This document provides a summary of the 2009 film "Up in the Air" and analyzes several key aspects: - It outlines the plot of the film about a man who travels the country terminating employees. - It analyzes the main characters Ryan Bingham, Natalie Keener, and Craig Gregory and their roles in the film. - It discusses several lessons that can be learned from the film related to organizational behavior concepts like competency models, leadership styles, and overcoming cognitive dissonance. - It examines when existing practices can be replaced with digitalization based on the film's portrayal of terminating employees.

1. Group 08
UJJWAL RANJAN (MBA19155)
ABHIJIT SAHOO (MBA19164)
ABHINAV YADAV (MBA19165)
SURAJ PETKAR (MBA19210)
PRIYANSHU GOYAL(MBA19217)
SOM SAMANTRAY (MBA19252)
Up in The Air (2009)- Movies for
Management Group assignment

2. Sl No. Content Pg. No
1 Plot 3
2 Cast Analysis: Ryan 4
3 Cast Analysis: Natalie 4
4 Cast Analysis: Craig 5
5 Lesson Learnt 5
6 Strategy 7
7 Conclusion 8

3. Up in the Air is a movie which is based on the 2001 novel “Up in the Air”. The
story revolves around Ryan Bingham, who travels across the country
terminating employees.
Plot
Employed at a human resource consultancy, Ryan Bingham travels a lot for the
sake of his job. He is excellent at his work. He is an avid traveller who has set a
personal goal of flying a million miles. Bingham identifies himself as someone
who terminates employees in order to make his ends meet. Bingham has no
desire to settle down in one place or to have a family or a normal life. In
addition, he is a motivational speaker. He loves his job and believes that by
terminating employees, he is helping them as he believes they will be better off
elsewhere.
One day while travelling, Ryan meets Alex who also likes to travel regularly.
They start dating, catching up in different cities. Soon, Ryan is summoned by
his company. Natalie Keener, a young, energetic new recruit, encourages cost-
cutting through videoconferencing layoffs. Ryan, who refuses to give up flying,
complains that the current method is informal and uncaring, and says that
Natalie does not understand the termination process. Craig, Ryan's manager,
asks Natalie to join Ryan on his next round of layoffs to witness the procedure.
Natalie questions Ryan's life philosophy, especially his views on relationships
and love, as they travel together. As one employee who is terminated breaks
down on camera during a video termination, Natalie is unable to calm him
adequately, confirming Ryan's earlier fears. Another staff makes a suicide
threat. Ryan travels to Wisconsin for his sister Julie's wedding before moving
home with Alex. Ryan plans to go to Chicago in order to meet Alex. When he
appears at her house, he is taken aback to find that she has already married
someone. While returning, the crew of Ryan's flight tells him that he has just
reached the ten-million-mile mark. The chief pilot of American Airlines is on
board to congratulate Ryan, who is the youngest person to cross the milestone.

4. The film ends with Ryan standing at the airport in front of a large destination
board. He looks up and let’s go of his baggage.
Cast Analysis
Ryan Bingham
The film's protagonist, Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), is a corporate
downsizing specialist. A corporate downsizing specialist is similar to a
consultant paid by companies to fire their staff without facing the consequences
that would otherwise arise if the firms did so on their own. Ryan suits the
Myers-Briggs personality type of thinking and sensing (Isabel Myers Briggs and
Peter B., 1995). He has no personal connection to his relatives or friends. The
only thing he cares about is the ‘miles track' on his ride.
Ryan does not own a home; all of his possessions fit into a suitcase that he uses
to fly for his work. When it comes to his life or practises, he is absolutely harsh.
When it comes to work, though, he is an entirely different guy. He possesses the
necessary charisma, and emotional intelligence for the job. He understands how
to break the news of an employee's firing to them. There are some scenes in the
film where he does an outstanding job by encouraging the firing of the staffs by
treating them with an emotional touch.
Natalie Keener
Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) is a recent graduate who joins the same firm as
Ryan. She has a lot of potential. She suggests a strategy to reduce the company's
costs by videoconferencing layoffs. She acts as if she is prepared for the work,
but we can see her frequent emotional breakdown when she is confronted by
terminated employees.
She never intended to do this particular job. She came here because her
boyfriend works in the same city. So, we can say that there is no person-job fit.

5. Craig Gregory
Craig Gregory (Jason Bateman) is Ryan and Natalie’s boss. He has the attitude
of a rational person who accepts suggestions from everyone. As Natalie
proposed the cost-cutting plan, Craig was initially reluctant but later accepted
her proposal and continues to enforce it. As Ryan disagrees with Craig over
making the improvement Natalie recommended, Craig insists that he is on the
right track. He wants Ryan to teach Natalie the working of the organisation so
that they can prevent risks with this new strategy. He is a Hersey-Blanchard
leader in that he recognised the employees' maturity level and behaved
accordingly.
Lesson Learnt
The lessons that we have learned from this movie are mainly in terms of
organisational behaviour (OB) concepts, which our group assumes any
management student should understand in order to fulfil their career effectively.
Understanding the Iceberg model of Competency
The iceberg model of competency (Spencer L.M. JR. and Spencer S.M., 1993)
According to the iceberg model of competency, competencies are like an
iceberg floating on water, with both noticeable and unseen elements. The visible
portion of the iceberg consists of skills and knowledge which are important for
the job. The hidden part which plays an important role in a person's career
includes self-concepts, personal traits, and motives that are not apparent but
play a significant role in undertaking a task.
In the film, it can be seen that Ryan, has mastered this hidden part of the
iceberg, which is greatly assisting him in his work. However, Natalie, as a new
hire, is having trouble grasping this aspect of the work. Ryan and Natalie's
competency mapping would have yielded the same outcome. The message we
can take away from this is that before we start a new career, we should observe

