vacation leave where we still called colleagues because we needed something, that wedding we never even gave the employee time to enjoy or that sick day, where the employee had to check a roster of possible ailments as an excuse, because they cannot tell us, they are just stressed and needed some sanity break because they obviously believe and think we will not allow it. These are, but a few of our Moff moments. How rewarded and fulfilled we must have felt, when we had to convince folks to be like us, operate in the same manner and think like us in these times, when we obviously truly do not understand their personal struggles and perhaps we do, only at a perspective of our own and aligned to the need of the enterpise. Yes, we had been Moff’s at some point.

Organizations of today have a choice. To mould immensely successfuly Moff Gideon’s based on the culture of the Galactic Empire ran by the Sith, or to have a heart and allow people to be people like the Bounty Hunter’s Guild of Greef Karga. Leaders have a responsibility to their people. Something, Moff Gideon, while definitely a leader in his own right, may have initially reluctantly chosen to overlook this responsibility, until eventually, slowly, yet surely, he had mastered the art of disregarding it for the high of the next mission, promotion of completion of task, objective and goal.

21st century leadership will continue, hopefully not, down the path of the Empire, lest leaders of today, consciously choose to veer away from operating under the same playbook for success and leadership as Moff Gideon. Leaders of today, are primarily leaders of the people in their care, before employees of the corporations, not the other way around. Until , this becomes the new playbook, we should all stop watching Star Wars in support of the Jedi and tattoo the Galactic Empire’s logo on our bodies.

May The Force Be With You!