“Ocean’s Eleven” Essay Example

and technical skills, Virgil (CASEY AFFLECK) and Turk (SCOTT CAAN), are brought onboard on as the drivers, Yen (SHAOBO QIN) is selected as acrobat , and Saul Bloom (CARL REINER) is brought from retirement to pull this plan together. In some instances of the movie Danny is acting as directive leader, where he gives specific instructions to the group and clarifies expectations.Path-Goal theory assumes that leaders are flexible and they can change their leadership style depending on the situations.

Although, the leader behavior-outcome relationship is moderated by contingency variables - environment and follower characteristics. The followers do not have control of environment, and the environmental factors determine the leadership style. Follower characteristics are the locus of control, experience, and perceived ability. In the ocean’s eleven case the team members can be described as having external locus of control where they believe that their success is attributed to luck or fate.The whole robbery plan is based that each member will performed his specified duties and everything goes well as planned, also that boxing championship will not be cancelled on the weekend, which means that most significant high rollers will go gambling.

Danny and Rusty set up the path to be followed to achieve their goal - to rob three casinos owned by the ever ruthless Terry Benedict. Danny acts like the charismatic leader of the team. The plan is to pull off the heist, but what enhances the movie’s plot is Danny Ocean's charm.Besides the common shared goal, the film also focuses on Danny’s real heist - to win back the heart of Tess (Julia Roberts) who left her husband while he was serving time for

his previous crime.

As a successful leader Danny has the needed interpersonal, cognitive and technical skills which he demonstrated with abundance throughout the scenes. In the night club scene he showed up unannounced where Rusty was teaching other players to play poker, and pretended that he new very little about game. His intelligence allowed him to trick the other players and win.As a charming leader Danny also great interpersonal skills , like persuasiveness and diplomacy . He gets what he wants though motivation of his team, and not by ordering them what to do. When he convinces Ruben to finance their crime just by showing the newspaper with news about Terry purchasing Ruben’s casino hoping that he will want to revenge.

The best part was actually when Danny and Rusty convinced that this is actually Ruben’s plans to rob the casino. Danny’s and Rusty’s behavior enhances subordinate empowerment and satisfaction , and subordinate effectiveness.Throughout the movie both leaders Danny and Rusty follow achievement oriented leadership to be effective while engaging in behaviors that complement subordinates' environments in a way that compensates for deficiencies and results in subordinate satisfaction. The tasks are delegated to each of the members of the team so everyone knows what is their role in the largest casino robbery in history.

The first task is to find out Everything about casino , watch employees and know alternative routes to the casino. Second task is the power – to through the switch on Las Vegas.The last task assigned by task leader is surveillance – keep an eye on casino security. By setting and communicating the plan, which contained strict time constraints, paths to

follow, and interactions with others, Danny ( task leader) was also giving the team a norm that had to be met in order to successfully achieve the team objective of pulling off the casino heist. Throughout the movie Rusty played the most important roles – helped Danny with preliminary ideas and strategies , recruited the team , explained entire plan to the followers and significantly added to the plan of keeping everybody together .

Expectancy Theory of Motivation According to expectancy theory of motivation the followers (Ocean’s eleven team) will be more motivated to get involved in the task when it satisfies their personal goals . As the team was assembled it has been determined that 11 people are needed to pull off the heist. Ocean’s eleven gathered together to achieve a main purpose: to rob the Bellagio hotel central vault that had three casino share. Each member of the team had his own role to play, and if one of them failed in his job, then the work of all eleven would be ruined.Considering this fact the motivation factor is very important. Although each of the eleven members would get his share of money, the purpose where to spend the money is unique for everybody.

Considering the importance of each team member’s plans where to spend the money, each of them would be motivated at a different level. There was also a moment during the movie where team members doubted Danny about his true motivation for this job. It looked to them like they are stealing 2 things – the money and Tess ( Danny’s ex-wife). It appeared to the team members as if Danny

is getting more – “Tess is not split 11 ways”.

What they did not realized that Danny was risking more than everybody – he will go back to jail for parole violation , as he choose to do at the end of the movie –he sacrificed and went to jail , so his team will not be suspected to be involved in the robbery. The expectancy theory focuses on three relationships that can easily be applied the movie’s plot. Each team member is interested in giving maximum effort towards performance, and it gets a great appraisal from Danny. Motivation helps to keep the members focused and believing in overall team goal.Finally, if plan succeeds each member will get monetary reward that they can use to fulfill their dreams.

Vroom’s theory of motivation does not concentrate on needs, but rather focuses on outcomes, in the case of ocean’s eleven- 150 million dollars that team members get to share if they successfully achieve the goal. Only by linking performance and motivation the desired outcome will be achieved. Valence, Expectancy and Instrumentality accounts for motivation that results in effort. The expectancy in ocean’s eleven – increased effort leads to increased performance.It was affected by resources : right timing – the boxing championship in Las Vegas , right materials – the team was well prepared with explosives , the uniforms , casino architecture plans, tracking and surveillance devices. The team members had the right skills to do the job – great leader , explosives experts, drivers , acrobat , computer savvy people , pickpocket; necessary support to get the plan achieved – leader encouragement and motivation , correct information about

the events being held in casino, the tracking video devices that enabled them to watch.

Instrumentality is the belief that if a person performs good that a valued outcome will be received. In the case of this movie – if each team member does a good job , there will be something for him in result. Instrumentality is affected by a few things such as: trust in the leader on deciding who gets what outcome; transparency of the process , and clear understanding of the relationship between performance and result – each member of ocean’s eleven team had to follow the rules of the plan.Valence is the importance that the person places on the expected outcome.

Each team member in ocean’s eleven had different plans where to spend the money, so considering it they were all motivated to get the money so they can follow their plans of how to spend it. The only exception in this case is Danny. It appears to me that his true motivation was to get his ex-wife back and revenge the guy who stole her from him. Also, there is some thrill in the job as well- doing something illegal and not being caught.If the plan goes successfully, it would be the largest casino robbery in history.

The theory of motivation is not simply about individual interest in rewards, but also about the associations a person makes towards expected result, and the contribution one feels he can make towards the outcome. To summarize, the ocean’s eleven was a successful plan due to each of team member’s motivation and valuable contribution that they made towards the common goal.