Calendar Girls as a Business Model

Executive Summary

In the 2003 British comedy film Calendar Girls directed by Nigel Cole (2003), a group of Yorkshire women produce a nude calendar to raise money for Leukemia Research. In the initial planning stages, the group comes under heavy skepticism from the Women’s Institute (WI) as some members of the local branch where the calendar is to be produced are featured in the calendar. Additionally, as the project becomes more successful beyond their initial visions, the morale and organization of the group begin to deteriorate. Nonetheless, the calendar achieves what the group set out to accomplish and all ends well by movie’s end.

Although the concept of the movie is very radical in nature, it also serves as an example of how the growth of an organization or business can, without proper planning, be severely hindered or face detrimental conflicts that affect the behavior and spirit of employees within. In particular, ethics and morals related to age are important considerations when looking at the movie and generational gaps become more apparent as the movie progresses. This case study aims to provide recommendations that would provide increased work efficiency and positive workplace behavior. These recommendations include promoting culture that engages all employees regardless of age and experience and creating flexibility in personal values to create supportive work values. This applies not only to the group’s initial planning stages in creating a nude calendar, but in the general operations of their calendar business as a whole.

Key Issues

Much of the conflict in the movie arises from the differences in age and generation between the various characters of the movie. Examples throughout the movie include the leader of the local WI branch being adamantly against nudity, photographer, Lawrence, having a difficult and uncomfortable time taking pictures of the calendar because of the sensitive, unwelcoming nature of the calendar girls, and Jem Harper, Chris Harper’s son, becoming unwilling to deal with helping the business and making poor life decisions leading to his arrest. These stem from conflict of morals and ideals, insensitivity to some members due to age, or both. These issues are solved via three recommendations: Creating a workplace that is engaging to all of its workers regardless of age, generation or other differences, encouraging work values in each individual that are supportive of everyone on the team and creating a open, flexible and trusting environment.

Recommendation 1 - Creating a workplace culture that engages all workers

The starting point of any positive working environment is the basic understanding of intrinsic human motivators (Manion, 2009). Intrinsic motivators are energies within an individual that triggers a person to act (Manion, 2009). There are five primary intrinsic motivators; healthy working relationships, belief that an individual’s work in meaningful, competence, autonomy, and seeing progress (Manion). Each generation holds a different level of importance on their intrinsic motivators and will act differently depending on what is important to them.

The main characters, Chris and Annie, belong to the Baby Boomer generation, and place a high value on the intrinsic motivators of healthy relationships and meaningful work (Manion, 2009.) The value that the women place on relationships is demonstrated in their involvement in their local organization, the WI, and their close friendship with each other (Barton & Cole, 2003). Although the Women’s International Calendar was successful, the differences posed by generational differences somewhat limited its full potential. To eliminate multigenerational workforce difficulties posed by the generational gaps, it is important for the individuals to eradicate the natural obstacles that are a result of different mindsets, foundational years of life, and beliefs systems. Problems potentially caused by lack of uniformity of a team are miscommunication, missed deadlines for professional projects, poor job performance, and negative attitudes in the work environment towards co-workers and the company as a whole.

Effectively managing across generational lines requires the use of five strategies: focus and clarification of common goals, including all people and helping them in any area they may feel restricted in, taking the risk of breaking traditions, highlighting hopes of the future, and promoting balance within the organization (Rodriguez, 2015). If successfully applied, these strategies have the potential to elevate the success.

The timeframe in which a person was born has much effect on the way a person chooses to lead their life. To date, there are four defined generations in today’s workforce: The Veterans, Baby Boomers, Generation Xers, and Millennials (Manion, 2009). Each generation is represented in Calendar Girls, the husbands and members of the WI are Veterans generation, most of the WI members, specifically the main characters, appear to be part of the Baby Boomers generation. The photographer is a member of Generation X, and the son is depicted as a Millennial. The differences of the generations were all necessary in the formulation and success of the WI calendar.

In the current workforce today, it is not unusual to see or hear of Veterans generation individuals who are gainfully employed. Coined the “Loyal Generation”, Veterans believe in working hard until a task is completed. Other common characteristics of Veterans are stability, respect, and the ability to understand clear and precise direction. The rigidity of the Veterans naturally brings structure to the goal of the calendar production. Husbands highlighted in the movie appeared to be loyal their spouses, as well as hardworking. For example, Chris’ husband remained loyal as he was interviewed about his feelings about the sudden success of his spouse. (Barton, 2003). To have someone with such qualities in the workplace is valuable, especially with the dynamics of change and growth.

The women of the WI group displayed primary signs of congruence with the Baby Boomer generation. Qualities of involvement, optimism, and team orientation are observed throughout the movie. With some resistance from other women within the WI organization, qualities of key Baby Boomers in the movie counteracted against the negativity, which was necessary for the development of the calendar. A pertinent quality of the Baby Boomers that played a major role in the success of this calendar is focused around being team-players and being relationship-oriented. If these qualities were not apparent amongst workers, the project would not have been successful.