I love Christmas. I own an absurd amount of Christmas Jumpers, and if you see me in December I’ll probably be wearing one. I also love Christmas movies. I watch them almost unironically. While there is no need to find an excuse to watch a Christmas movie in December – just grab yourself a Hot Chocolate or an Irish Coffee and get watching – if you do feel that you need a fig leaf of justification, did you know that a lot of Christmas movies have business lessons you can take? And some of them are particularly relevant to InsurTech.
Not convinced? Well, I’ve compiled a list of 24 Christmas Movies and the lessons you can take from them. distriBind’s gift of an Advent Calendar of cinematic goodness for you to enjoy, and learn from, this December. Merry Christmas.
You need to watch this right off the bat, 1st of December, the main reason being that some people will tell you it’s not a Christmas movie, and you need to identify these people and cut them out of your life quickly. You can’t have that sort of negativity around you at Christmas.
John McClane is only at Nakatomi Tower because it’s Christmas… he’s visiting his estranged wife to be with his kids for Christmas. It’s a Christmas Movie. Now that’s out of the way, let’s move on to the lesson.
Die Hard is a paean to start-up culture, an object lesson in what an under-resourced yet highly motivated and nimble team can achieve even up against those with bigger budgets. John McClane is a founder.
Before we get on to the business lessons of the story of Buddy the Elf, I have a philosophical question about the world of Christmas Movies like this.
In Elf, Santa is real and he brings the presents. But most older kids and adults don’t believe in him. So, in the universe of Elf and movies like it, who do the parents think is giving presents to their children? Are the kids getting 2 PS5s and sneakily selling one on eBay, or do the parents get blackout drunk and wake up hungover on Christmas day, see the presents and go “oh yeah, I did that”? I often wonder about this.
Elf teaches us about team building and culture. The Elves at the North Pole support Buddy and help him find the tasks he’s good at. When Buddy goes to New York, his positivity impacts those around him too. Find the right people and support them.
The story of Ben Affleck’s spoiled and lonely rich businessman hiring a family to spend Christmas with, this movie is mainly memorable for James Gandolfini sending up his Tony Soprano hardman image, though has a few other funny moments too.
This is a bit of a stretch to draw lessons from (and I’m only at number 5…) but this does tell us about the value of approaching partnerships in the right way, and the balance in client vendor relationships.
Affleck’s character Drew starts off very demanding and transactional, riding roughshod over the “vendor” family and making unreasonable demands. As the movie progresses, the communication becomes more open and equitable. What we see here, is while the “budget holder” may have the power, the provider is also delivering something they need; a relationship based on mutual trust, respect and acknowledgement of the dynamics and needs is key to a successful and lasting partnership.
Maverick Danny DeVito winds up the straight-laced Matthew Broderick by covering his house in an absurd number of Christmas lights in an effort to make it visible from space. Only after several mishaps and both men falling out with their families do they finally come together and make everything alright.
Think of DeVito as InsurTechs – unconventional, disruptive, chasing a seemingly-unrealistic dream; and Broderick as “the Industry”… conservative, hidebound by tradition, unsure about the newcomer and their new ideas... actually it turns out they need each other.
Insurance can be too conservative and restricted by tradition “because that’s how it’s always been done”… but while InsurTech can help them do some things better, InsurTechs need the support of larger corporates to realise their dreams.
I might be the only adult male in the world who has watched Jingle All the Way more than any other Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. It’s objectively terrible: camp, corny and just horribly acted; I love it. This is the one movie on the list I definitely don’t watch unironically. I’ve tried but it’s impossible. The bit at the end when the mum thinks her son is about to fall to his death and he’s saved at the last minute and she takes us through the entire emotional range of mild concern to supreme indifference, is sensational. Arnie is the best actor in this movie. It’s amazing, but true.
The story of a dad who forgets to buy his son the year’s “must have” toy, and tries to find it in busy stores on Christmas Eve, this has a couple of lessons for us.
Firstly, there’s the lesson of appropriate delegation from the real villain of the piece, the Mum. So far as I can tell, she’s a stay at home mum, so what the hell is she doing getting her overworked husband to buy the present, and only checking with him that he’s got it on the 23rd December? Finding the appropriate person to do a task, setting appropriate deadlines and checking in with them in a timely manner is important.
But the key lesson is “know your audience”. Santa doesn’t seem to exist in this movie, certainly not in the “he’s real, and he brings the presents” sense. Yet it’s mindless and cheesy and corny and slapstick, obviously aimed at kids. Who was this made for?
8 year old Kevin McCallister battles the Wet Bandits to protect his home after his horrific family (really, objectively awful people) leave him at home and fly off to Paris.
