FULL Report OB - Movie Review PDF

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The review of the movie “Expendables 3” was made by relating the scenes in the movie with the concept of organizational behaviour. The report attempts to discuss the issues in the movie that corresponded with the issues under the context of organizational behaviour and suggestions in minimizing the ...

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Table of Contents

A. SYNOPSIS OF THE MOVIE.......................................................................................................2 B. ISSUES OR PROBLEMS REVEALED IN THE MOVIE........................................................3 i.

Issue of stress..............................................................................................................................3

ii. Issue of conflicts.........................................................................................................................4 iii. Issue of lack of leadership quality portrayed by Barney Ross....................................................5 iv. Issue of poor team foundations and team cohesiveness..............................................................6 C. RELATING THE ISSUES WITH THE STUDY OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR. .7 i.

Stress Management in an Organization.......................................................................................7

ii. Conflicts......................................................................................................................................9 iii. Leadership Qualities in Organizational Setting........................................................................10 iv. Foundations of Team Dynamics and Team Composition..........................................................11 D. SUGGESTIONS IN MINIMIZING THE ISSUES IDENTIFIED..........................................12 i.

Increase emotional intelligence to tackle the issue of stress.....................................................12

ii. Solving conflict through problem solving method...................................................................14 iii. Increasing leadership competencies..........................................................................................15 iv. Building a stronger team dynamics and strengthen team cohesiveness....................................16 E. LIST OF REFERENCES............................................................................................................18

A. SYNOPSIS OF THE MOVIE The Expendables 3 tells the story of the Expendables team, lead by Barney Ross and consists of Lee Christmas, Doctor Death and the other three members of the team that come to a frontal battle with a guy named Conrad Stonebanks who was the co-founder of the Expendables team together with Barney Ross before turning his back from the team and becoming a ruthless arms trader. Barney was previously given a mission to kill him, but Stonebanks managed to eluded death and now is in the mission of killing not only Barney Ross, the guy whom wanted to kill him before, but also the other members of the Expendables Team. After Caesar, one of the members of the Expendables team was shot down by Stonebanks, Barney decided to disband the old team and form a new team consisting of younger and stronger members with the sole mission of taking down Stonebanks once and for all.

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B. ISSUES OR PROBLEMS REVEALED IN THE MOVIE There are four main issues or problems that are apparent through out the movie. These four issues are as follow: i.

Issue of stress One of the apparent problems that we can identify in the Expendables 3 movie is the issue of stress. This issue was highlighted mainly by the main character of the movie; Barney Ross played by Sylvester Stallone, through out the movie. In the movie, Barney is a character that was created to lead the Expendables Team, or in other word, he was given the responsibility of being the leader for the team. The issue of stress was highlighted in the movie in the scene after Caeser, one of the members of the old Expendables Team, was shot down by Stonebanks during their operation of taking down a man named Victor Menz. Barney regarded Stonebanks’ decision of aiming the shot at Caeser instead of him, as a sign or threat given by Stonebanks that he will hurt not only Barney but the other members of the Expendables Team too. As the leader of the team, Barney felt like it was his responsibility to ensure the safety of the other members of the team and to make sure that what happened to Caeser will not happen to the other members as well. Because of the stress felt by Barney due to his instinct of wanting to protect the safety of the other members of the team, he then made the biggest decision that became the turning point of the movie which is to disband the present Expendables Team and to recruit new team members that are younger and stronger than the previous members in order for them to hunt Stonebanks down. We can clearly see that the stress felt by him has

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urged him to make a hasty decision of disbanding the old team and forming a new team without discussing about his decision to the former members of the team first. The members then felt like he was betraying them for leaving them behind and forming a new team to replace them. Because of his rush decision of wanting to form a new team in order to arrest Stonebanks, he has put the safety of his new team members at risk since they were not given any training nor briefing beforehand of the mission. This then lead to them being held as hostages by Stonebanks in order to lure Barney into the trap that he has created. ii.

Issue of conflicts Another issue that arise in the movie of The Expendables 3 is conflict. Conflicts ensued through out the movie everytime the members of the old team meet with the members of the new team. Conflict occurred on the first occurrence between these two teams, which was before Barney and the other members of the new team depart for their mission of capturing Stonebanks. The members of the old team that were feeling dejected and betrayed by the action taken by Barney that disbanded the team and recruited new members, started to degrade the abilities of the members of the new teams by calling them amateurs and questionning about the lack of knowledge that they possessed of the mission. The new team then, feeling challenged and degraded by the harsh words said by the former members of the team started to counter the attack by throwing some harsh words too. Here, we can clearly see the conflicts that ensued between the two teams. Next conflict occurred between Barney and Galgo. Galgo faked his resume to get into the Expendables new team but Bonaparte rejects him after hearing that his last team

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let him go, despite Galgo pleading and insisting he has exceptional combat and weapons skills. When Barney plots his rescue mission to save the new team members that were being held as hostages by Stonebanks, he was found by Galgo, who somehow managed to locate him. Galgo then again tried to convince Barney to allow him to join the Expendables team. Because of his non-stop chattering, Barney finally was forced to allow him on board of the team. iii.

