Ari Blumenfeld
King David High School Linksfield
Business Studies
The Internship:
Released: May 29, 2013
Directed by: Shawn Levy
Lead Actors: Vince Vaughn & Owen Wilson
Plot overview:
Billy and Nick are looking for jobs after losing their positions as watch salesmen due to their employer going out of business. Billy then applies for an internship at the famous Google for both himself and Nick. They are both accepted due to their ordinary interview answers, although they do not possess any relevant experience. They will compete in their teams against other interns, in several different tasks and only the team who wins are given jobs at Google. Billy and Nick form a team with other random interns. Lyle is the leader of their team. Graham who is an intern for another team always bullies Billy and Nick's team and says nasty things to them. Mr Chetty who is the head of the Google internship programme, explains his feeling of doubt about Billy and Nicks skills and abilities.
Despite that they don't have any knowledge or intelligence in their team, during a game against their competitor – Graham’s team, Billy brings his team together and as a result his team makes a comeback that boosts their confidence again and this bettered their ability to work as a team even though they end up losing. When there is the task of creating an app, Billy and Nick convince their team to have a night out. Before sunrise that same night, the team is looking over the Golden Gate Bridge and the one member of their team Stuart then finally learns to appreciate his surroundings. Lyle inspires the team to develop an app which will prevent bad messages that are sent while drunk. Ultimately their team win the task by receiving the most downloads.
Nick starts to go to technical presentations to impress Dana and actually is interested in the topic. While the teams prepare for their next task which is to help the technical support hotline, one of the Google employees speaks to Billy and tells that the way he interacts with people is special. He helps Billy study the technical information. During the task, Billy feels confident with the material, but his team unfortunately do not receive any score for the task because Billy didn’t properly log his calls for review. Then Billy leaves Google and decides to go after a new sales opportunity with his old boss. The final task of the internship is announced and the task is a sales challenge. The teams have to sign the biggest company to start advertising with Google.
The team are in shock when Nick informs the team that Billy has left, and they do not want to perform the task without him. Nick persuades Billy to come back and Billy leads the team to show the owner of a local pizza restaurant how Google is able to help to connect him with potential customers. The team arrive to the final assembly as the winners are about to be announced, but the official rules let them present their results. Chetty acknowledges that even though the pizzeria is not a large business, its potential is now limitless. Nick and Billy’s team win the internship and get jobs at Google. They will start after their senior years in college.
Management & Leadership:
To manage means to handle a situation, person or event. Management includes the activities of planning, Organising, leadership and controlling. Therefore leadership is part of management. There is a clear difference between management and leadership. A manager has the power because of the position he has where as a leader has power because of his perceived or real expertise.
It is imperative that the manager of the business is also a leader in the organisation. With regards to management, it is difficult and each person brings their own personality, experience and skills to the job. A leader on the other hand is someone that shares his vision and inspires others to carry it. The type of company and the level of formality of the business are also factors that play. Google is an American multinational technology company and therefore is a strongly formal company. There are many different management styles that form the ground for the way each person will manage and lead. Each member of Billy and Nicks team come from a different background which contributed to the diversity of their team. Billy and Nick are both unique individuals, they both are much older than the rest of their team and do not have the skills and abilities that the rest of them posses, however they bring their own skills such as their marketing skills in the last challenge, no other team was able to succeed in marketing a franchise unlike Billy and Nicks.
There are several leadership styles such as:
1) Autocratic: This is the only person who makes decisions. This approach is strongly associated with the second wave approach. In the last scene of the movie where Billy and nicks team present their results from the task, Mr Chetty appears as a very powerful autocratic leader. Chetty is strict and always sticks to the rules; He states what is allowed and what is forbidden in the programme. However he decides to break the rules and give the victory to Nicks and Billy's team. Despite the fact that their team did not go according to the rules and did not get enough points to be in the lead, Chetty admires the success of their pizza franchise and it is his decision to put them in the lead. He is the manager of the internship programme and he decides to let them win and to break the rules of the programme.
2) Democratic participative: A more participative leadership style lets the workers get involved in the Decision process and ultimately will improve the buy in from eveyone the decision. In the scene when Nick and Billy go for their interview no one wants to let them join. The Google employees along with the manager Mr Chetty discuss how they feel, however everyone agrees that they should not join until Lyle decides that they should because Google is a business that is all about diversity and uniqueness and therefore he is able to persuade Chetty as he is the final decision maker. Because of Lyle, Chetty decided to give them a shot.
Laissez Faire:
This word means no interference. Managers inform workers what must be achieved but do not get involved in telling workers how these objectives should be achieved.
Management Tasks:
1) Planning: The manager asks questions like: how, where and who will execute the tasks as he or she is the one that will do the planning for it. To do planning, all appropriate information should be gathered, alternatives should then be considered and the best possible option should be chosen as the Plan of Action. It is also important to have a Plan B available in case the original plan fails. A plan should be adaptable, realistic and cost-effective and should be communicated clearly so that everybody understands what is expected of them.
2) Organisation:
Organisation ensures all possible resources are available to execute the plan.
The manager must inform the employees of the goals and the importance of the plan.
As part of the organisation, the manager will have to hand out specific tasks to the employees who are still subject to him to complete.
Creative thinking and problem solving:
To be creative means to think out the box in attempt to come up with new, innovative ideas that have never been used before. However with creativity in a business comes disagreements and conflict which may pose several problems for the team.
There are several techniques that can be used to solve these problems:
Problem solving in the business:
1) Problem solving techniques:
One of the simplest techniques when the problem includes many solutions is a pros and cons chart. This technique allows you to look at the arguments both for and against each solution and base your decision on the one that has the highest number of Pros or the least number of Cons.
