Squid Game and the Unexpected Lesson on Diversity
Squid Game and the unexpected lesson on diversity
*SPOILER ALERT*
The Korean show Squid Game has taken Netflix by storm and is the most watched original show of all time on the media platform. For the uninitiated, it is a dystopian South Korean show which depicts (in graphic detail) what lengths hopeless people will go to when sufficiently incentivised. Think Battle Royale meets the Hunger Games for the heavily indebted!
One episode involved the contestants having to engage in a game of tug-of-war where losing would result in their imminent death. Unsurprisingly, given the stakes, the male contestants all sought big, brawny men to be on their respective teams.
However, Seong Gi-hun (the show’s protagonist), somehow found himself on a team with a frail elderly man, three diminutive women and one participant who had some fingers missing! And yet his team won against another that – based on conventional wisdom – should have beaten them easily. How, you ask? Well, they had a superior game strategy, namely:
- They put the right people in the right positions – a strong leader in the front to inspire confidence and someone strong and dependable in the back to anchor the team;
- Instead of trying to win based on brute force they used friction and gravity to their advantage; and
- They used their perceived weakness as an asset. At one point they even let go of the rope to confuse the other side and cause them to lose their footing.
Whether or not such tactics would actually work in a game of tug-of-war is beyond me, but I was enthralled with the wider lessons from this episode from a management perspective. For example, it highlighted how powerful a strong leader can be in setting the tone of an organisation, both internally and externally, as well as encouraging the right behaviours.
This led to my questioning the approach taken by organisations when recruiting or staffing people on projects etc. When discussing the merits of increasing diversity within organisations, I often receive comments such as, “but we need to be careful so as to ensure that we continue to have the best candidates for the role”, or some other statement to that effect. However, I am always left wondering how organisations can avoid groupthink of what amounts to “best” in these circumstances. Are the perceived weaknesses of certain candidates in fact strengths for them personally and organisations as a whole? For example, there is much discussion at present now on the benefits of having neurodiverse teams within organisations when managed effectively.
Bias, whether conscious or otherwise, affects everyone and this can result in us all being like teams in Squid Game looking for what we believe “good” to be in the workplace. This is in spite of the fact that there is ample research which shows that diverse and inclusive workplaces are more productive and profitable than their homogenous and more exclusive counterparts. It takes courage, strong leadership, planning and effective management for organisations to embrace difference and to do so successfully. So, let’s all take a leaf out of the Squid Game playbook and be bold in challenging our perception on who is the right “fit” for a role, and more strategic in considering how we can have successful diverse organisations.
Written by Fudia Smartt