12 Angry Men Movie Analysis

Course: HRMG6200 Organization in New Economy Assignment: Twelve Angry Men Movie The movie Twelve Angry Men is about the twelve jurors that could adjust their influence in a decision-making process for conviction an eighteen years-old boy, whether the boy guilty or not guilty in murdering of his father. It represents a perfect example for applicable of a work group development framework. It also has examples of influence techniques among a group’s members.

This paper is looking at those specific examples in the movie and focusing in analysis the reasons why Juror 8 is so much more effective than others in the meeting.

According to Bruce Tuckman, healthy work groups need to go through four stages of development: Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. Forming define as members get acquainted and organized to select a leader, a given example for the forming stage in this movie is the twelve men were up for the first vote, engaged in social oriented behavior to become acquainted with one another.

The lead juror introduced to everyone “why are we here. ” Storming are power struggles and sub-grouping, given example here is one juror voted “not guilty” while other eleven jurors voted “guilty”. It formed a perfect conflict that led group members device by two sub-group, vote guilty group and vote not guilty group, seat back for digging deep into the provided evidences to make sure if they are worthy of declaring the boy guilty of the charge.

Norming define as group chooses rules to coordinate interaction and facilitate goals, given example here is when the twelve men rejected the prejudice of a tired voting, six “guilty” versus six “not guilty.

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” Another good example for Norming is when “We nine need to understand why you three still think he is guilty. ” Performing define as the group structure enables working together smoothly toward one goal. It is when they all agreed on only one common right answer “the boy is not guilty”.

The twelve jurors were going through the four main stages of developing a healthy work group in the meeting even it seems complicated and needed high-intensity efforts from certain members. According the five Methods for Influencing Other Group Members – use of reason, assertiveness, coalition building, higher values, and bargaining – when Juror Eight said: “we are talking about somebody life here, we can’t just decide within five minutes, suppose we are wrong”, he used the youth human-being life’s mportant and the danger of a false decision as good reasons to force other jurors in analyzing the facts carefully. He then talks about the boy’s backgrounds for appealing to logic and rational thinking of other jurors. Juror Three was overt prejudice, hostility, and used “assertiveness” to influence the other ten jurors of jury provided an antagonist for juror Eight. Juror eight used “coalition building” method to seek alignment with other group members. He never says that he believes the defendant is innocent but his mantra throughout the movie was “it’s possible! referring to the reasonable doubt, which he convinced others’ thought. Juror Eight continued to appeal other eleven juror’s higher values by repeatedly reinforcing their moral and judicial obligation to convict only if there was no reasonable doubt. He challenged each juror to look at the facts more thoughtfully. “Bargaining” is offering an instrument exchange. Juror 8 used this method when he said: “I want to call for another vote… If there are 11 votes for guilty, I won’t stand alone… But if anyone votes not guilty, we stay here and talk it out. Twelve Angry Men incorporates the five methods for influencing group members. According to a leader’s framework for decision-making process in a study research at Harvard Business School in 2007, the framework includes discovering context’s characteristics, fact-based management, doing the leader’s job, discovering danger signals, and responding to those danger signals. The scenario of the decision-making process in this movie is a complicated context, where cause-and-effect relationships are discoverable but not immediately apparent to everyone.

There were possibilities of false testimony. Juror 8 was so much more effective than other because he was aware of the responsibilities of a juror and how important his decision on the eighteen years-old boy’s life is. The decision could send the boy to the electric chair for finishing his life. At the beginning, he was not sure that the boy was guilty but he was sure that the evidences provided are not strong and sufficient enough to proof the boy guilty of charge.

He discovered the danger of a possibility that the provided proofs are not influential and need verified before any decision, the danger of other jurors could overconfident in their own solution or in the efficacy of past solutions. He tried to draw other jurors into analysis the evidence technically and making sure if they are worthy of declaring the boy guilty of the charge. He knows the unknown factors, analyze facts, and set goal for his decision. He arranged a similar knife and brought brainstorming with the evidences.

He used experiments to force other members to think outside the familiar. He focused to his objective and responsibility. He projected himself unbiased and he was not working in self-interest. He used logical reasoning, leadership skills, and effective communications for influence others’ decision successfully. In conclusion, beside of learning the applicable of a leader’s framework for decision-making process and methods for influencing other group members, the movie Twelve Angry Men also showed its audiences factors that help in forming a productive work group.

A productive work group should have necessary factors such as: A diversity group members from difference backgrounds and religions; A perfect conflict like voting “guilty” versus voting “not guilty” to helps in drawing member’s attention into group’s duties; An environment where group members are open and honest as the painter helped in protecting the old man’s speech, where members can question the process and the content as the watchmaker asked the baseball fan to give the right reason why he changed his vote but not just changed it because he tired and wanted to change for speeding up the process of this decision-making, where members recognize the role that bias plays in decision-making and void biased decisions, where members agree and disagree in the right way without forces as members changed their votes when they see any sense of false testimonies, where members realize that it is possible for one person is right and all others are wrong as the old man helped juror 8 by changing his vote to keep the group meeting going, and that group members always can learn from each other. Refference: 1/ Robbins & Judge, Essential of Organizational Behavior, 10th 2/ Reginald Rose & Sidney Lumet, Twelve Angry Men movie, 1957 3/ Snowden & Boone, a Leader’s Framework for Decision Making, Harvard Business Review, Nov 2007