Money Heist Part 1 Episode 3 - Tension runs high

As mentioned in my previous post, I am slowly rewatching Money Heist, and I have just finished the third episode. I don’t know when I can finish, but this rewatching exercise gives me more insights and draws more lessons in life and work than the first pass. Let’s get going.

After the stage is set, now we see tension run high as the group started getting to work inside the Mint. In the language of project management, this is the start of project execution, after the project planning phase. And it’s really when tension starts increasing ans people start deviating from plan. There comes the first lesson: Project plan tends to fail, and when it does, it’s important for the project manager to stay close to the team and work together to pivot. Tokyo was right. The Professor was too far away to be effectively managing his project, and without his close attention, the plan started falling apart as issues occurred that was not in the plan and the team started improvising solutions. So, be with your team and work closely with them so that you can resolve arising issues promptly and reasonably.

Another lesson from the episode is: Keep your emotion out of business. As a famous movie character once said: “It’s nothing personal. It’s just business.”, mixing up business and personal life can be detrimental, especially in a highly charged project like a heist. The Professor was well aware of that pitfall, so he went to great lengths to prevent the team members from getting personnally connected or attached, like referring to them by nicknames and not real names. He had a reason to do so. Personal emotion can cloud your judgment and when you take things too personal, most of the time you cannot think straight anymore. However, it’s easier said than done. You put a group of young people in close proximity for a couple of months, and sparks likely will fly. And so it did. That’s why companies normally try to avoid having family members working in the same team.