INVICTUS: A SALES MEETING?

by Hank Trisler

Having a problem achieving your sales goals through your splintered team?

Ever experience infighting, back-stabbing or simple bickering among the members of your team?

The competition just whaling the tar out of you while you wallow in a stagnant market?

You need a dose of INVICTUS, the new flick from Clint Eastwood, starring Morgan Freeman (as Nelson Mandela) and Matt Damon (as a guy you never heard of).

Here's the quick and dirty. South Africa is in one hell of a mess, a condition to which I can attest, as I was there shortly before this film occurs. Mandela has just been elected President and isn't really sure what he ought to be doing, as so much needs to be done. The country is bleeding from every pore.

Exemplary of the condition of the country is the national rugby team, the Springboks. They are getting their collective ass kicked by everyone, including the neighborhood dogs. Matt Damon is the captain of this dispirited collection of losers. The governing sports body is so sick of them they have voted to dump the Springbok name and Green and Gold colors.

Mandela sees rugby as a microcosm of his country and feels if he can solve the problems of the team, it will help the country heal.

He applies stirring rhetoric, group song, the creative use of hoopla and equal treatment of everyone, regardless of race, creed, or sexual persuasion. The Springboks win the World Cup, the fiscal stability of South Africa is restored and peace and brotherhood sweep over the land, accompanied by liberal acapella singing.

You find yourself shouting and marching out of the theater.

Here are just a few thought gleaned in an hour and a half:

• There is no substitute for leadership. No news there.

• Hoopla can work magic. The more dispirited the team the more effective the hoopla.
  
  
• Almost everyone will resist change right up to the last possible minute. Only the bull-headed will prevail.
  
  
• If you can generate enough charisma, things will work out pretty well. The trick is generating the charisma.
  

Oh, there was some other stuff, too, but there's the high spots. If you're looking for sales meeting ideas, or sales management suggestions, don't miss this show. It'll beat hell out of most of the seminars you'll attend.