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Remember the Titans; A Film & HR Lessons Crossover
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Early on in the film, speaking in front of his entire team, which includes both the white and black players along with the coaching staff, Denzel Washington’s character, Coach Boone, sets a standard immediately during the player’s orientation by explaining his vision of the program. In setting a standard of perfection by implementing rules and clarifying their consequences, coach is making sure all basic concepts are understood. Examples of this are shown by explaining to the team they must be “perfect in every aspect of the game.” He then provides the players scenarios that they must understand; for example, he tells them “if you miss a blocking assignment or drop a pass” the player will must run a mile as the consequence. By telling his team early on, that this is his expectation of his them, he ensuring that all of his players “understand the results” of not executing perfectly. Throughout this entire scene, Denzel Washington opts to not mention the diversity in the room because from his perspective the important thing at hand is the team’s performance; unrelated, is the color of the player’s skin, whether it be black, white or purple is unimportant, especially if along the way the impact of diversity results in a better football team that is obviously a positive from his perspective.
The team leaves the comforts of their home to conduct training camp at Gettysburg College. This decision is an example of Coach Boone picking a good setting that he felt offers the best chance for success. He has a great deal of experience and knows young high school students operate better when there is separation from distractions like chores and responsibilities at home, pressures from fans and neighbors and the presence of buddies and girlfriends. In getting the young men out of their comfort zone, Coach Boone understands the results of his players will be superior in quality because he of removing everyday entertainments in favor of a supportive environment for learning.
Following the arrival of the T.C. Williams football team at Gettysburg College, coach slowly gains the support of traineesthrough integrating the black and white players through transfer training. Examples of this are the use of developing job aidsin the form of playbooks, practice equipment and team calisthenics drills, all of which meant the team will be improving overall. Further, through practicing in this manner, T.C. Williams is preparing for football games later, an example of rehearsal of job performance. Also, in receiving feedback from teammates and the coaching staff, these players, without even knowing it are getting reviews of an employee’s performance.
The other key aspect of Coach Boone’s approach is both the importance he places on ethics and the creative ways he institutes them. This is shown in the scene when Gerry Bertier approached coach about the need for Ray to be removed from the team because of him intentionally not blocking for another player on the basis of his race and due to the danger and health hazard it could have caused. By allowing his team’s Captain in Gerry to remove Ray from the team, Coach Boone is enhancing the leadership qualities of his players while still holding true to the importance of integrity that he preaches to them throughout the film.
When I first saw this assignment, I felt it a bit strange, particularly for a Strategic Human Resource Management class. However, after looking at the material covered within the text, reviewing the material, doing the reading and watching the movie it became clear not only was this a great film but it most certainly covers important HR concepts like team performance, cohesion and communication.
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14 days ago
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I agree with Jake that the somewhat strange title of the discussion topic was a great icebreaker. The use of a sports-team is an excellent use of HR concepts, challenges, and opportunities. One can easily see that running a team in the context of an organization, an industry, and so forth are all directly related to running a company and its people. After all, HR is managing resources, which, in this case, as the players. Managing the personal issues they faced, the internal and external stakeholders, and focusing on a shared vision and goals was all inspirational.
I see the coach in the movie acting like the HR-head, bringing together the players (resources), working with the parents (managers), and community (external environment and stakeholders). Overall, this with both a great throwback movie, and, likewise, a good example of HR in action.
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1 day ago
RE: Remember the Titans; A Film & HR Lessons Crossover
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I love how this movie shows us that it doesn't matter the color of your skin, what matters is what you can "bring to the table", what qualities can you contribute to the team. We all have something that we can contribute, and we all have different backgrounds and experiences that make us who we are. I also liked how Julius says towards the end of the movie, that as individuals they had faults, but that as a team they were perfect. We can always learn from other people's mistakes and that is something that we apply at my job. We understand that we are not perfect and that sometimes we are going to make mistakes. The important thing is not to repeat those mistakes and talk to our teammates and ask about their experiences so we can avoid mistakes that they have done.
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7 hours ago
RE: Remember the Titans; A Film & HR Lessons Crossover
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I want to emphasize one part of your post that I found interesting: the training camp is Gettysburg College. While I think part of the motivation was ridding the team of everyday distractions, the bigger motivator in this decision was taking everyone out of their comfort zones. By forcing the team into an unfamiliar environment, they are forced to overcome challenges by working together as a unit. They cannot lapse back into established routines or processes. This is Coach Boone’s way of quickly re-establishing the learning process for the team. Another point that I wanted to emphasize is Gerry removing Ray from the team. I found it interesting because Boone empowered Gerry to do that and in doing so, gave the team some self-management. The effects of this are similar to the corporate world. Teams are more likely to know about individual performance, strengths, and weaknesses. Utilizing this knowledge and giving teams the ability to act on it through self-management is also a trait of high performance work systems.
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