How an ideal organization is structured: an example through the movie 'Ocean's Eleven'.

The master plan: Ocean's Eleven, and the analysis of organizational structure behind it.

The jazzy tone of Elvis Presley's 'A little less conversation', with a plot that would be one of the least possible things that could happen in this real-life world, the movie 'Ocean's Eleven' had enough capacity to absorb me into it's fascinating scenes. The first time I saw this movie was in March 2002, in the movie theater of my home country with subtitles at the bottom of the screen in my own language. Even though it is consisted of fictional stories that would rarely happen, and moreover, a plot with criminal activities that is strongly discouraged, I believe that I can learn some of the senses of how a strongly cohesive team, or an organization, would work as a model. I mean, that is how we learn economy, with simplified models and limited conditions, just like the supply and demand curve at the 100-level econ course, right?

Before I say anything, I have to admit that this form of organization is purely IDEAL; if anyone would want to be in an organization, they would prefer this ideally formed organization. Due to the characteristics of a movie plot, which has the goal to attract people as much as possible, a group this cohesive and successful are rarely seen throughout our lives. That's why I like this movie.

First of all, we have to define what type of task is this group (it is a type of a small organization gathered up for a single goal, but for convenience, I will from now on name it as a 'group'.) undertaking. The organizational structure, according to Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal's text, 'Reframing Organizations', depends on the type of the task that the group is going through. Well, here is the bottom line: they want to rob a casino with state-of-the-art security system. No one has ever succeeded before, and it is highly risk taking. However, they do take the risk since the profit they achieve is proportional to the risk they are taking. So no mistakes are allowed, and they have only once chance to do it right; sounds much like a situation where an army is going into a mission.

We can divide this successful group of Daniel Ocean (starring George Clooney) into 2 phases: 
1. the gathering and the planning, and 2. the process of the plan. While Mr. Ocean and his close friend, Rusty Ryan (starring Brad Pitt) recruits the so-called 'experts' of each field, such as explosives, surveilance, acting, etc., those two plan everything for even the tiniest factor that would actually affect the job. One thing that should be noticed is that these con artists all worked together, and is familiar to each other. This makes everything so much more easier for them in the aspect of transition costs via coordination, which rarely happens in this world. After the recruitment, they become the center of the planning for each step, while consulting to each of the team members for the highest efficiency and the most accurate result. The one boss model from the B&D textbook seems most relevant to this type of group, although it has much more flexibility then the usual one-boss modeled organizations that we see around us. Also, the employees, or the other team members who are not in charge of planning the scheme follows the planned order without question. Of course, they were part of the planning itself, and that should have helped the members to follow the orders much more easily without doubts. 

After the planning and the practice of the plan is done, there seems to be a change in the structure within the group. It is not included in the fundamental team configuration models that are presented in the textbook. However, the book introduces us the concept of 'self-managing'. When the plan starts out, each member is assigned to play a certain role in order to achieve the big picture. While doing so, they manage themselves as much as possible so that they could not make any possible mistakes. Also, they take action to remedy problems, since the con scheme has no precedent, and is highly volatile in process. When unexpected situation happens in one's expertise, the member has enough skill to actually find a re-route for the plan to keep on proceeding. This is possible because of the plot that describes them as fully skilled and highly loyal to individual's goal, and thus the plan itself.




Idealistic team, and the team structure & top performance analysis by Katzenbach and Smith

Well, obviously, they succeeded in robbing the world's most hardest structure to rob: an underground casino vault with state-of-the-art defense system. Going through the analysis by K&S, I saw a lot of categories that match with these coordinated con-artists. The team members accept the offer, shaping the purpose in response to an opportunity. Even though it is highly lucrative, it is the type of offer that laypeople would not be easy to just accept with confidence due to its risks and kickbacks. Also, the common purpose of Daniel Ocean's 'I will take back what is mine' is transferred into specific, measurable performance goals. They are of manageable size, consisted of 11 members, and they are in the right mix of expertise. Actually in this aspect, I think there cannot be more perfect group or organizations for this certain type of job, thanks to the plot. Basically, every analysis fits in to this successful group, making me even wonder that the plot writers took a glimpse of this text book. 

To be honest, I would have never had the chance to even think about this movie in an aspect of viewing the organizational structure of this movie. The group of Daniel Ocean is remarkably efficient according to the textbook, and I guess that is what makes the story so fascinating.