Christmas adverts are here, boxes of chocolates have gone supersize and the Saberr office is gearing up for a post Christmas dinner film marathon.
But, as you know, we’re obsessed with teamwork and this doesn’t change, even on Christmas day. So here’s the team’s top teamwork films watch list (in their own words!)
1. Voltron Defender of the Universe by Nik Brbora, CTO
Not only is each of the individuals of the Voltron team freakin’ awesome (they all command lion robots with unique skills), but they can also combine to create an ass-kicking mega-robot.
This shows you that great teams are bigger than just the sum of their parts. Nuff said.
2. Lord of the Rings by Sandy Rogers, Chief Scientist
My favourite film about teamwork is The Lord Of The Rings (like, the whole trilogy). I mean they used three movies to teach us a valuable lesson about how taking the easy way to achieve a goal (a big goal: destroying a naughty ring) is awesome but wouldn’t be in the long term interest of the team. We all know they could have just flown on the big eagle and saved a lot of time. But they didn’t, because relying on the eagles is no formula for replicable success, and they knew that climbing mountains and screaming at each other would make a team capable of taking on future challenges, once the eagles weren’t there to bail them out.
3. Next Goal Wins by Tom Marsden, CEO
My favourite film (documentary) is Next Goal Wins. It’s the story of the football team of American Samoa that was the lowest ranked in FIFA. They lost to Australia 31–0. Then, with the aid of a Dutch coach — they find their mojo. The highlight for me is the sub-story of the transgender centre back that makes the first team. She’s woman of the match in a key game. Her relationship with her team mates is a thing of joy in an intolerant world.
4. Moneyball by Alistair Shepherd , Founder
Given it’s one of the inspirations for the company name, I have to choose ‘Moneyball’.
It’s the story of how the Oakland A’s baseball team transformed their performance and went from the bottom of the league to the final of the world series in one season after their coach, Billy Beane, and a whizz kid economics grad from Yale used data to design the team rather than conventional wisdom of what good looked like.
The science they used was coined Sabermetrics (from SABR, Society for American Baseball Research) and is now common practise in the sport. What I love most about the story is that believing in the evidence — even if it goes against everything you think you know — can yield spectacular results and change an industry for good.
5. Toy Story by Marta Matos,UX Designer
Toy story is about the value of working as a team instead of the one-man show. Woody, a cowboy doll had always been Andy’s favourite, until on his birthday super cool Buzz Lightyear shows up and becomes the protagonist. Woody is so jealous that he tries to get rid of Buzz, but the competition leads to everything going wrong and all the toys have to work together as a team to find their way back home.
6. 300 by Saša Slavnić — Developer
300, because it so clearly shows that small team with great habits, routines and strong relationships can kill much larger team, even when larger team is equipped with elephants.
7. Travelling in Groups by Marko Stanojkovic, Developer
A short animation that shows teamwork wins throughout the animal kingdom. Working together you can beat the bad guys!
8. Pitch Perfect by Jennifer Robertson, Marketing
An unlikely team with just one thing in common, they can sing. They join a college a cappella group and first impressions of each other aren’t good. However, they take a risk, ditch the traditional and come together to win the ‘riff off’ with a No Diggity remix. Finally they’re making progress and manage to defeat ‘the bad boys of a cappella’! The film shows that although their personalities differ, deep down they share values which is what led them to success.
We hope you enjoyed our compilation! If you’ve got any more to add to the list, let us know!
