'Jerry Maguire'

Reflection Prompt

"Jerry Maquire" was not just a hit with movie audiences. It also was a hit with many people in the world of business. Check out this sampling of headlines:

Forbes: The Jerry Maguire Business Model: Why I Am Choosing Fewer Clients In 2019

Medium: Eleven Business Lessons From The Movie “Jerry Maguire”

Inc.: 3 Start-up Secrets From Jerry Maguire

You'll see what I mean if you go to Google and do a simple search like this: "jerry maguire" and leadership. Or this: "jerry maguire" and entrepreneurship. Or this: "jerry maguire" and analysis.

When we bring secondary sources into our reflective writing, it makes it stronger and more persuasive. It also gives us material to work with, especially in that initial moment of looking at the blank screen and wondering how to get started. As the saying goes, More people means more ideas. So we can use the things that others have written to spark our thinking about our own.

That being said, a reflection does cry out for your opinions and ideas. We definitely want your point of view, your personal experiences, your anecdotes. 

One theme that emerged from our discussion in class is reflected in the photo above in the famous "show me the money" scene. The sport management/business side of sports has, it seems, eclipsed all the other attributes and virtues of the sports themselves. The high-pressure wheeling and dealing, the eye-popping dollar amounts, the latest announcement of the most lucrative contract ever — all of these headline-generating aspects can crowd out the fundamental reasons why sports exist and why untold millions of people pursue them. That could include pursuing a career playing a sport, but it also could include sport management majors who want to work behind the scenes and sports media majors who want to report on the world of sports.

That tension — show me the money vs. show me your passion — was central to the movie. It also can shed light on a tension inherent in leadership, especially business leadership. A business is not a charity. The profit motive is a central animating feature of any going enterprise. But is that the only reason people work for a sports team? a high-tech start-up? a nonprofit agency? a university?

Leadership is often about balancing and managing expectations. 

Was that self-evident observation at the heart of "Jerry Maguire" as well? What other leadership issues do you think emerged in the course of the movie? What about managing the work/life balance? What about managing work life versus personal life? Did Jerry Maguire do a good job with these things? Why or why not?

Paramaters: Word doc, 500 words, Times New Roman, double-spaced, one-sided, uploaded to Blackboard Discussion thread. Due date: June 24.