I didn’t lose weight or paint the stairwell, but I did keep one of my 2019 resolutions: cutting the cable. My husband and I quit subscribing to satellite TV early this year and, in addition to saving money, we find ourselves awash in entertainment options from streaming services.
On Amazon’s Prime Video service I recently rediscovered “The Closer,” a series that I loved during its original run on TBS from 2005-12. It’s a police procedural drama with an ensemble cast built around Kyra Sedgwick as Brenda Leigh Johnson, a CIA-trained interrogator from Atlanta who takes charge of the Los Angeles Police Department’s elite homicide investigation team.
Yeah, there are some plot holes — no police department anywhere is ever going to let a police reporter observe suspect interrogation — but the dialogue is terrific. And binge-watching reminded me of the excellent management lessons to be gleaned from Brenda Leigh, which I wrote about in this space back in 2011:
► Assess your team’s strengths and weaknesses and make assignments accordingly. Even people who have the same titles, degrees or seniority are not interchangeable. Brenda Leigh knows which detective to send when diplomacy is needed and which to send when muscle might be in order.
► Understand everyone’s job, even if you can’t do it as well as she can. Deputy Chief Johnson could personally perform any assignment she gives to one of her detectives (except maybe driving confidently around the unfamiliar streets of Los Angeles), and they know that she knows exactly what she’s asking them to do.
► Recognize the line between personal and professional. A good manager understands and appreciates that subordinates are human beings with personal lives and problems to deal with, but she doesn’t allow those personal lives to overwhelm the unit’s professional goals. Brenda is friendly and collegial with her detectives, but you never see her socializing with any of them unless the entire team is celebrating together.
► Don’t play favorites or hold grudges. Brenda Leigh Johnson actually does have a favorite member of her squad, but when Sgt. Gabriel screwed up, she disciplined him as promptly and severely as she would anyone else. Conversely, she went to bat for Lt. Flynn when the detective who had given her the hardest time deserved a champion with the higher-ups. The result is a team that is unshakably loyal but never tries to take advantage of the chief.
► Share the misery. Brenda doesn’t immunize herself from the most unpleasant chores, like notifying the families of murder victims or observing autopsies. (In fact, it is her second-in-command, retirement-age Lt. Provenza, who tends to give other people the grunt work. Brenda should have a word with him about that.)
► Marry well. Fritz Howard, the FBI agent Brenda married in the fourth season, is patient and indulgent and supportive of her career, but fully capable of telling her where to get off. (In this way, I identify with Brenda Leigh.)
While Netflix is getting a lot of attention for its new original film “The Irishman,” I can’t seem to commit to a 3½-hour movie. I can recommend Prime Video’s “The Report,” in which Adam Driver plays real-life congressional staffer Daniel Jones, who devoted five years to investigating the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on terrorism suspects after 9/11.
It is a gruesome subject and the movie itself is more educational than entertaining. But since none of us is likely to read Jones’ 6,700-page report, it’s worth investing two hours to get a basic understanding of why traditional rapport-building techniques — the kind Brenda Leigh Johnson deploys to get confessions in “The Closer” — were abandoned in favor of torture-by-another-name.
Jones was an adviser on the film, and it is also based in part on a 2007 Vanity Fair article called “Rorschach & Awe,” by Katherine Eban. I don’t think I heard anything about it when it was first published, but it is a stunning piece of journalism. It turns out that torture will make suspects talk, but it won’t make them tell the truth.
The best exchange of dialogue in “The Closer” history:
Chief Will Pope: “What can I do to make you agree with me?”
Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson: “Stop being wrong.”
Email Gwen Moritz, editor of Arkansas Business, at GMoritz@ABPG.com and follow her on Twitter at @gwenmoritz. |