Last month my family and I attended a showing of the Pixar movie Monsters University. Watching cartoons as an adult can be very educational, not to mention fun. I am a BIG believer in teams; sport teams, corporate teams, event teams, family teams…all teams. I also love an underdog. But, the gem in this movie for me was watching the underlying morale. Mike Wazowski the main character, a gigantic eyeball is a monster who leads a team of other misfit monsters to discover their God given talents and use them to help the team succeed. Why is business any different? I don’t think it is, although I do think many companies fail to do what Mike Wazowski did so well; he paid attention, observing, listening, encouraging, goal setting and cheerleading. Mike is a leader.
Throughout the movie the characters become more comfortable accepting who they really are and what their true gifts are, and how they can use them to better the team’s position in the Scare Games, and ultimately it does a good job of showing how they start to ‘feel’ about themselves. When you use your natural gifts, the other good stuff tends to follow. Interesting to note Mike is the last to uncover his own gift(s). The other message for me in this movie was about how sometimes we set a goal and we don’t succeed and that finding out we aren’t who we think we are is painful but it doesn’t’ t have to mean that our goals are any less achievable. Maybe it’s just different? Maybe it takes a little longer? Maybe it’s better.
I would encourage you to watch it. And more so I would encourage you to live it.