If You Need to Watch a Movie That Helps Your Professional Development, Make It This One

Gerardo Herrero Morales
Instructor of International Negotiation | Entrepreneur | Director of Training and Strategic Consulting

August 24, 2017

We can reflect on our lives, on how the world evolves, and broaden our perspectives when we see superb performances in historical contexts. Additionally, the movie has aspects that allow us to review several competencies that we should have for our professional development.

The movie that, in my opinion, can be most beneficial is Schindler's List.

This Oscar-winning film for Best Picture of 1993, Best Director for Steven Spielberg, with a total of 7 Oscars, is an immortal work of art based on real events. I will not review the plot of the movie here; I recommend that you watch it if you haven't done so and then return to this post. Instead, I will describe the competencies shown in different scenes.

1. Personal Image. Oskar Schindler, the central character, is the director of the enamel utensil factory for the German army during World War II. He always maintained an impeccable appearance in his clothing, accessory combinations, haircut, posture, body language, down to the smallest detail.
2. The main function of a general director. Public relations. The job of a general director is networking, attending all kinds of events with important people, from business breakfasts to inaugurations, building relationships, making deals that no one else would have thought of before.
3. Doing business without money. People believe that having your own capital is essential to do business. That is desirable; how good it would be to have it. However, many entrepreneurs have always done business without a penny in their pocket, through public relations, connecting producers and buyers.
4. Delegation. Schindler excellently delegates all operations to his right-hand man, in this case his accountant. His factory runs like clockwork. When he asks for precise information, he always has it in the palm of his hand, immediately. He then has time to expand his circle of influence.
5. People skills. He always gets involved with his people, stays close to them, inspires them, encourages them. He has the manners of a gentle, caressing approach. He gives them their place, receives them in his office. He never allows his position to go to his head. In a world at war where Jews were treated as objects or slaves, Schindler treats them as human beings as equals, ensuring that his people do not lack anything necessary to survive.
6. Persuasion. Schindler has win-win arguments, he doesn't use them indiscriminately, but few and good ones, always with the correct timing, the exact moment. When someone presents an objection, he takes a pause to answer exactly, and retakes his point without pressing too much, giving his counterpart the right to reply.
7. Risk-taker. In real life, which the film shows fleetingly, Schindler was imprisoned several times for defending Jews at the risk of losing his life. What is shown is when he rescues hundreds of women from the Auschwitz concentration camp itself, going to hell itself and bringing all his staff back safe and sound.
8. Enjoying life. Even in war, Schindler knows how to laugh, have good times (sometimes with many excesses, it's true), be in good humor, cope with difficult situations.
9. Negotiator. Schindler knows how to negotiate, even with rivals, with fanatical people, until obtaining the goals he set for himself, with immense leadership.
10. Understanding that our goal is bigger than ourselves. Schindler transcends materialism. In a first phase, he was looking for money, but there comes a time when he realizes that it is not going to make us happy by itself. That's when he has the revelation of using money as a tool and not as an end, in this case for a much greater human cause. He uses money and money doesn't use him. He gives away everything to help until his last penny.
11. Not seeking recognition. He never asked or demanded that people publicly recognize him. Many years passed before the state of Israel, through thousands of testimonies, went to look for him to help him – he was in misery – and also gave him recognition as "Righteous Among the Nations."

These are some of the reflections of a man who transcended his time, a human being with his virtues and defects who used the resources he had at his disposal, and maximized them for a noble purpose. And it is by these parameters that we will all be evaluated when we are no longer in this plane.