6. our seniors to recognise these hidden competencies so that we can strengthen
ourselves in terms of the same competencies.
Being the situation-based leader
The situation-based leadership theory of Hersey-Blanchard aids leaders to select
their leadership style based upon the maturity level of the employees. In this
film, Craig has recognized Natalie to be deficient with regards to psychological
maturity needed for the work and prescribes Ryan to mentor her. However,
imagine a scenario where Natalie or assume any junior level worker is on a
different level of maturity. The solution lies in understanding the Hersey-
Blanchard's situation-based leadership theory. According to this, there are four
separate levels of employee maturity based on the combination of psychological
maturity and task maturity, and depending on the maturity level, a leader can
select one of the four leadership styles as follows:
Employee
maturity level
Psychological
maturity
(Willing or
Unwilling to
work?)
Task
maturity
(Able or
unable to
work?)
Leadership style
M1: Low maturity Unwilling Unable S1: Telling/directing
M2: Medium
maturity, limited
skills
Willing Unable S2: Selling/coaching
M3: Medium
maturity, high
skills but lacking
confidence
Unwilling Able S3:
Participating/supporting
M4: High maturity Willing Able S4: Delegating
Representation of Hersey-Blanchard’s situation-based leadership theory; M:
Maturity level & S: Style of leader (Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, 1993)
We can adapt our leadership style to fit the situation if we can recognise the
maturity level of the employees in terms of task and psychology.

7. Overcoming cognitive dissonance
Ryan has spent his entire life with one guiding principle: never get addicted to
something, whether humanistic or materialistic. However, his sister's marriage
teaches him the value of family and dedication to life. This inconsistency with
his own beliefs places him in a state of cognitive dissonance. Because of this
dissonance, Ryan stumbles when preaching his values in one of his speeches. If
he has difficulty accepting his own beliefs, he cannot be able to teach the same,
which is critical for motivational speakers.
In his popular book on cognitive dissonance, Leon Festinger, an American
Psychologist, wrote three solutions to get rid of dissonance. They are:
• Reduce the significance of the dissonant beliefs,
• Increase the number of consonant beliefs to outnumber the dissonant beliefs,
• Change the dissonant beliefs so that they are no longer contradictory.
Choice three is the perfect match for Ryan. He must change his dissonant belief
so that they are no longer contradictory, i.e., He has to understand the
significance of family and make an attempt to settle in his life. Similarly, we
can experience dissonance at any aspect of our life. If we can resort to the
solutions proposed by Leon Festinger, we can come out of it with less difficulty.
Strategy (When to replace existing practices with digitalization)
The buzzword for 2021 is "digital transition." In 2019, over $1.3 trillion was
spent on the digital transition process, with $900 billion going to waste
(Behnam Tabrizi, Ed Lam, Kirk Girard and Vernon Irvin, 2019). About 70% of
all digital transition attempts are unsuccessful (Steven ZoBell, 2018). When can
current procedures be digitalized? The essay by Tabrizi et al. discusses building
customer experiences from the outside in. In the film, the consumer is a client
organisation who is trying to downsize their workforce.
Because of Ryan's experience in the industry, the client firm consults Career
Transition Corporation (Ryan's company). Clients recognise that they cannot
initiate the termination process as much as CTC (Career Transformation
Corporation). It is their core competency that is impossible to duplicate or
eliminate in the digitalisation process.
Employees in the film take dramatic measures because their termination is not
handled properly. As a result, digital transformation initiatives will be fruitful
when technology is able to reproduce the same human emotions through the
digitalisation process.

8. Conclusion
1. We should have a method for doing the tasks as it helps to maintain a proper
flow.
2. There must be a certain motivation behind our work which ultimately helps
us grow.
3. Sacrificing work for relationship can be painful.
4. Airlines are more concerned about their frequent travellers and their VIP
status, as VIP status helps them to have a better deal, as well as to travel
efficiently.
5. Not all of organisation’s task can be done online, terminating employees over
the internet is something very hurtful. Doing such tasks with physical presence
helps developing a bond with them.
7. There must be an end goal that we want to accomplish, such as Ryan’s goal
of traveling million miles to be able to meet with the Captain. This motivates
him to work harder and visit more organizations.
References
Behnam Tabrizi, Ed Lam, Kirk Girard and Vernon Irvin. (2019, March 13).
Digital Transformation Is Not About Technology. Retrieved from
Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2019/03/digital-transformation-
is-not-about-technology
Isabel Myers Briggs and Peter B. (1995). Gifts Differing: Understanding
Personality Type. Mountain View, CA: Davies-Black Publishing.
Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard. (1993). Situational Leadership® Model
(Management of Organizational Behaviour: Utilizing Human Resources).
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

9. Rasmus Hougaard and JacquelineCarter. (2018, November 06). Ego Is the
Enemy of Good Leadership. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review:
https://hbr.org/2018/11/ego-is-the-enemy-of-good-leadership
Spencer L.M. JR. and Spencer S.M. (1993). The Iceberg Model of Competence
(Competence at Work: Model for Superior Performance). John Wiley &
Sons, p.11, 1993.
Steven ZoBell. (2018, March 13). Why Digital Transformations Fail: Closing
The $900 Billion Hole In Enterprise Strategy. Retrieved from Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/03/13/why-digital-
transformations-fail-closing-the-900-billion-hole-in-enterprise-
strategy/#2effba467b8b