5 things we can learn from Minions

It is summer time and new Minion movie has been out in Indonesia. These little yellowish character indeed has grabbed worldwide attention since its debut inDespicable me. Funny, spontaneous, and stupidly awesome stuffs were the impression that I get from them and aside from those, these are five things that I feel we can learn from THE minions.

 1. Big bad boss is desirable (in some contexts)

This is the catch mentioned in the movie trailer where minions embarked on long-life journey to serve the biggest bastard alive in the world and without their master, they do not have a life purpose thus life becomes boring. Reflecting this from a view point of a bigger and supposedly smarter creature aka human, most of us certainly do not have a life purpose to serve certain individual aka our boss; we may instead choose to serve others and create better value through our creation.

(source: www.freerepublic.com)

Specifically though in the business context, big bad boss certainly have a unique place. For those individuals that hold important role in the company, they can rule others through fear, charm, carrot/stick method, or repression method. Most people may remain as their subordinates while some who cannot stand with that ruling method will choose to get out from the company.

(source: www.costumedetective.com)

As this big bad boss generally is a high performer, the company will see him/her askey asset as business result will be delivered regardless the approach taken to reach it. The employee turnover on the other hand can be a yellow flag for HR team given the leadership method. For employees that stick to that boss, it can be because they still need the job on survival basis and it can also because the boss show them how to get things done in ruthless way which may be suitable in some business context especially where execution needs to be done quickly and precisely. Thus those employees will follow the boss because his/her way of getting result is desirable in that environment.   

2. Clear direction is needed

Once minions are attached to their master they will be typically assigned a mission such as stealing the Queen’s crown as portrayed in the movie. As the mission is important, minions will be briefed rigorously on what they shall do and what they shall not do in order to reach the goal. In the movie, various things happened as reflection of our uncertain world when the minions execute their task and things were not going as planned as variables started to change. I am not going to share the movie details on this aspect but looking at this from our life experience, we indeed experience how direction is important in terms of planning life and work projects.

(source: http://maylennius.deviantart.com)

For example, we will choose a certain direction when planning our study, our job, our life partner, holiday, housing, etc. In work aspect, the direction that the company choose aka the vision shall determine what kind of project to be executed, what kind of people to be hired, and what kind of infrastructure that is needed. If the company has a vision such as to get as much profit as possible, the project selection shall be the one that is most profitable, the employee selection shall be based on efficiency, result, and ruthlessness, and the infrastructure shall be the one that is the most economically viable. These will ensure the mission to be accomplished. As business model has grown to be much more complex, clearer direction is a must or else people will get confused, redundancy will happen on the work execution, and the result can be hard to come by.

3. Natural/divine intervention is beautiful

Imagine a scenario whereby the minions have successfully stolen the Queen’s crown and they carry the crown on their bag to meet their boss in the rendezvous point. The boss heard the info that the mission is accomplished and she cannot hide and control her excitement as she wants the crown badly. She yelled happily then left her basecamp in rush, run through the stairways from fifth floor, and as she approaches the first floor, she slipped upon a banana skin left by the minions before they started the mission, and she hit the metal floor hard thus dead by the collision impact before getting her hand onto the crown. I imagine if she can, she would endlessly curse the minion from hell/heaven where ever she goes later after death.

(source: https://yourstrulystef.wordpress.com)

What can be learned from that scenario (not found in the movie, I promise if you think that is a spoiler) is that for all success/misery that may come right in front of us, all it needs is just one little anomaly to change everything. If you follow soccer, you will be reminded on some famous slip/near miss in recent years. (Steven Gerrard, John Terry, Torres, etc) Thus I learned to appreciate what I called fortunate/unfortunate coincidence. (You can refer it as divine intervention as you like) In my field of work, I can face a situation where the preform stock is depleted as the supply was interrupted, and then the replenishment will take some time while there is a high chance that the production will stop due to out of material. I can feel the stress and anxiety due to it and on the very same day the production is also stopped due to machine breakdown which means I can have just enough time to get the replenishment ready. I will then count myself as a lucky guy that day. As the life is an uncertain entity, I believe if we can see the unforeseen event as a beautiful stuff, we can save ourselves from unnecessary burden, stress, and anxiety. We will then be able to live our life in a cheerful way as the minions do.

4. Do not take things personally

Minions are a very cute and funny creature. If they happened to follow me, I will adore them and spend a huge chunk of my time with them. Then there may come a time where they do not feel that I am not bastardly enough as boss despite my best effort as bad guy and they will leave me to search for new boss. They may also do things spontaneously as days go by and in worst case scenario their action may hurt me physically or mentally.

(source: http://despicableme.wikia.com)

What can we deduced from this? We can deduce that Minions actions are based on what they feel and think to be the best for them. Their activities can have a very little to do with who we are. (Except that they arguably want the best bad boss) Their action can hurt or even kill their boss and that is not because they hate their boss. It is just that they are so unpredictable and carefree thus these sort of random stuffs will come out of the blue with spectacular outcome depending on how we see it.

Thus next time we feel bad because someone’s word, attitude, or actions; beware that it is not because of us. It is because what happened around him/her and the reaction will be coming out to the surrounding. It can be kept in mind that no one owe us a living thus it is not to be taken for granted for each smile, care, and help that we get every single day. We may not get the same thing at any other time or place from the present day.    

(source: http://weheartit.com)

5. Minions Humans rarely settled

As seen from the trailer, minions change their boss frequently and mainly because so many were dead because of them. (T-rex, Dracula, Napoleon, and many others) From human point of view, humans also change their boss frequently and that is certainly not because we kill our boss every now and then (some may want to do it secretly, I imagined). We change boss or jobs because our aspiration, our needs, and our desire/ambition changes over time. We certainly want more autonomy, purpose, and mastery in our professions. (More money and perks are also desirable, mind you) Thus if we feel our current role do not give what we feel we deserve to get, the escape plan will be started and accomplished along the way.

This employee turnover issue is faced by all companies. Some handled it badly, while some will work to improve it. To see this from company view point, the key lies on how much emphasize the company places on developing their employee as key asset and not just as simple cog on the machine to turn the business wheel. Stating thing such as our employees are our important assets is incredibly easy and it is indeed a must have stuff on every company website. To put that in actual practice requires a huge commitment across the organization and it also needs the employee willingness to take their responsibility on knowing where they can grow in the company and how much effort they can put in contributing to the business.

From employee view point, it is fair to assess whether the company meet our expectation. The assessment will then need to find the balance between gratitude and ambition. Only then we can see our situation in a clearer way before taking the next step. If then we still want to take the escape plan; the learning point and key contribution acquired in our current role, will be the one that follow us later.

(source: http://www.independent.ie)