Film maker and curator Arvind Sivakumar’s masterclass organised by Goa Management Association provided insights into the management lessons from the movie, Moneyball.
Moneyball is a 2011 U.S. sports film directed by Bennett Miller and written by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. The film is based on Michael Lewis’ 2003 non-fiction book of the same name, an account of the Oakland Athletics baseball team’s 2002 season and their general manager Billy Beane’s attempts to assemble a competitive team.
In the film, Beane (Brad Pitt) and assistant GM Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), faced with the franchise’s limited budget for players, build a team of undervalued talent by taking a sophisticated sabermetric approach to scouting and analyzing players.
Rather than relying on experience and intuition, Brand uses sabermetrics, selecting players based on their on-base percentage (OBP) while ignoring their perceived weaknesses. Brand and Beane use this methodology to hire undervalued players such as unorthodox submarine pitcher Chad Bradford, aging outfielder David Justice, and injured catcher Scott Hatteberg.
Moneyball is a 2011 U.S. sports film directed by Bennett Miller and written by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin
Two months later, the team starts an amazing winning streak achieving a record-breaking 20 consecutive wins. Oakland Athletics eventually clinch the 2002 American League West title. Beane is contacted by the owner of the Boston Red Sox, who realizes that sabermetrics is the future of baseball.
In his presentation titled Moneyball: A Modern Zeitgeist, Sivakumaran who graduated in film production from Victoria Motion Picture School, B.C., Canada in 2002, spoke about how pathbreaking management practices have to fight popular ‘holy cows’ and fight to bring in change, in a change-averse societal framework, who would rather embrace status-quo. The masterclass’ underscore was to fight for change that a leader believes in; and to engage principles of statistics and data, rather than believe in one’s intutions and hunches.
“Listening when you don’t know and not listening when you do know and by that I mean when you have the data to back up what you are saying, when you have facts on your side then sometimes you don’t need to listen,” said Sivakumaran.
“In the context of current day Bollywood, we only look at the impact a big ticket star can bring in terms of generating the required hype. However, regional films like Sairat have demolished this myth that one requires big names to make big returns at the box office. However, its remake in Hindi could not match the economic magic of the Marathi original. We have to move towards more intelligent processes for our films to be relevant and profitable,” added Sivakumaran while taking questions from the audience.
“Arvind brought in a fresh thought and shared with us management lessons and demolished popular perceptions that we hold close to our hearts, while finding excuses to bring in change. With examples from Moneyball, he has awakened a new management professional thought,” said Harshvardhan Bhatkuly, chairman of Goa Management Association.
“This was a masterclass with a difference – entertaining and educating at the same time,” quipped Amin Ladak, vice chairman of Goa Management Association.
The venue sponsors for the GMA MasterClass was Gallery Gitanjali at Fontainhas, Panaji, owned by Jack Ajit Sukhija
Arvind Sivakumaran: Passionate about cinema
Arvind Sivakumaran’s screenplay Middle of Nowhere (co-written with Steven Hanulik) was shortlisted for the Quarter-finals of the Nicholl (Academy of Motion Pictures Science and Arts A.M.P.A.S) Fellowship, Hollywood California. It was one of only 368 scripts that were selected from 7197 submitted entries.
His short film J’aurais Toujous Paris (I’ll Always Have Paris) has been screened at Alliance Francaise Panjim and Mumbai and was in The Viewing Room at IFFI 2016. It also played at the Goa Mental Health Film Festival at the ESG and won ‘Best Film Noir Short’ at Top Shorts 2017, an international online festival. It was also nominated for ‘Best Editing’ at the International Horror Movie Awards 2016.
Sivakumaran is film curator and facilitator for the Sunaparanta Centre for the Arts, Altinho, Goa from 2016
