Heavy Spoilers: Trust-Respect-Lead
Squid Game, the visually stunning, mentally exhausting, emotionally horrifying Netflix show, has taken the world by a storm. Critical reception has been mixed. When creating an environment for employees to thrive becomes your all-consuming mission, you see leadership lessons everywhere. Be it in a park while watching kids play, or while watching a tv show that makes you question your existence. Here are some lessons I learnt while watching this show.?
1.?????Your team’s Uyir depends upon how many allies you have.
As alliances formed amongst the players when they realized no one was safe in the dormitory after lights out, a particular team’s strength was put to test. Their survival depended on trust.
In the same episode, Player 111 got special treatment and having inside information on the games, leveraged it to get into the strongest team regardless of their difference of opinion. Again, their survival depended on trust.
2.?????Every generation has something to learn from the other.?
In Episode 4, during the game ‘Tug of War’, you can see how different or similar each team was i.e Team 1 had all male players who were physically strong and Team 4 had a diverse demographic. Team 1 had an easy win and mocked Team 4 as they walked out, because of Team 4's assumed weakness of having women and elderly people in the team. However, Team 4 ended up winning purely because of Oh il-nam and Cho Sang-woo’s on the spot strategic planning. Both of whom belong to two completely different generations.
3.?????A leader doesn't have much to do in a properly functioning firm, except make life or death decisions on the spot.?
In spite of having excellent strategic plans, Team 4 almost succumbed to the fatal fall. In the last few minutes however, Cho Sang-woo’s improvised plan was agreed upon by the team and their trust in that call helped them walk away alive out of the game.
If the why behind your career/job is purely to earn a living, then your success will never be properly defined. Thinking where the VIPs came from, or why they were who they were today, makes me wonder how displaced their definition of success was during their youth.
Why do you wake up in the morning? Why do you go to work? Why does your firm exist? Food for thought.?
Rathi Perumal is the Founder/CEO of Uyir Engineering Inc., focused on establishing a culture within and across firms rooted in trust and respect.