Rotman Management – April 2019

92 / Rotman Management Spring 20 19

it teaches us a lot about how groups interact with each other

— and to face the fact that many groups are dysfunctional.

I’ve also used it with boards, including one that I chaired.

The film provides wonderful examples of ‘small p’ poli-

tics in groups — from coalition building to framing ideas to

showing respect for others, even when you disagree with

them. The main character, played by Henry Fonda, is an

architect, which is a beautiful metaphor because he becomes

the architect of that team. He builds it from a group of 12

individuals who seemingly have very little in common into

a cohesive group that comes together to do the right thing.

Talk a bit about the Fonda character’s approach to deal-

ing with opposition from the other jurors.

Throughout the film, Fonda is extremely thoughtful and

calm. He is not a charismatic leader in any way. Instead,

he takes his time to size up the different decision makers

in the group, one by one. Because this is a jury, he knows

nothing about them. In order to understand them, he has

to sit back and observe what they care about, what they re-

spond to, when they engage, and how they respond to the

framing of issues.

For instance, one character is incredibly emotional.

He’s dealing with personal issues unrelated to the trial, and

we see Fonda helping him understand his past. He also notes

that one of the jurors cares a lot about justice, so he frames

the challenge before them as one of justice and equity to

appeal to that individual. Another character happens to be

Change is one of the few constants for every organization

today. What are some of the key challenges it presents?

One of the challenges — especially for

organizations that have been successful

— is just that: they have been successful.

They’ve learned certain routines and they

continue to go back to them. As a result,

they engage only in incremental change.

That works well when the world itself is changing incre-

mentally, but in many industries today, that is not the case.

As a result, we’ve got to un-learn what has worked for us in

the past, and that requires developing new mental models

and an understanding of how the world works — how all the

pieces fit together.

The core of the challenge is getting away from a mind-

set of inertia and recognizing that, while tomorrow might

look similar to today, 10 days from now, 100 days from now

and 1,000 days from now will certainly not look the same

in most sectors. We have to be prepared to work differently,

think differently and develop new models.

For many years you have used the film Twelve Angry Men

as a case study in your classes. What are some of its key

lessons?

This is a wonderful film from 19 57 that was written by

a starving playwright who had sat on a jury for a few days

and this cemented his incredible insights into how people

influence each other. I use the film in my classrooms because

The Psychology

of Influence

Interview by Karen Christensen

FACULTY FOCUS Brian Golden, Sandra Rotman Chair in Health Sector Strategy, Rotman School of Management