Squid Game for Management Professionals — Part VI

Lessons to learn from the fourth game about Conflict of Interest and Negotiation

In the sixth article of the series, we will analyze the fourth game of the competition — Marbles.

As kids, a lot of us must have seen and played with marbles — there are different games that kids can play with marbles, a very common one being where one has to throw a marble trying to hit the ones placed on the floor at a distance.

Marbles

Before the game begins, the players get instructed that they will be playing the game in teams of two, and that both the players have to agree on playing with each other, shaking hands with each other to show their agreement. In the ten minutes given for choosing partners, players go up to others, convincing them to accept them as their partners.

Since the game is not yet disclosed, players do not know what to look for in their partners while choosing them so that they have greater chance of winning the game. The assumption, obviously, is that their partners should be strong or at least smart.

As their are 39 players in total, 1 gets left behind while the rest form 19 teams in total.

The 19 teams are taken to an arena that looks like a simple residential area with houses built on streets. Each player is handed over a bag containing ten marbles.

The twist in this particular game is that there is no game as such. Players have to obtain the the ten marbles of their teammates, and possession of twenty marbles is going to make player win over the other one left with no marbles. This means that for the first time, an individual win is dependent upon an individual defeat. So in order to survive, every player has to ensure that their teammate loses — and the one who loses will eventually die of course. This is emotionally a challenge especially because the players had chosen partners with the assumption of winning together and not competing each other. This causes a very huge conflict of interest. However, since they have to come up with a game of their own to acquire the other ten marbles, they cannot use violence. And this has to be done within thirty minutes.

Courtesy: Netflix — Squid Game

Players are shown to use foolery, deceit, sacrifice, and, in some cases, fair chance to decide who gets to live.

Out of 38 players who participate, 16 survive, making the success rate of about 42.1%. The 1 who gets left behind when teams were being made gets to live.

Conflict of Interest

First and foremost, a conflict of interest is a situation where the interests of two parties conflict with each other such that what is favorable for one of them is unfavorable to the other. In the corporate world, such situations are avoided by making this clause a part of the employment contract where an employee agrees that in any such situation, they shall prioritize the interest of the employer over their individual interest.

In terms of teams or relationships as well, the preferred and recommended approach is to prioritize the interest of the relationship over personal interests — the relationship being a partnership, a marriage, a friendship, a team membership, a community membership, citizenship, or whatever.

In this particular case, the problem of the conflict of interest is made more complex by making it certain that the relationship that the teammates hold with each other is not going to survive anyways, as at least one of them will certainly die, as if none of the wins, both of them will die. So the only interests in conflict are individual and personal, and that too with people they had chosen to play the game together with. So everyone’s individual survival instinct kicks in.

Negotiation

Since you know by now that there is no mutual interest in play between you and the other party, you have to decide what is your desired outcome of the situation. In most cases it might be your personal win, but there may be cases where you want the other person to win . You may be able to relate to the cases where you think of your conflicts of interest with your closed ones, especially parents or loved ones, and those on which you depend, like your star employee or someone who helps you financially. Your instinct may be to make sure that your interests get served, but you might sometimes wish to see them get what they want even when that comes at a cost of losing them. Once you have decided what you want, you can then invite the other person into discussion, where you decide to sell what you want.

In this particular setting, we know that the nature of conflict is such that it is almost impossible to even start a negotiation with them in order to convince them to prioritize your interest above theirs. So that is why you are needed to design a “game”. A game, by definition, would be a fair system of deciding who should win. Here, however, it just has to appear to be fair enough for the other person to play that game while their loss being almost certain.

How to do that? You will have to get to know yourself as well as the other person, as you have to identify the competences that you have but the other person does not. Keeping that in mind, when you will design the game, you will keep it fair, knowing that you do have an advantage over the other person.

In the TV show, multiple teams are shown to be playing a game where one has to guess whether the number of marbles in the hand of the other one is even or odd. A game like that has a fair probability of anyone winning. That is why we can see even apparently smarter players losing at it. In one team which is shown to continue to play the game, one player starts to cheat the other person exploiting them for having dementia. One other team that starts with this game quits the game because one of the player is on the verge of losing it. The player then fools the other one by sending them on a walk, making them think that they are not being played.

Interestingly, the team that is shown to have the most evil players plays games that are completely fair and not manipulative at all. The win in this case is purely based on luck. The only example of fair play that is shown is committed by the people one would expect being unfair.

Another interesting event is where a team member deliberately loses, in order to allow the other person to live. This indeed is sacrifice, but is also made by manipulating the other person to initially believe otherwise, as the player is aware that this will be easier than convincing the other person to let them lose.

One nice event that they could have shown would have been a case where the players decide that if the other one lives and wins, what they can do for the one who dies. Situations that appear to have only win-lose outcome, as in one can either just win or lose, can in most cases be converted into win-win situations, where both parties can take away what they want. If players could have looked at the situation holistically, the chances of anyone surviving the whole competition were not great. So in a situation like this, accepting the loss gracefully in case of losing a fair game could have been an example of collaboration worth showing. Reflect on whatever relationships recently got messed up in your life and ask yourself whether it was absolutely impossible to create a win-win. If the answer is “no”, keep thinking!

Key Learnings

This particular game by design does not teach about resolving conflicts or how to negotiate normally, but it just shows how far people can go in desperate circumstances. About being in such a situation and deciding how to get out of it, we need to remember the following:

1. When a bigger mutual interest is off the table, people tend to get ruthless because of their survival instinct. To avoid losing, we have to be very vigilant in studying the behaviors of the other person(s).
2. The one who takes control of the situation earlier acquires a certain advantage. The one who lags behind has a greater chance of being influenced.
3. Apparent win-lose situations can be transformed into win-win situations. Be as much fair as possible. Even in cases where the only possible outcome is win-lose, try to create a win for everyone.

To sum up, it is not uncommon to be trapped in situations where what interests the other appears to mess up things for you. But it is in such situations that you are needed to evaluate things intelligently, in order to achieve what is the best for all.

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!