Home Alone’s lesson is one that experience is not the be-all and end-all and that given an opportunity to flourish people can achieve amazing things. Kevin goes from one of “les incompetents” to a meticulous planner saving his house from being burglarised and flooded by the nefarious Wet Bandits.
At distriBind, some of our team didn’t have a lot of experience when they joined but they are resourceful, hard-working and intelligent and amongst the very best people I’ve ever worked with. Hopefully, they won’t smash me in the face with an iron.
The story of Billie Bob Thornton’s mean-spirited, foul-mouthed, drunken, womanising, thieving Department Store Santa Willie T. Soke and his exploitation of the gullible Thurman Merman, this is a world away from a lot of the family-friendly movies elsewhere on the list.
But, for all the NSFW content, there is a business lesson here, honest. (Well… there is if you’re prepared to go with me… come on, it’s Christmas!)
Remember, this is still a Christmas movie, so of course there’s a happy ending / redemption arc of sorts. One that has an object lesson for startups.
It is, of course, the art of the pivot and taking opportunities when you see them open up. In his eventual determination to deliver Thurman his pink stuffed elephant, Soke is the founder who sees the opportunity to keep pushing forward when things might otherwise seem lost.
In his drinking, swearing and womanising though, he’s not like any founder I know…
Chevy Chase is never not funny, and while the story of the Griswald Family’s disastrous Christmas isn’t one of his classics, it still has some decent laughs.
This movie has probably the most overt business-focused message of any, since the main narrative revolves around Clark Griswald’s plan for his Christmas bonus, and the calamity of not getting it.
The movie teaches business leaders to beware the impact of their decisions on the members of their team.
In this animated Christmas tale, there isn’t one Santa but a long line of them. It’s the current Santa’s last year as the main man, before his son “Steve Claus” officially takes over next year. But this is a very disengaged Santa, the son really pulls the strings and has been focused on modernising, bringing a ruthless tech-driven efficiency to the North Pole’s operations. The reindeer have been pensioned off in favour of a turbo-powered sleigh, and the Elves deliver the presents with Mission Impossible style spy gear.
When a glitch happens anyway, and one girl gets left without her present, Steve is nevertheless delighted at a smooth Christmas Eve and convinces Santa that reaching an over 99% delivery rate is an amazingly successful operation.
This leaves his younger brother Arthur and his grandfather the old Santa, to get out the old Reindeer-driven sleigh and deliver the present.
A kid-friendly movie that nevertheless teaches the business world a valuable lesson – tech and modernisation needs to be delivered with the goal of improving customer experience, not as an end in itself.
Another of my all-time favourite Christmas movies. Tech company ZenoTech is making cutbacks and one of the branches earmarked for closure is the original home branch of the company’s late founder.
With company CEO (and daughter of the founder) Jennifer Aniston closing the branch seemingly to spite her party-animal brother T J Miller, unless they can land a big deal that day, things look bleak. Unless that is, Miller ignores the corporate instructions not to hold Christmas parties, overrules HRs insistence on a “non-denominational mixer”, and throws an insane Christmas party that the prospect is invited to. Seems reasonable.
The lesson here is about fostering morale through togetherness and a common goal, even in tough times. I’m told this doesn’t always have to involve alcohol, but I’m not sure I want to risk it.
My parents bought me Gremlins on VHS when I was about 7. I don’t know what they were thinking, but I guess money was tight and it was probably in the bargain bin of Woolworths. I don’t remember being particularly scared by it, though watching it now I assume I must’ve been.
The story of a teenager who receives a mysterious creature for Christmas, only to discover it multiplies when it gets wet and turns into a violent, murderous psychopath if it eats after midnight, with a narrative pause for a story about a dad dressing as Santa, falling in a chimney and dying and not being discovered for days after, Gremlins is a heartwarming Christmas tale for kids of all ages (endorsement © Mr & Mrs Connors, 1987).
Gremlins has a crucial lesson for Product Owners… don’t ship a product with a fatal flaw that is incredibly easy for users to accidentally replicate. QA is important.
It’s Christmas Eve, so what else are you going to do other than watch a movie about Christmas Eve?
Ethan’s parents died one Christmas Eve, so his 2 friends vow to always spend Christmas Eve with him and party. During the years that follow, they hear about the mythical “Nutcracker Ball”, but can never get tickets.
Fast forward some more years, and the death of Ethan’s parents means he cannot commit to relationships because plot reasons, but his other friends have moved on and are ready to end the tradition. Meeting for a final Christmas Eve, they finally get tickets to the Nutcracker ball.
There’s a major lesson in this movie of the importance of being open-minded, and able to embrace new opportunities when they present themselves.
Merry Christmas from all of us here at distriBind.