James Bond’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service: On being the other fella, hindsight and predicting trends

Australian George Lazenby provides a lesson for us all in how we perceive ourselves, in gaining hindsight, and in predicting trends.

The other fella

I admit my family’s retrospective struggled through Bond’s sixth adventure.  Bond once again fights the evil SPECTRE, as the main villain Blofeld threatens to sterilise food supplies unless he is provided amnesty. The plot mixes things up a bit as Bond threatens to quit the service, engages in the expected womanising, fights and chases bad guys on skies and sleds, gets married, and ends the movie in tragedy.

This may sound riveting, but the movie struggled to keep our attention.  Rather than focus on the story, my mind wandered to wondering what it must be like for Lazenby to be “the other fella”.

Lazenby took the position after Connery defined the role in the previous five Bond films. The movie was very self-aware of this fact, with Bond breaking the fourth wall in the opening scene with “This never happened to the other fella.” and thumbing through relics of previous films as their respective soundtracks played.   The movie proved the series could survive beyond Connery, but it did not prove Lazenby could survive beyond the series.

Our relative identity and self-perception

The value we place on our identity is intrinsically wrapped up in our relative position with others. Our success in our roles is based on the success of others before and after us within our organisations, as well as the success of others in similar positions in other organisations.

In Lazenby’s case, he would always be compared to Connery and will forever be compared to Bonds who followed him.  In this regard, he is considered the “worst” Bond yet.  And yet the man deserves credit of being one of only six people in the history of humanity to have played James Bond.

How often do we get hung up comparing ourselves to those who came before us, or worse, the unknown masses who will follow? How often do we not acknowledge with gratitude other roles in life we would deem so much less desirable compared to the one we are in? Lazenby was the best Bond for the role he played, just as we are the best and only lead actor in the life we have to live right now.

Hindsight, listening to others, and our ability to predict trends

Lazenby states with perhaps some regret how his manager convinced him to drop the James Bond role due to the perception that “Bond was passé”, the hippies were in, and was told to “get out now”.

Wikipedia quotes Lazenby as saying:

Fantasy doesn’t interest me. Reality does. Anyone who’s in touch with the kids knows what’s happening, knows the mood. Watch pop music and learn what’s going to happen. Most filmmakers don’t watch and aren’t in touch. People aren’t going to films because filmmakers are putting out films people don’t want to see.  

While Lazenby’s co-star Diana Rigg reflected on his decision:

The role made Sean Connery a millionaire. It made Sean Connery… I truly don’t know what’s happening in George’s mind so I can only speak of my reaction. I think its a pretty foolish move. I think if he can bear to do an apprenticeship, which everybody in this business has to do – has to do – then he should do it quietly and with humility. Everybody has to do it. There are few instant successes in the film business. And the instant successes one usually associates with somebody who is willing to learn anyway.

Hindsight is a harsh mistress who can deal out regret more often than not.  We make decisions based on information available to us at the time, recommendations from trusted advisors, and gut intuition.  In Lazenby’s case, leaving the Bond franchise was a risky proposition that likely proved to be the less favourable choice for his career.

The future is difficult to predict as we are confronted by competing culture and technology changes. I was reading last week where by 2020, Asia will have more middle-class consumers than the rest of the world and by 2030 the Asian economy will exceed the combined US and European economies.  Value lost in the Facebook IPO is a reflection of what many say is the bursting of the social media bubble. Recent Australian resource price fluctuations have some saying mining investment will peak in 2014 while others say the mining boom is not even half over yet. Given the likely longevity of this blog post, we will re-read any one of these examples many years on and say “of course that is what we should have done” to mitigate or take advantage of these changes.

Each of us can put ourselves in Lazenby’s position.  Comparing ourselves to “the other fella” is a risky proposition, and we need to be careful as to who we trust to advise us on matters of career choices and trends. Learning from Lazenby, it may pay to step back and see if our role will adapt to the environment, much like how the Bond franchise has evolved over the years.

It can also pay to give ourselves time in the position. Lazenby’s next Bond film could have been the best yet as he gained experience with the role.  In time, it is likely that others will look to you and refer to themselves as “the other fella”.