Decision Making Through Quentin Tarantino, Kanye West, The Dallas Mavericks & 50 cent

Etai Mizrahi
Aug 27, 2017 · 8 min read

There will never be a perfect way to predict the future. Events that will occur will always be different than what is expected, even slightly. In business and especially in entrepreneurship, this can be especially troubling and stress inducing.

With a lot of decisions on my plate recently, I have found myself thinking about my decision-making process and if there are lessons that should be highlighted from some of the media I like.

After some thought, I came up some rules of thumb that can be forgotten when making decisions and dealing with outcomes that in my opinion need to be remembered by even the savviest business people.

By studying on linear storytelling techniques of Quentin Tarantino, the importance of the underdog through the Dallas Mavericks & 50 cent’s ability to embrace ambiguity, 3 main rules of thumb came to mind, which are;

1. Understanding nonlinear decisions

2. Never rule out the underdog

3. When ambiguity presents itself, adapt before you react.

Quentin Tarantino; The Master of The Nonlinear

I don’t think I stand alone when I say that the first time I watched Pulp Fiction I was confused. Tarantino, masterfully chopped up the movie into chapters and placed them in an order that didn’t necessarily match up with how I had seen a story before.

Pulp Fiction is most notably the best example of the use of this nonlinear format. Its use in Pulp Fiction serves to engage the audience in the movie further and to always have us question where one chapter intersects with another. There is a total of seven narrative sequences with 3 primary storylines which are identified prior to the scene.

1. Prologue — The Diner (i)
2. Prelude to “Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace’s Wife”
3. “Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace’s Wife”
4. Prelude to “The Gold Watch” (a — flashback, b — present)
5. “The Gold Watch”
6. “The Bonnie Situation”
7. Epilogue — The Diner (ii)

If the seven sequences were ordered chronologically, they would run 4a, 2, 6, 1, 7, 3, 4b, 5. This style of story structure has been called a circular narrative, where the first and last scene was shown following one another. Bringing the movie full circle at the end.

This is a technique that Tarantino has become famous for using so effectively. In his favourite movie of mine, Reservoir Dogs, he uses this method of storytelling to reveal secrets from the past. I think that the effectiveness of this technique is also credited to its ability to lend itself to the unpredictable. Whenever I watch a Tarantino movie, I am always questioning the truth that I am being told and the sequence of events into the bigger picture.

It might seem absurd to some to hear that there are things you can learn about business about y from a storyteller as gruesome as Tarantino, but I would beg to differ.

By using nonlinear storylines Tarantino reminds viewers of the importance understanding that decisions will not always fall into a linear path in business and combating this by finding all the possible information.

There are many times in business when you will be presented a case to make a decision where most of the relevant information is not presented and having an ability to question the story, look for ambiguities and find those answers is a skill that Tarantino enforces in his audience.

Tarantino understands unlike a traditional movie, life can serve to be ambiguous and nonlinear with contradicting storylines on a single decision. This awareness of nonlinearity makes Tarantino’s films some of the most enjoyable to watch.

As a student of business, I try to approach decisions with the same understanding of the nonlinear by understanding that at any point in time I could be missing a piece of information. This enforces a tendency to ask, dig and investigate for a story that is linear and one that is able to come full circle.

I would recommend watching some of Tarantino’s movies with this in mind and taking some time to think about his ability to have you question the information. After understanding this, applying this to any workplace can make you a more vigilant, observant and aware employee.

Never Rule Out The Underdog; The 2011 Dallas Mavericks

The 2010 summer for the NBA was one of the greatest off seasons I can remember (until the madness this year) and for one main reason. Lebron James. I remember I was in South Carolina the night of the decision and it felt like a holiday.

We were driving back from the beach and I had my family stop at an outlet mall so we could hover over a TV at champs and watch as Lebron shocked the sports world. The famous decision special alongside the news that the King was taking his talents to South Beach took the sports world by storm. Alongside Lebron, it was also our Toronto hometown Chris Bosh who decided to join Dwyane Wade and pursue a ring on the Miami Heat.

Experts all around the NBA were predicting a dynasty that could not be stopped. With similarities to the Lakers squad of the early 2000’s prior to even a single game, the expectations were high and the odds were in their favour.

Meanwhile, almost all NBA forgot about a Dallas Mavericks team that hadn’t even won the Southwest Division in their pursuit for 3rd seed in the West.

