Management lessons from the “Master”

There are a lot of Tamil movies of top stars that I do not even watch, but am glad for choosing to watch ‘Master’ today.

There are a few inconsistencies and logical blips in the movie, but that is to be expected in any commercial Tamil movie.

What I liked more and want to share here are what I saw as management lessons for everyone to learn.

Spoiler alert — If you have not watched the movie yet and would like to in near future, please do not read any further.

My top 5 lessons to learn from the movie are …

#1: Be indispensable for your team

Note my choice of words — not “in your team”, but “for your team”. Be in such a way that you earn their trust and good-will. Then your team will fight for you even against hostile management.

This is not easy to achieve in many job positions but if you truly care for your team, it will be reciprocated in different ways.

#2: Intensity of purpose can make wonders. Lack of purpose can slacken the best of us.

The hero, though the better among the two, wastes his days in slosh simply because he does not have a clear purpose in life.

Both the hero and the villain, once they discover what they see as their purpose, gain so much power and energy from within to relentlessly go at it.

This strength of purpose is something that I feel is lacking among Indian youth and will be good for them to learn.

#3: Do not abuse your power, even if you can

The hero gets a chance to beat the crap out of a few students indulged in malpractices at the juvenile care center.

But he does not take the stick and instead tries to put sense into them first, making them see the perspective they have been lacking in life which is leading them to commit crimes.

#4: Find your enemy’s strongest points and weaken it

The villain’s strength is his right-hand punch. The hero realizes it after receiving one and neutralizes it cleverly. Once that is taken care of, the villain is finished off in no time.

The corollary to this is to never invest all your strength & energy in just one skill. If that skill goes off or becomes redundant, you will be left completely vulnerable.

#5: You can always find a win-win situation, even in a competition

Synergizing and finding a win-win possibility is a concept many management students might be familiar with. But applying it in real life is not easy, especially when we are competing with someone.

There are 4 other minor lessons as well …

#6: Do your study and know your stakeholders well

This is something that I am also still learning after so many years of management experience. In this movie, both the hero and the villain go through tough times but realize that understanding the playing ground is the key and learn about the stakeholders very well.

#7: Play within the rulebook, but it is OK to bend the rules at times to punish the wrong-doers

Sometimes you cannot stop the injustice happening in front of your eyes, but you can try & cut off the routes leading to it.

#8: Do not give excuses for why you did something wrong. But credit where it is due to the cause for something that you did right.

#9: Do not antagonize your team even if you move away from them. You never know when you will need their support again.

#10: There is no point wasting all your energy on someone troubling you because there will always be somebody like that.

This is a piece of surprisingly good advice coming from the villain to one of his henchmen.

As I said earlier, there are definitely logical flaws and inconsistencies in the movie, but I chose to ignore them, looking at the better messages to pick from the Master movie. It is definitely watchable if you can pick the good, weeding out the rest.