Role of an Architect: Lessons from the movies - Part 7
- Amit Jnagal, Senior Technical Architect, Infosys
In my last post, I talked about the movie The 300 Spartans and the lessons it held for Architects about doing the right thing, courage under fire, looking for alternatives etc.
My Cousin Vinny (Year of Release: 1992; Director: Jonathan Lynn; Our Architect: Vincent Gambini, played by Joe Pesci; Architect's Character: Lawyer handling his first case for his cousin).
‘My Cousin Vinny’ is the story of a lawyer who finds himself defending his first cousin on the charges of first degree murder in his first ever trial. He has no experience as a lawyer and has never even attended the court as a lawyer, is totally unaware of the process or the protocol. He learns on the fly, makes silly mistakes on his first case, is excited by the trivial stuff, but makes a solid come back using his fundamental skills and saves his cousin from an almost certain seat on the electric chair.
This movie provides us great insights on a budding architect’s first experience as architect, kind of things to watch out for and what to look up to in nervous times.
A few important lessons that this movie can provide us are:
• Never to let go of our fundamentals
• Acknowledge and know what you do not know
• Handling tough customers
Scenes to look out for:
1. There is a scene in the middle of the movie where Vinny thinks that he has built a connection with his prosecuting lawyer and as a result, got access to all his case files. When he tries to show off how smart he is to his fiancé, she points out that the prosecution is bound by law to share the case files with the defense lawyer, otherwise, it could lead to a mistrial.
First inference that we can draw from this scene is to know the law of the land before you get in to a project. Do your home work; find out what works and what doesn’t. Try to get any historical inputs about a customer if any precedence is available. If it doesn’t make you look smart in front of your customer, at least it will not make you look stupid. This is of particular help if your organization has had a tough history with a customer.
2. The second theme that flows throughout the movie is how Vinny manages the judge in whose court he is arguing the case. The first two times that he pleads the case, he gets himself arrested for the contempt of court. But he learns from his faults and by the end of the case, he makes a fan out of the tough magistrate.
Personally, I like working with tough customers. They bring about a point of inflection in your career which makes you improve just to be able to survive. At the end of a tough assignment, you come out with a new level of maturity and invaluable experience in the form of a few burnt fingers. Secondly, it’s usually the tough customers that can help take you and your organization places. Experiencing the way Vinny manages the magistrate, gives you good insights into how to manage tough customers – understand what excites them and what does not.
