COMM 506 Leadership Lessons from "The Godfather"

     Last month, we celebrated the 40th anniversary of "The Godfather," one of the most influential and best movies ever made. The film still has a grip on pop culture today, and is constantly referenced and quoted in movies, music, television, books, magazines, advertising, and more. Fast Company wrote an interesting article on the leadership lessons that can be found within the film. These five lessons found in "The Godfather" can be found in companies today.

1. Build a powerful community.

Habitat for Humanity, a non-profit organization that builds houses for those in need, is a company that partners itself with organizations that can benefit them, and at the same time, be able to offer assistance when needed. Corporations such as Bank of America, Lowe's, Home Depot, and Whirlpool donate time, money, volunteers, and materials needed to build the houses. In return, the company gets free advertising, and the knowledge that it helps a non-profit organization; this can help recruit new people for that company, or change people's minds about a company.

2. Hold people accountable.

     HP is one of the biggest names in the computer industry today. Last year, they released the HP TouchPad, a tablet computer. It did not sell well at all, and was not a very good product; it was slow, outdated, and bulky. They tried to remedy this by selling it at discounted prices, first $50 off, then $100 off. When they realized that this wasn't working either, they had a fire sale, and started selling them at $99. They sold out most places, just for the sheer idea of a tablet PC for $99. At the same time, HP announced that they were stoppling the manufacturing of the TouchPad, as well as stopping the research and development of their mobile phone line. This is an instance where the company realized they did not have a good product, and rather than drag it out, they decided to cut their losses and accept that this wasn't the market they would make it big in.




3. Don't get emotional.

     Netflix is a company that came into the business world with little fanfare, but is now a giant. They were able to play the game and come out on top; by offering free streaming and cheap DVD rental all by one company, they easily ousted Blockbuster, Hollywood Home Video, and other mail rental services. Netflix has gone through some rough patches as of late, but they are still on top of the rental business, and these days, it's tough to find someone that doesn't either subscribe to Netflix or know five other people that subscribes.




4. Be decisive.

     Facebook has shown to be decisive with its acquisitions. Over the last few years, they have been buying small tech firms and software development agencies, usually scrapping whatever projects they were working on, but keeping the talent in order to better Facebook. Yesterday, they bought the photo-sharing company Instagram for one billion dollars. With this purchase, they will now have skilled photo techs and programmers, as well as a program that thousands of people are already using. Now they can integrate Facebook into it, and vice versa, to sell more advertising and get the people who are not already members to sign up.




5. Spend time with your family.

     As I've blogged about previously, the accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers believes in mandatory vacations. This way, their employees get rest, have time to spend with their families, and come back to work feeling refreshed and bubbling with new ideas. It is important to spend time outside of the business, especially with friends and family, not only to get a break from work, but to have time to think about something else. When this happens, ideas that one may not have thought of applying at the business level may come to rise, or ideas that have been needing that one more little thing to make it complete may be made complete, due to rest, relaxation, and an open mind.