While I am an avid reader of books, magazines and periodicals, I also enjoy watching movies as a vehicle for learning. Not every movie made for Hollywood was created for teenagers; there are plenty of movies that have lessons for working adults. Once you start to look at a movie as a learning tool, you might not ever see it as pure entertainment again!

“Wall Street” is one of my all time favorites. It tells the tale of a young man who loses his moral compass in his quest to be more than his education, background and skills allow. Charlie Sheen stars as the young hot shot who demonstrates his tenacity and street smarts to ruthless tycoon Michael Douglas. Douglas buys and sells companies without remorse focusing only on the profits because that is the only game he knows or wants to play. “Greed is good” symbolizes not just the time that the movie was filmed and still applies today, unfortunately, to many disgraced so-called leaders of business.

“Glengarry Glen Ross” is the ultimate sales training movie. Once you see this movie you will forever remember what the contest prizes are for the salesmen in an under performing real estate office. When Alec Baldwin departs the office at the beginning of the movie, you will always know what “ABC” stands for in the sales process. This is a movie rich with talented performances by Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris and Alan Arkin.

Back in the dark ages when movies were filmed in black and white, “Twelve O’ Clock High” conveyed the story of a young general with a mission to turn around a struggling bomber group in the dark days of WWII. While the movie takes place in wartime, it isn’t a war movie, it is the saga of how an organization that has gotten off track can get refocused but can lose its way if improperly led. Gregory Peck stars as the general assigned to turn things around, only to get caught up in his own success. He ultimately fails, and this is not a typical Hollywood ending.

I’ve long admired George C. Scott’s performance in “Patton”. You can watch this movie from the perspective of history, or you can see the performance of someone who believes and practices the basics of leadership. As an example, his staff wakes the general to advise that the enemy is going to attack; he had fallen asleep doing competitive research, reading a book authored by his opponent. While Patton comes across as human and makes mistakes like everyone else, his leadership moved more men across more miles with fewer casualties than any other general in that war.

“Titanic” is a case study in poor management and non existent organizational leadership. Instead of watching the romantic side of the main characters develop, keep an eye on the ship’s captain and his conversations (almost filmed in passing) with reporters, the ship’s builder and the owner. You can watch the movie and learn how not to run an operation in just a couple of hours. Once the ship runs into the iceberg the lack of front line management and their failure to deal with a crisis can serve as a reminder to anyone in business to prepare for the unexpected. Because it just might happen!

There are many other movies to review, but allow me to suggest that there are lessons that can be translated to business by watching: “Remember the Titans” (leadership under adverse conditions), “Cast Away” (overcoming obstacles to achieve a goal), “Apollo 13” (failure is not an option), “Hoosiers” (teambuilding), “12 Angry Men” (consensus and decision making) and “Jerry Maguire” (creating a mission statement and seeing it come to fruition).

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