12 Angry men - Lessons learnt

12 Angry Men is a classic movie, which was released in the year 1957. The entire movie is a discussion between 12 members of the jury who are deciding the fate of a boy in a murder case. Following is my analysis of the movie and the lessons that we can learn from the movie.

Firstly Juror number eight was fully aware of his responsibilities. He knew his decision could change the course of a human life and a person who respects the judiciary system would never make a judgement of this magnitude in haste. Though rest of the jury thought that the case was an open and shut case he thought otherwise.  He made them to think, question the witnesses, the motive of the defense lawyer in not arguing fiercely in favour of the boy. He made them dig deep into the issue and not decide the fate of little kid based on superficial evidences. Just like the real world, the jury was also comprised of people of different mentalities and personalities. He knew the art of dealing with people of different personalities. He convinced the confused jurors by logical and reasonable counter arguments while convinced others by making them realise that their prejudices or personal animosities were obscuring the truth from them. To be able to do this amount of convincing one should know the facts, make some research and stand for what they believe in and this is exactly what the juror number eight had done. He had keenly followed the case, knew his facts, had done research on the kid, his background, he went so far as to break the law by buying a switch knife just to uphold the “Blackstone’s Principle”.

He couldn’t have turned around the jury all alone; there were some strong characters in the room that helped his case. Though all of the jury contributed to the course of the decision making in different magnitudes, there were few who were prominent in them. These strong characters according to me were the Juror number nine, the old experienced man, who had the wisdom to know the personality traits, he was the one who came up with the fact that the old man could be lying to seek attention because of his non eventful life. He also came up with the fact that woman in order to hide her age had not been wearing her eye glasses to the court room. He was also the first person to support juror number eight saying “It’s not easy to stand alone against the ridicule of others”. Only a strong experienced man can make such detailed observation and decision. Some of these jurors were supporting the juror number eight and some were opposing. The existence of jurors who were against his views made his argument all the more convincing and glorious. Tao Te Ching, the classic Chinese text when explaining about the symbol of duality Yin Yang says “We can only know beauty because there is ugliness, all can know Good as Good only because there is Evil”. So another strong character was juror number three, though his decision was because of his personal animosity against his son, he stood firm to his decision which made the rest of the jury to reason and come up with logical arguments to convince him. Though personally he might not be a strong individual but in the context of the argument he was a strong character which helped in arriving at a consensus. The last strong character according to me was juror number four, being a broker he was always good with his facts and numbers. He had backed his decision by a rationale, so even to convince him it needed a very strong and a convincing argument. These two jurors helped the rest of them in coming up with a sound argument.

This film is a treat to a management student. Some of the management lessons that I could learn are,

1.      Always back your argument with relevant research and data.

2.      Stand firm for what you believe in but be open to accept your faults if there are any.

3.      Don’t walk into a discussion with any prejudices or preconceived notions.

4.      Don’t let your personal experiences influence your judgement.

5.   The world is full of different personalities and you have to respect and understand the differences and uniqueness in them.

6.      “Walk alone if you want to go fast but if you want to go far go together”, it teaches the strength of a team.

7.      Don’t be afraid if you are alone in your cause as long as you are right, because sooner or later the world will realise the truth.

To conclude, the movie “12 Angry Men” is an absolute treat to a movie enthusiast and a gem to a person who is learning the ways of life.