Squid Game for Management Professionals — Part I

Lessons to learn from the South Korean Drama about Talent Acquisition

Squid Game (Korean: 오징어 게임; RR: Ojing-eo Geim) is a South Korean TV show — a survival drama based on a game, which is in fact a series of six childhood games with terrible consequences.

If you haven’t watched it yet, imagine getting killed for being bad at something that you do not even want to do. And I hope it from the bottom of my heart that imagining this did not remind you of your job! Anyways, Squid Game is basically an effort to represent the harsh realities of capitalism, which is apparently supposed to make you want to hate capitalism without having to understand it — it is capitalism for dummies who wish to remain dummies.

Regardless of what it is made for, what is important is that the game that forms the primary plotline of the show is designed to lead the participants to a relatively predictable end, which is their misery. What adds to the enjoyment of the VIPs, the rich capitalists who fund the game, is the suspense that unpredictably of every individual participant’s decision making has to offer.

Wanting to consolidate my take-aways from the show and to share them with everyone for the greater benefit, I have started this series of articles, where I will try to highlight the behavior patterns that is the game is designed to exploit, and what lessons managers and leaders can learn from them.

This is the first article of the series, and for the purpose of this article, I will be focusing on the process of induction of the players for the game, and see whether the process is effective and, if yes, what makes it effective.

Induction

Before the start of the game, it is critical to find people who have:

1. Financial Desperation: They have to be in desperate need of money to pay off their debts, to save their lives, their families, and so on. This is necessary for them to be interested in the game.
2. Close-to-None Self-Esteem: They have to have no sense of self worth — they must be convinced that they cannot make their ends meet on their own. This is necessary for them to choose the game over their lives outside the game.

Let’s discuss what steps might be involved in order to induct the people with above qualities to the game.

Step 1 — Headhunting: They have their requirements clear, all they need is hunting for the people that match the profile. This means that they must have their sources in banks and other departments or offices that would have access to financial records. They may have to locate these people on the roads by people who observe behaviors of everyone and identify those who appear to be desperate enough.

Step 2 — Evaluation: Once the candidates have been headhunted, they happen to meet a representative of the game in a local setting, like a station. That representative makes them an offer — to play Ddakji for money. Ddajki is a game in which there are 2 flat pieces of card or paper and a player has to hit one piece, placed on the floor, with another which they have to throw in order to make the piece on the floor to flip. Since they are playing it for money, for every turn that anyone fails to flip the piece on the floor, they have to give the other person 100,000 won, which is definitely impossible for the candidates to do. The acceptance of the offer is the indicator of the first quality in them — the financial desperation. To determine whether they have self-esteem, the representative offers to make it easy for them to continue playing. In order to continue playing, the candidates can exchange them having to pay up for their players with having to be slapped on their faces after each time they fail to flip the piece on the floor. A candidate with self esteem would not bear with this kind of a behavior for long. So if one keeps playing for quite some time, the representative is affirmative that the candidate has no or negligible self-esteem.

Image via Twitter/@daeggukk

Interestingly enough, till this point, the candidates are not even aware that they are in fact being evaluated for induction into a game. It is after the representative is sure that the candidate qualifies for the game that he makes a move.

Step 3 — Establishing Dominance: Now that the candidate has qualified, the next step is to make the candidate realize who has the control of whatever happens between the candidate and the representative. The representative shares with the candidate all about the financial situation of the candidate that the representatives knows about. The candidate, who is shocked by this disclosure, is at the very first instance scared, but is also curious.

In addition to just establishing dominance by his behavior, the representative also creates a sense of urgency in the mind of the candidate. Using the candidate’s life’s misery, he presents the participation in the game is a golden chance to change all that. So basically, he turns the candidate’s desire into his necessity, and then he also tells the candidate before handing over the card that there aren’t many spots left, which establishes the scarcity and limitedness of the chan. In light of Robert Cialdini's sources of influence, the authority and scarcity are at play here.

Step 4 — The Invitation: As soon as the representative is sure that the candidate is curious, he hands over to him a card with a number. This card is practically an invitation to the actual game. The candidate discovers that they have qualified for an event that they were not even aware of. But they are also made conscious of their financial desperation and low self-esteem, so now despite still having the option, the chances of making the decision in favor of giving the game a try are greater already.

Key Learnings

While looking to acquire talent, in order to increase your probability of success in cases of headhunting, you should:

1. Be Aware of What to Look For and How to Look For It! You should know in specific terms about what knowledge, skills or attitude the ideal candidate should have, and you should know about the clear and specific indicators and information sources that may show whether the candidate qualifies for the job or not.
2. Be Subtle! The candidate does not have to know that they are being evaluated until absolutely necessary. You should make the move only when you are satisfied that the candidate is the right fit. The element of surprise will make them consider the opportunity with greater curiosity.
3. Take the Control! Although the candidate has the choice to decide whether the want to join or not, yet at no point during your interaction with each other they should doubt your control over them. This is just impression management — as long as they are appalled by you, they will have a hard time in making a decision against your favor. That does not mean that you have to be aggressive in any way, you just have to be assertive.

Check out the other published parts of the series:

1. How can we increase the probability of success in cases of headhunting?
2. How to steer clear of ambiguity in building professional relationships with the help of contracts?
3. How to stay sensible while making decisions during the times of stress?
4. How to manage the lack of privilege with innovative thinking?
5. How to lead the battle against the challenges that seem enormous and unwinnable?
6. How to manage conflicts and win in win-lose situations?
7. What to expect from humans when they are at their worst?

Feel free to share your comments on the analysis, and do share it in your social and professional circles if you think this can benefit them!