To everyone’s surprise, it was Dallas (not the Spurs or Lakers) who overcame the Western Conference and met Miami in the finals. Led by a sick Dirk Nowitzki and a team of veterans that had passed their prime, coming back from a 2–1 series deficit seemed improbable. Many people counted out Dallas and labeled them as the underdog. But Dallas surprised the sporting world and won the next 3 games in the series the win the NBA finals 4–2. As the first championship for Dirk and Jason Kidd, the 2011 finals were a remarkable underdog story that will never be forgotten.

You might be asking yourself why the Dallas Mavericks matter when making decisions

It is because when making a decision, a bias will always tend to creep in. The ability to understand bias and overlook it can separate good decision makers from great. In terms of the 2011 finals, it was a case of groupthink that was experienced by the majority to favour the Heat over the Mavs. A great decision maker needs to be able to understand these biases and to see each event as an individual probability.

This bias tends to happen a lot in sports and is partly the reason why sports are so dynamic. Rather than looking at the complete picture of the performance of Dallas the month before the finals, the inexperience of the Miami team and their relatively equal performance over the year, most people choose to follow the most compelling story, which was the story of Lebron receiving his first championship.

This is a foolish way to come to a decision and one that can be learned from. It is important to understand that these types of biases happen almost everywhere in business and sometimes the best thing to do is to separate yourself from external opinions before doubling down on a choice that might not have a high of a probability as you to believe.

In order to avoid these biases, understanding the times that they are more likely to present themselves is important. Avoiding brainstorming in groups, creating opinions collectively or letting external factors influence your decisions can lead to a more effective team in the long run.

I will always cheer for the underdog — which is why I love being a Raptors fan — for their ability to consistently compete with the odds against them. So next time you make a decision, keep the Dallas Mavericks and other underdog stories in the back of your mind and don’t be so quick to rule out the improbable as impossible.

When Ambiguity Presents Itself, Adapt Before You React; The 50 Cent Story

Split second decisions will be wrong many times, but the best decision makers know that going into the decision and adapt to the outcome, making it look like it was their desired outcome all along.

The person who has best exemplified this the best is 50 Cent

50 Cent grew up in Queens in an impoverished neighbourhood. In order to get by, his mom began getting involved with selling drugs and 50 Cent followed. In 2000, after 50 Cent had left the drug career to pursue music, he released a song that supposedly referenced some of the prominent drug lords of Queens. These drug dealers were not happy with 50 Cents decision to release this song and decided to send a person to kill 50 Cent.

One night when 50 Cent was sitting at an intersection in Queens, a drive by shooter hired by the drug lords shot 50 Cent 9 times, including a shot to the jaw.

50 Cent thankfully survived the attack and slowly began the recovery process. But as every musician knows, having such damage done to your mouth as a musician might be worse. 50 after a lot of recovery, 50 Cents jaw was healed but left with fragments of the bullet and with a very swollen tongue, which made it hard for 50 Cent to talk without a strong lisp. This did not stop 50 Cent, in fact, it helped him.

He immediately got back into the studio and embraced his new, muffled sound and mastered the best ways to get the most out of his new abilities. He adapted to the ambiguity of his surroundings and worked to leverage himself regardless of what happens to him.

Kanye has had a similar story of adapting to when his mouth was damaged. After a car crash, Kanye West had his jaw wired as he recovered in the hospital. Kanye spent no time writing and recording a song titled “Through the Wire”, in which he raps with his jaw wired about how lucky he was to survive the incident. The song featured on his debut album and is a powerful antidote to his ability to adapt to the situations presented to him.

As someone who makes decisions often it is important to understand that there will be times when those decisions are wrong and when external factors affect your outcome beyond your control. The best decision makers are able to embrace their inner Kanye West and 50 Cent and rap through the wire when things don’t go their way. This is obviously easier said than done.

There are some best practices that I think help decision makers prepare for the unexpected. I think that an interesting exercise to run is to try to come up with contingency plans for not only the improbable but for the impossible scenarios. Being able to spend 30 minutes on the worst case scenarios will most of the time not effect the final outcome but could help prepare a team for the worst.

The other best practice is that when good decision makers are wrong about a decision or are blindsided by an outcome, they unanimously spend time trying to understand what went wrong in their thought process and how they can avoid the same mistake in the future.

Decision making is hard and definitely not an easy thing to tackle. As I try to make some important decisions I will try to take these concepts with me and value the lessons I have learned from movies, music, and basketball.

I hope that in the future, you might do the same :)

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