Is Squid Game Just Another Way to View Office Politics?
Here’s what you can learn from Squid Game to help you maneuver those office politics and support your professional growth.
*Spoiler alerts below if you haven’t watched Squid Game*
If you have seen the Korean hit Squid Game on Netflix, it may resemble a bad office culture — possibly even your office culture. Office politics are games that, in some offices, whether in person or remote, adults act like children. It’s disheartening to work in an office such as this, but I am going to share with you what you can do to better play the office politics in a respectful manner that won’t get you stepped on or revert you back into childhood.
If you haven’t seen Squid Game, the series focused on players competing for money by playing childhood games since they were in financial distress.
There was a lot of knowledge hoarding and secret-keeping by players figuring the games out in advance giving them a competitive edge. Even childhood friends weren’t entirely open about what they knew with talking to each other.
The catch was that if a player messed up in any of these games, they were immediately “eliminated.”
The winner was literally the last one standing.
Have you played these games before?
There were six games: Red Light, Green Light, Sugar Honeycombs, Tug-of-War, Marbles, Glass Bridge, and the titular Squid Game. Each required a certain level of knowledge to be successful.
1) Red Light, Green Light required running when “green light” was called and stopping still when “red light” was called. Survival was based on getting across a finish line in five minutes while playing Red Light, Green Light.
Knowledge required: How to run and be able to stop all motion on “red light” or find someone bigger to stop behind.
2) Sugar Honeycombs involved each player choosing a shape in advance, but not being aware of what the shapes represented. The players were each given a tin with a hardened sugar cookie with a shape — a star, triangle, circle, or umbrella — that had to be extricated from the cookie without breaking the shape itself.
Knowledge required: How to remove the shape without breaking the shape itself. In Squid Game, players used a needle, lighter, and even saliva, although not all do so successfully.
3) Tug-of-War involved two teams pulling a rope from each other to pull one of the teams off a ridge to fall to their deaths.
Knowledge required: How to pull the rope against a stronger team with foot placement, handgrip, and bending back at almost a 90-degree angle using bodyweight and stance to do the work.
4) Marbles were played in teams of two with each player given ten marbles and the objective to get twenty marbles without the use of force. No real rules. Each team agreed on the rules of their game of marbles.
Knowledge required: Understanding risks as a game of chance, experience rolling marbles, and psychology to talk to the other competitor into giving away their marbles.
5) Glass Bridge required players to cross the bridge not knowing if the squares they chose to use to cross the bridge were regular glass or tempered glass.
Knowledge required: Understanding how to tell the difference between the two types of glass visually and audibly.
6) Squid Game was a game that was played by the final two players. They had played it together so they both knew the rules. It was just a matter of survival.
Knowledge required: Recalling how each other moved as kids. In the end, one player gave up allowing the other to win.
One thing that was very apparent as I was watching it was that knowledge based on experience was key in surviving any of these games.
Now, why is Squid Game like office politics?
In the office, these games are played differently. They are not so obvious that the games are being played. You can be miserable daily if you don’t understand how to play these games, but here’s how you can play to win without making others miserable in the process.
1) Red Light, Green Light may include those in the office who race to get to the office or make appear online first and offline last. No real work is required for this. Only the belief the person is there doing the work.
How to win at this game in the office: By consistently doing the work to progress a project forward, staying ahead of schedule, not overspending, and ensuring the best quality will put you head and shoulders above the rest. What really seals the deal is ensuring you track what you’ve done and write in a report — weekly, monthly, or performance-related. If you don’t have a regular reporting occurrence, keep your manager in the loop by providing short status updates that are the length of an email preview pane.
2) Sugar Honeycombs may include understanding how the C-suite likes to be briefed and how they want their presentations created or white papers written. It may also include making managers happy by being the first in with a weekly report each week.
How to win at this game in the office: Read the company’s standard operating procedures and business processes. Bookmark them for easy reference. Locate templates in advance. Pay attention to questions asked during briefings, presentations, and meetings listening to the answers, especially answers that require deep dives.
3) Tug-of-War may include when the office suck-up goes to chit-chat with the boss keeping everyone else from accessing necessary knowledge to accomplish a task.
How to win at this game in the office: First of all, don’t force conversations. It just makes things uncomfortable and obvious to everyone that you are seeking attention. Small talk to encouraged. As an introvert, I have a difficult time making small talk but am comfortable talking business if the conversation goes that way. In the office, you should make a point of talking to everyone. You don’t have to have long, drawn-out conversations. Making a point to acknowledge another person is important in understanding the office daily hum and opening communication. In a remote environment, this is a little more challenging. