From a Movie Set in New Zealand: Top 5 Lessons Learned for Leaders

I'm here in New Zealand on a movie set with my sister.  She's orchestrating over 300 super talented people, coordinating massive logistics, managing a huge budget, all in an exceptional location in sometimes high-risk, perilous and extreme terrain.

Being on this set reminds me of the coordination, risk, and mobilization CEO's and leadership teams are doing back home. The efforts on a movie set are very similar to running companies as leaders and teams work to operationalize their missions, empower team productivity, and manage resources to achieve goals.

Witnessing the scale here in New Zealand and the scale our clients face in the US, there are so many universal learnings and lessons. More importantly, I'm noticing keys to success that my sister is implementing on set that I do in companies that can make or break success.

On set in New Zealand

Here's what I'm learning:

1) Investing in Human Relationships Pays off. Period.

Actual CARE for people goes a LONG way. I'm seeing my sister's willingness to discover and deliver what each functional area leader (and their teams) needs in terms of support, attention, and care pays off in the quality of work, commitment level to serve the project, and the endurance to dig deep in the home stretch toward the finish line. She secured connections that are instrumental during decision making, crisis management, and navigating hurdles.

2) Building a Culture of Care is Essential to Successful Implementation

The fabric and foundation of care or the under pinning of your culture is felt by your teams and employees. Top leaders set the tone for the energy that is present on set or inside a company experience: whether online, on location, or in office. The tone leaders bring in mindsets, attitudes, energy, and behavior signal whether there is safety collaboration, and support, or fear, blame, or scarcity.

3) Leadership Hierarchy is Still Important

On a movie set, like a company, there's a clear hierarchy outlined by titles people hold and the roles people play. Hierarchy is also understood by the levels of responsibility or power associated with each title and role. What I'm witnessing here and also noticing in companies is we need hierarchy. We need leaders who are able to make decisions, communicate priorities, provide context in change, hold the vision, and reaffirm the target or goal.

I had a  really interesting conversation with the Head of Safety on set about leadership hierarchy and we both agreed: hierarchy it's essential to success. The important distinction is HOW top leaders express their power, influence, and title.

You can choose power-over leadership styles, punitive, blaming and shaming tactics or you can lead with compassion, care for others, empathy and empowerment. Whatever approach, it creates and affects culture. It determines how people perform, deliver their excellence, and contribute to creating lasting impressions of the work we do together.  And in the end, don't we all want great experiences and lasting good memories?

4) Communication must be Open Source

The flow of communication must be shared and not be kept at the top levels of any operation. Everyone knowing the latest news, on the stop decisions in response to changing conditions, new plans or approaches must be circulated to the right folks and in a timely and effective manner. We have all the tech tools to do this today. There's no excuse for keeping people out of flow of information. When this happens, people feel not valued, important and withdraw their care for what's important to the operation. Leaders, take a look at process flow of communication. How does into get out, how quickly and on what channels that can be accessed quickly. If people are not getting the information they need to do their jobs, remedy this quickly!

5) GRATITUDE is the FUEL to Productivity

Appreciating others is like a lightning bolt of life force that 10X's everyone. Everyone wants to be seen, heard, and valued and when leaders of influence express appreciation or gratitude for jobs well done, it's huge! It can carry a person through a tough finish to a project, or provide the fuel to go the extra mile.  Regularly posting and sharing team wins, recognizing achievements, and hard work being done lets teams and employees know they are valued. This doesn't take money or time, but awareness and attention; and delivers ROI in spades.

What works on a New Zealand movie set works in the boardroom, too: care, culture, communication, and gratitude all play critical roles in creating an engaged, high-performing team. At Cofinity, we partner with leaders like you to integrate these powerful principles into your organization, unlocking new levels of productivity and alignment.

Schedule a call with us today to explore how we can help you bring these leadership lessons to life and drive meaningful results for your business.