This Focused Performance Weblog is a "business management blog" containing links and commentary related primarily to organizational effectiveness with a "Theory of Constraints" perspective. TOC is noted for its applications in Project Management and Multi-Project Management (Critical Chain) and Operations Management (Drum-Buffer-Rope), as well as in Marketing, Strategic Planning and Change Management (TOC Thinking Processes). If you are on an archive page, current postings are found here.
I'll leave it to the Forbes article to justify their list. I've seen all but two of them, enjoyed them and I agree with their recommendation, and agree with Ribstein's contention about the too-often demonizing of business by Hollywood.
Regarding one of those I've not seen, I'm probably one of a handful of people alive who has never seen It's a Wonderful Life -- my preference for the era and genre is You Can't Take It With You, and I've also got some more worth considering...
One of my absolute favorites is Efficiency Expert, a nice small picture from Australia about a slash and burn consultant (Anthony Hopkins) finding his soul when faced with the lives of the people he impacts.
From the heyday of British satire of the 50's comes I'm All Right Jack, with Peter Sellers taking shots at industrial relations and HR, and Alec Guiness in The Man in the White Suit...a classic tale of disruptive innovation and the backlash it engenders.
Do you ever click around the channels, and find that when you stumble across certain movies, you stick with them despite knowing them by heart? For me, one of those is about pre-pre-pre-internet information retrieval -- Desk Set, with Tracy and Hepburn is a story of early implementation of "enabling technology." (Then again, stumbling across Hepburn stops me cold in anything except Rooster Cogburn , especially that classic of executive succession in a family business, The Lion in Winter, in which Peter O'Toole ticks off the skills and shortcomings of his sons. OK, OK, I know that's stretching it for a business film example, but hey...too bad.)
On the pure documentary side is 2001's Startup.com, following the ups -- and near inevitable down, down, downs -- of a bubble business boom and bust, complete with scenes from CNBC. For docu-dramedy, one film from HBO is near and dear to my heart, having lived the RJR Nabisco buy-out close up -- Barbarians at the Gate offers a perfect contrast of Jonathan Pryce as super-serious supercilious Henry Kravis matched with James Garner as the larger than life F. Ross Johnson -- the ultimate hail fellow well met, slap-you-on-the-back salesman.
Finishing up with a few comedies, I'll finish the list with that paean to creative accounting, The Producers, and a glimpse into life in the trenches of where we could all be heading as manufacturing disappears and we turn into a pure service economy, Clerks.
Trust me...I'll be back to more serious matters after Christmas. For those of you who are jonesing for serious stuff before then, check out Hal's recent rant on the crimes of small government. (Later...Dave Pollard writes on the same subject.)
In the meantime...Happy Holidays to all.
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