Management Tips and Orson Welles

Generally, I don’t peddle in management tips. But, in the biography of the film director, Sir Carol Reed, I came across a rather good business management tip from the making of the film the Third Man. It is to do with recognising and accepting the superior expertise of others.

We all like to think we are better than everyone else. And, often, we like to be in charge and to take control. It’s the ‘I know best’ syndrome. It’s probably familiar to you?

Often, a far better approach is to find people who are better than you and let them get on with it.  It’s part delegation, part knowing your own limits.

Film directing is one of the last few remaining dictatorial professions. On a film set, you do exactly what the the director asks.  (I worked in the film industry for c. 12 years so I know a bit about this. My father was a director and Carol Reed married his first wife, hence why I read the biography.)

The Third Man was produced in 1948 from an original screenplay written by Graham Greene and, at the time, Carol was at the peak of his film directing career. Together, Greene and Reed were a formidable pair.

It is strange, then, that one of the best remembered speeches in cinema was not created by them. It was written by Orson Welles who played Harry Lime.

As Lime bids farewell to Martins, he says, ‘In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed; they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.’

This line was never written by Graham Greene. Welles added it during the filming. And Carol, when he heard it, had no wish to cut it. He immediately knew it added something extra.

As the director, he could easily have insisted that Welles stick to the original script.  He would probably have got into a bloody battle; but that is not the point. He chose to accept that it was a better line than what was in the script.  That is the management tip.

Film history shows this was a good decision.

Management Tips from film directing

If a leading film director and writer can let go of their ego and accept something better, then anyone can. Carol never had anything to do with business in his entire life but he did understand people and how to get the best out of them.

Just because you are in charge of a project or campaign, it doesn’t mean you can’t listen to and embrace the ideas of others. And, if they are better than yours, jump on them and use them.

It also demonstrates your leadership and allows your management to operate as a TEAM – Together Everyone Achieves Miracles.

It’s a truly great line and, as far as I am aware, letting Orson have his way never damaged the career of either Carol or Greene.