Management lessons from Madagascar 3

Yesterday, I watched the third part of the animated film franchise Madagascar, and it was clean wholesome 3D entertainment totally worth the price of admission. Just having finished 2yrs in bschool at IIM Ahmedabad, my mind was still on MBA mode in the background, trying to dissect and glean management lessons from all and sundry! I did not watch the first two parts of the movie but that did not detract from my understanding. A brief review of the film as on the blog http://vagabondmind.blogspot.in/2012/06/madagascar-3-europes-most-wanted-review.html states Our famous quartet(of circus animals who have escaped from the New York Zoo)-, Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller), Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer), and Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett-Smith) are in Africa. The penguins have left them and taken off in a plane to engage in some gambling. The heroes swim their way to Europe to get to the penguins and fly back home. Plans fail and events start unfolding at a frenetic pace. Animal control chief Chantel DuBois wants Alex’s head on her wall. The New Yorkers somehow manage to convince – Circus Zaragoza who is touring Europe in a train. We meet a few new characters - Vitaly the Tiger, Gia the Jaguar, Stefano the Sea-lion and others.  The story moves forward with the train moving to Rome and then to London. The action at London is a treat to watch in 3D with excellent pyrotechnics and some breathtaking acts. Finally, the New Yorkers get back home. But are they happy? For a more complete review, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_3:_Europe%27s_Most_Wanted

The background now set, the lessons in brief are

1. Fake it till you make it! The escaped quartet had taken refuge with the circus under the pretense of being circus animals. Leveraging that credibility, they persuade the other (real) circus animals to try the often risky acts that they conjured up.
2. The power of passion:-As Alex talks about later in the film, the famous Canadian circus Cirque do Soleil that uses humans instead of animals in their performances, cannot compete with the real animals when it comes to passion. Hence, he inspires the animals to give their 101%.
3. Getting buy in for change:-Vitaly the tiger represents the old guard-trusty, competent yet resistent to change the way things have been done! However, Stefano and Gia the Jaguar reassure him of his importance in the scheme of things, stating that they will not move ahead without him. This makes him agree to try out his old act(jumping through loops again!)
4. Business process reengineering! This is quite evident in the new way the circus acts were reengineered. After all, if one keeps on doing what does not work, that is insanity. Having Vitaly use non flamable hair conditioner instead of the inflamable hair oil to jump through flaming loops, is another example of the same. 
5. The importance of integrity:-Though the penguins are able to foil DuBois' plan to capture Alex, the latter is forced to confess that the four of them are just zoo animals trying to get home, disappointing the others who feel used and lied to, as they had blindly trusted the four and done risky and new acts. While the film ends on a good note, in real life often, one lapse of integrity proves expensive in the zero tolerance envt of organizations. So 'fake it till you make it' is fine for internal use, but not necessarily for external use, as the Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson found out to his expense after being fired for inventing a non existent credential.

I am sure that academics with much more time for research/thinking than I do, will come out with a case study/session on this, but this is all I could do! Adios!