Issue of lack of leadership quality portrayed by Barney Ross Barney, as the leader of the Expendables team, always seems to have his own agenda. After breaking Doc out of prison, Barney did not tell him that they were going on a mission. Doc was excited as he thought he was going home. Although being misled, Doc still follow Barney’s order due to the respect he has on Barney. During the mission, Barney realizes that the target of the mission was the co-founder of the Expendables team that was supposed to be dead, known as Stonebanks. After realizing that fact, Barney then abandoned the safety of his teammates and started firing his gun while shouting Stonebanks’ name without even telling his teammates about it beforehand. As a result, they were being attacked heavily by the enemies. After Caesar was hit by bullets, Barney, being autocratic then decided it was dangerous for the team and disband it immediately. When the others tried to talk him out, he ignored their opinion and disband it anyway. After dissolving the old team, Barney recruited a new team to hunt Stonebanks, he gathered new people and making it clear it is a ‘one way ticket’ indicating that they may die during the mission. Barney seems to be not interested in the welfare and survival of the new team. Moreover, even with the new

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team, Barney is being secretive as he does not tell them who Stonebanks really was. He even have secret of having Stonebanks shot by him in the past. When the old team and the new team had a fight during the rescuing mission, Barney shot a few bullets to gain people’s attention. He used force to make people listen to him. iv.

Issue of poor team foundations and team cohesiveness Another issue in this movie is the poor team foundations. There is poor team cohesiveness shown at the beginning of the movie. The current Expendables team are not so comfortable working with Doc who have just being breakout of prison. Due to lack of interaction, they do not know what Doc could do and why he is called ‘Doctor Death’. They do not know that Doc was a medic and a knifeman before Christmas. There is even hostility shown by Doc towards Gunner. Thus making the team being cautious towards Doc. Another example of poor team cohesiveness is when the old team met the new team for the first time. Each team picks a fight by calling each other with awful title such as ‘amatuer assholes’ and ‘Grandpa’. The team size for each mission was practically small. Barney had to break Doc out of prison just to complete the team for a mission. There is also a problem of specialization. Due to having the same knowledge and skills among the old members of the Expendables team, their methods of completing a mission are the same. When they are surrounded in a building armed with C4, they never thought the portable computer Gunner was wearing on his wrist could help jamming the bomb signal. Gunner used it only to check the weather.

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Other than that, team consist of people with different expertise are called heterogenous team. By being heterogenous team, it takes longer time for the old and the new Expendables team to bond and develop. There is also a result in conflict everytime they met. Besides that, social loafing will occur. During the last battle against the Azmanastan Army, Doc pretends to be dead while others keep on fighting. Although it seems like a good strategy, it is not fair as other has to fight more people on behalf of him. C. RELATING

THE

ISSUES

WITH

THE

STUDY

OF

ORGANIZATIONAL

BEHAVIOUR i.

Stress Management in an Organization Seaward (2004) has defined stress as the experience of a perceived threat to one’s mental, physical, or spiritual well-being, resulting from a series of phsychological responses and adaptations. The American Institute of Stress on the other hand refers to the definition coined by Hans Selye in the year 1936 in defining the word stress, which is, “ the non-specific response of the body to any demand for change”. In defining the word work stress, Stranks (2005) has provided a clear definition of it in his books, “a physchological state which can cause individual to behave dysfunctionally at work and result from people’s response to an imbalance between job demands and their abilities to cope with it”. As what we have learnt in the Organizational Behaviour subject, stress can be further classified into two types; eustress and distress. Eustress refers to the type of stress that is a necessary part of life because it activates and motivates people to achieve goals, change their environments, and succeed in life’s challenges. Whereas, distress refers to

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the degree of physiological, psychological and behavioral deviation from healthy funtioning (McShane, 2013). In the movie Expendables 3, the type of stress felt by Barney is eustress. It was the kind of stress that motivates him to achieve his goals and change his environment in order for him to complete his mission of capturing Stonebanks, hence the decision to disband the previous team of the Expendables and recruit new team members that are stronger and younger than the previous one. Even though the kind of stress felt by Barney in the movie is the good kind of stress, but it also forced him to act alone without consulting his team members and make a rushed decision that was regarded as betraying his former team members by disbanding the team without even asking for the members’ opinions first. The way individuals cope with their stress will affect the level of stress that they feel. People who managed to find the most positive way of coping with their stress may experienced a lower level of stress as compared to those people who are coping with it in a negative way (Rossi A., 2009). Some of the positive coping mechanisms may include seeking support from others including friends and family members, asking for opinions from the people in their surroundings and reframing the stressor in a more positive light. While the negative coping mechanisms that may be adopted by certain people in handling their stress include blaming others for the stressor and denying the existence of the stressor (McShane, 2013). In the case of Barney, the mechanism that he chose to cope with the stress faced is by eliminating the stressor by disbanding the former team of the Expendables and forming a new team to hunt down Stonebanks. Since his instinct of wanting to protect the safety of the previous members of the team from being the victims of Stonebanks is the

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stressor that caused him the stress that he felt, he decided to eliminate it by disbanding the team. This may be a positive way of coping with stress as what has been discussed in the previous paragraph, however, his failure to ask the opinions of the people who will be directly affected from the decision that he made may caused other problems such as the issue of loyalty and friendship when he decided to leave his old members behind to start a new team. ii.

