On March 23rd, Governor Tom Wolf, of Pennsylvania, declared a shelter in place. This corresponded with two events:
- Friends who are in the process of moving from Portland, Oregon to Philadelphia began temporarily living with us. And, by temporarily I mean they came to stay without an end date for when they would leave.
- Laurie Ruetimann tweeted about her movie marathon weekend.
Laurie’s post inspired myself, my husband and our house guests to do our own movie marathon. Our goal? Watch every movie that Tom Hanks has been in until either the shelter in place was over or we ran out of Tom Hanks movies, whichever came first. We agreed that we would only watch the movies he was actually in, so no animated films.
I am fairly certain that all of us thought, or at least hoped, we would be done with shelter in place long before we watched all 49 Tom Hanks movies, but here we are. On Friday night, we watched our last one. Yes! That is right. ALL 49 of them. And, here in Philadelphia we are still sheltering in place.
Reflecting on the experience there are definitely some parallels between our Tom Hanks marathon and the work I do as a talent management and leadership strategist.
IT IS GOOD TO HAVE CLEAR GOALS
I have spent the better part of my career preaching why having aligned goals is essential to success. Goals help you know what is important, what success looks like, how to measure progress and what course corrections might be needed. Having a clearly aligned goals helps you identify key milestones and the importance of celebrating success.
About ½ way through the movie marathon when it started to look like we might actually run out of movies before the shelter in place was over, we agreed on what our last movie would be (Sleepless in Seattle) and how we would celebrate (sushi, cocktails, Ben & Jerry’s). Much like the feeling of knowing how our work will be recognized, it was good to know how we would celebrate accomplishing our goal.
Then, our friends sold their house and now there was a hard stop for them moving out of our home. The first thing we did was to count how many movies we had left and how many nights we had to complete our now modified goal — watch all the remaining Tom Hanks movies before our friends moved out.
Having a clear goal, that we were all committed to, allowed us to course correct and determine that to reach our goal meant that there were going to be a few nights with Tom Hanks double features.
YOU CAN HAVE A PROLIFIC CAREER AND STILL MAKE MISTAKES
There is no doubt that Tom Hanks is a brilliant actor who has had an incredible and prolific career, which continues today. He won two consecutive Academy Awards (Philadelphia and Forrest Gump), a Kennedy Center Honor, a Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Cecil B. deMille Lifetime Achievement Award. His films have grossed more than $9 billion worldwide and in addition to his acting credits he has also directed or produced well over 30 movies.
There have been many great films: Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Castaway, Saving Private Ryan, A League of Their Own and Big to name a few. There have also been some real duds: Ladykillers, Dragnet, The Man with One Red Shoe, Joe vs. The Volcano and by Tom Hanks’ own admission, Bonfires of the Vanities.
Mistakes and failures, or in Hanks’ case choosing poorly in some of the movies he has made, is inevitable over a long career. What Hanks’ career proves is that our mistakes and failures do not define us or our careers, it is the collective of our work that defines a successful career. And, when failure happens, you learn from it, move on and make the next great movie.
JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE THE LEADER, DOESN’T MEAN YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO TAKE THE LEAD
Part of being a great leader is understanding the unique talents of those you are working with, knowing how to leverage their strengths and being intentional about when to step in or to let someone on the team take the lead.
Great leaders find the balance of being humble and being audacious. They know that the sum of the parts is better than any person’s individual contribution.
There are so many examples of leaders who have done this and done it really well. Tom Hanks is no exception. He can clearly carry a movie on his own, but he knows that it takes a team around him and while he could let his ego get in the way and not take roles where he isn’t the headliner, he doesn’t. And isn’t that one of the signs of a great leader?
BE AUTHENTIC
“People have said that Tom is Hollywood’s Everyman; that he’s this generation’s Jimmy Stewart or Gary Cooper. But he’s just Tom Hanks. And that’s enough. That’s more than enough.” ~President Barack Obama
The amazing thing about watching 49 nights in a row of Tom Hanks movies is that you start to feel like you know Tom Hanks. In every movie, from his first, I Know When You are Alone to the more iconic ones like You’ve Got Mail or Apollo 13 there is a look, an essence, or maybe it is something in his voice that comes out and you know he is just who he is and that he shows up with his whole self.
In parallel to the Tom Hanks movie marathon I was in reading “Nine Lies About Work” by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall. One of the most impactful passages of the book seems to be a direct reflection of why Tom Hanks shows up as Tom Hanks:
“You are the healthiest when you find this particular kind of raw material, draw it in, allow it to feed you, and use it to contribute something — and when that contribution actually seems to leave you with more energy, not less…. the fullest and purest expression of you in your most elevated state….that embodied our greatest and most unique possibilities — our natural strengths or talents — and that the state we should all seek was one where, because of the happy intersection of our role, our skills, our team and our context, we turned these possibilities into contribution, and thus liberated our good spirit”
The Greeks call this endaimonia andTom Hanks seems to embody this. Watch any Tom Hanks interview and you see the humility, authenticity, and energy of Tom Hanks, and why he is infectious as an actor. He brings his whole self to the work he does.
YOUR NETWORK IS IMPORTANT
During our careers, you start to see themes in the way you do your work, in the types of work you choose to do and in the type of people you work best with. When you watch 49 nights of Tom Hanks movies you start to see the same types of themes emerge. He is great in a rom-com. He transforms himself into the character he is playing but there is still a bit of Tom Hanks in there. He lets others shine. He works with good people who show up time and time again. Steven Spielberg, Gary Sinese, Meg Ryan, Rita Wilson, Julia Roberts and more. These are a few of the directors and actors that Tom Hanks has worked with repeatedly.
As I watched this trend unfold, I was reminded of a former senior business leader who shared that when they had something big and hairy they needed to accomplish, they relied on the same group of people time and again. Why? Well, they were the people this leader knew they could count on to get the job done. It was not always easy, but he trusted them. And they trusted each other to show up and do good work. This is why having a network is important.
Having a broad network of people who know you, know what you can do, know you will show up and do the work, are willing to advocate for you and are willing to share their network with you is critically important to our success. It is why networking should be a big (and in some cases bigger) part of how we spend our energy. It is critically important to our success.
We are still sheltering in place, our house guests are headed to their new home, my husband and I have moved on to a new goal (puzzles) and I am grateful for those 49 movies and the leadership lessons I have been reminded of.
What is your favorite lesson?