This paper discusses the film Jerry Maguire. Although the audience is supposed to identify with the Maguire character and would like to believe that they would have joined him in his idealistic stand against business, the fact is that Maguire's actions were not conducted in the proper manner.
Jerry Maguire
Why was Jerry Maguire fired?
The most obvious reason that Jerry Maguire is fired from his company is because he writes a memo wherein he describes his own personal opinions about how the agents should consider and interact with their clients. His memo indicates a personal belief system and a path of ethics which does not coalesce with the intentions of his employers. He advocates being someone on whom players can rely rather than just the shark-like individuals focused on making money. Thus he takes on an ideology that does not fit in with the business plan of the agency and makes him inappropriate for him to continue working in this field, at least with the intentions of this company.
How did his attempt at leadership and creating the new mission statement create conflict with his supervisor?
Attempting to take on a position of leadership in the business threatened not only policy, but the structure and hierarchy of those employed in supervisory positions. From a more business minded perspective, it can be said that the reason Jerry Maguire was fired from his job was that he did not release his proposal through proper channels. Rather than discuss his proposed policy changes with the company and his superiors, he sent it out to the company at large. If Jerry had proposals, especially proposals for change to this degree, then they should have been introduced in the proper way. This was an affront to those in charge of the company and the business structure that they had developed. If action had not been taken against him, it would have set a precedent for other employees who would then feel that they had the right to question the authority and to formulate their own strategies.
3. How was the "focus on people, less on money" priority no compatible with the values of the company and most of the sports representatives who worked there?
A change of focus from money to the people that were represented is an ideal. However, the agency is first and foremost a business. The way that the majority of the company acts is evident in an early scene wherein a young boy questions Jerry about his father's condition after the man has been hospitalized for an injury. The more the man is injured, the more likely it is that he will have a poor quality of life, or even that his life could end. However, he must continue playing the game if he wants to keep his family in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed. Angry at Jerry's lack of empathy, the boy insults him and this creates within him an understanding for the first time of what it is like to be on the other side of these agent-player relationships. No one else in the office has had this experience or if they have had similar encounters, then they were not affected in the same way as Jerry. Without the moment of enlightenment, they will continue to see themselves as businessmen and businesswomen first and human beings second. Therefore, his opinions do not match any of his coworkers or of those in charge.
4. Discuss the following statement: Visions, missions, and strategies must align with the leadership and culture of an organization.
This statement is logical in that the business supervisors and the heads of the company are the ones that dictate how that company should function. It is their job to create a plan from the outset, including a set of bylaws, which will determine how the company is to run. It is very difficult to create a mass change in any industry, particularly one which is so heavily based upon interactions between human beings. The people who work in the business must choose to adhere to the plan of action of that corporation when they begin working there. In this sense, when Maguire makes the decision that his own intentions and his own opinions no longer fit in with those of the company. If he had intentions which were different from the company's mission statement, then he was responsible for either addressing those proposals through proper channels or by finding a company whose ideology does coalesce with his ideas.
5. If you were in Jerry Maguire's position, how would you have attempted to create the changes he desired? How would you have managed the potential conflicts that could result from a new mission in the company?
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