Conflicts Conflict is the process in which one party perceives that its interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party. It may occur when one party obstruct or plans to obstruct another’s goal in some way. Conflict is ultimately based on perceptions, it exists whenever one party believes that another might obstruct its efforts, whether or not the other party actually intends to do so (McShane,2013). There are several sources of conflict which are incompatible goals, differentiation, interdependence, scarce resources, ambiguous rules and communication problems. The sources of conflict that related with The Expendables 3 are differentiation and communication problems. Differentiation can be distinguished from goal incompatibility because two people or departments may agree on a common goal but have profound differences in how to achieve that goal. For an example, intergenerational is the obvious conflict in this movie where younger and older teams have different types of values and ways on how to conduct their mission. Same goes in the organisations, sometimes seniors and younger staff may have their own ways in order to carried out their tasks. The different needs, different expectations and different workplace practices produces conflicting preferences and actions.

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Communication problems occur due to the lack of opportunity, ability or motivation to communicate effectively. First, when two parties lack of opportunity to communicate, they tend to rely more on stereotypes to understand the other party in conflict. For an example, when Barney seems to have stereotypes towards Galgo. At first, he doesn’t want recruit him after hearing that his last team let him go. He then learnt that Galgo was not being let go by his previous team but all of his team members had died in a mission leaving him behind alone as the sole survivor. Besides that, conflicts caused by communication also happen when there is not enough communication process that took place in the organization or team. This lack of communication then lead to misunderstanding to occur. In The Expendables, we can see that there are communication problems between Barney Ross and his old teams. When he decided to disband the team, Barney made the decision alone without consulting his fellow team members first making them feel like they were betrayed and replaced. iii.

Leadership Qualities in Organizational Setting The topic that can be related to Organizational Behaviour for the first issue is leadership qualities in organizational setting. In the movie, leadership is the ability to influence, motivate and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness of the organizations of which they are members. In competency perspective of leadership, Barney did not fulfill one of the leadership competencies criteria. A leader is supposed to have integrity. Integrity involves truthfullness and consistency of words and action, qualities that are related to honesty and ethical conduct. For an example, at the beginning of the movie, Christmas called Barney ‘vague’. This is because Barney always have hidden scheme playing in mind. The statement made, shows that one of the members do

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not really trust his leader 100 percent. Unfortunately, most surveys conducted shows that employees do not trust their leaders and do not think that they have integrity (McShane, 2013) According to psychologist Kurt Lewin, there are three major type of leadership styles. Those are autocratic leaders, democratic leaders, and Laissez-faire. Firstly, autocratic leaders make decisions without consulting team members even if their input could be useful. An example of Barney being an autocratic leader is during the dissolvement of the team. The members tried to talk him out but he do not listen to their reasoning. The members felt a huge letdown as they are ready to sacrifice their life for the organization but instead being disbanded. Secondly, democratic leaders make final decisions but include members during decision making process. Barney let the new team to give out their opinion on how to capture Stonebanks using the CCTV and the security locks instead of just killing everyone. Lastly, laissez-faire which leaders gave freedom to employees on how to complete task and how they set deadlines. This can be seen during the last clash between the Expendables team with the Azmanastan Army. Barney gave out a simple order and it is up to the members when and how to demobilize their enemy. iv.

Foundations of Team Dynamics and Team Composition The issue of poor team foundations and lack of team cohesiveness identified earlier in the report is related to the topic of foundation of team dynamics and team composition in the syllabus. Teams can be identified as a group of two or more people. It exists to fulfill a purpose. Teams are usually interdependent where they interact and influence each other.

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When team cohesiveness is strengthen, members would want to remain in the team. They also share better interpersonal relation and have stronger bonding. The type of teams that can be seen through the formation of the new Expendables team is skunkwork. After merging with the new people, the team has a diverse set of skills consisting of knifeman, techno geek, gunman and also both male and female combatant. For an example, Thorn could jammed the bomb signal and prevent it from blowing up. Others do not have computer expertise thus making Thorn the most suitable person for the task. However, it also creates conflict due to the different in styles and opinions. Other than conflict, the time taken for team development is longer. Diverse membership indicates that they generally exhibit high level of conflicts and experience low levels of cohesion; however, they also tend to outperform their homogeneous counterparts (Carte, Chidambaram, 2008). As the team become larger in size, social loafing are likely to occur. Social loafing is when someone exert lesser effort to complete their task compared to others. Lastly, norms which can be seen in the movie. There are positive and nega...