2) SWOT Analysis:
This technique is used to identify the strengths, weaknesses, internal factors which the businesses has control over as well as opportunities and threats the external factors which the business has no control over. Their team is broken up into the younger and the older generations. The strength of Nick and Billy is that they have experience in the business world unlike the rest of their team however the rest of them have knowledge about technology unlike Nick and Billy. The opportunity for their team is the internship with the aim of gaining a job at Google in the end. The threat for Billy and Nicks team is their strong competitor Graham who has immense knowledge.
Value Chain Analysis:
This technique is mainly to analyse the costs of component parts of a product with the ultimate aim of reducing those costs, thereby increasing the value of the product.
Pestle analysis:
The pestle approach ;political, economic, social, technology, legal and environmental, depending on the business involved, physical and ethical factors might also be included and examines the challenges influencing the macro environment that the business has no control over. Technological uses are evident in Billy and Nick’s team. These two team members are from a slightly older generation when compared to the rest of their team and therefore lack the knowledge that their team mates have. This lack of knowledge about the use for technology influences their team as a whole when they perform the call line task and unfortunately although Billy studied extremely hard because he lacks some of the knowledge people from the younger generation have today. He does not submit his results properly and therefore his whole team get 0 for the task.
Delphi:
This technique is a problem solving technique whereby participants do not need to be physically present in the same room. With the premium on time in our modern business world, and the fact that corporations are spread across the world, it is a useful way to harness brainpower from across the globe. A single expert is used to make forecasts based on their superior knowledge about a topic. It could be done anonymously, interviews or by using questionnaires.
Rims:
In many businesses, different opinions on ethical and moral stances create ethical dilemmas when conducting problem solving. The difference between what is perceived to be right or wrong becomes clear and this makes decision making difficult.
Conflict management:
Whenever there is a clash of interest or potential for disagreement relating to facts or assumptions there may be conflict. If the conflict is not managed and resolved it could cause harm to the business Conflict is not always bad and could even spark creativity which lets people develop and grow and may even lead to change and improve the productivity in the enterprise. Whether conflict is good or bad is determined by how the emotions surrounding the conflict are handled
Functional conflict:
This is a non aggressive form of conflict which boosts creativity and let's ideas flow.
Reasons for conflict:
• Change:
Proper change management will help to increase the chances of surviving undertakings happening in the new economy. The new economy can be defined as a situation where revolutionary changes are experienced in terms of innovation in technology, globalisation and knowledge management. The management of these changes might be the difference between those businesses that will succeed and those that will perish. There is almost always resistance to change which therefore often leads to conflict.
• Inclusivity and cultural diversity:
We have to accommodate all of these different cultures in the workplace. Unfortunately, these cultural differences might lead to conflict situations often because of ignorance. There is also the danger of stereotyping that we have to acknowledge that certain cultures in a country have very distinct cultures and might need a thorough understanding.
• Personalities and emotions:
Everyone in the team is unique. They all come from different backgrounds and have different personalities which ultimately play a role in the conflict that arises in their team. Different personality types react with different emotions to situations. Billy and Nicks team is divided into the older and younger generation and due to this major difference in age problems arise. There are two types of personalities. Type A and type B. Type A are usually workaholics. Lyle and has this personality type whereas Type B personalities are usually easy going with no real time urgency. Billy and Nick has this personality type as well as Stuart who is very laid back and just goes with the flow and follows everybody else in the team.
• Lack of or poor commutation:
If employees are not informed about decisions or are not sure of what to expect next they start to rely on rumours which are not always reliable. Conflict is a result of uncertainty.
Uncertainty regarding expectations like poor listening skills. People sometimes listen but they don't hear and this therefore results in misunderstandings.
Communication barriers like an organizational structure that is too hierarchical can also contribute to conflict. A poorly defined organizational structure might lead to jurisdictional ambiguities such as who may discipline a worker. Any other barrier to effective communication will also portably lead to conflict between role players in the business.
• Personalities and emotions:
Every person in the workplace are unique and different and this is evident in the movie. Sometimes different personality types thrown together in close proximity in the workplace may contribute to conflict. This occurs in the movie as there personalities and differences clash and leads to disagreements however because of the huge amount of diversity brought to this team it also boosts their creativity and allows them to come up with the innovative ideas that they come up with together as a team.
Values and Ethics:
Values and ethics are personal sets of beliefs that guide actions or describe a preferred way to handle a situation. Values and ethics are also closely linked to culture and religion and differ between people.
Perceptions are much more important than reality. People often believe what they perceive to be true even if it is not true and this may lead to conflict that is not necessary.
Reasons for conflict:
Inner conflict:
Conflict is not only external. Most of the time our perception is much more important and influential than the reality.
Jealousy:
Graham who is Billy and Nicks largest competitor always puts their team down and makes them feel powerless. Part of this could be because he feels jealous of their teams and therefore he experiences inner conflict.
Conclusion:
The movie 'The Internship' contains all aspects of our grade 12 Curriculum that include conflict management, problem solving techniques and also management and leadership.
This movie shows us that no matter what team you are part of you always encounter conflict within your team weather it will be functional or dysfunctional. This conflict may lead to many problems arising in your team and can prevent your team from attaining their goals.
It is also evident that even though you may encounter problems, there are techniques that can be used to resolve these problems such as the; Swot analysis, Rims technique, the Delphi technique, Value chain Analysis and also the Pestle analysis can all be used to resolve the problems your team encounters.
In every team there is a manager/leader that controls the team and takes charge. In the movie Lyle takes this role and all the responsibility is placed on him because he is the leader of his team and it is his responsibility to ensure everything is running according to plan and that every member is working their hardest to achieve their goals and to complete their tasks on time.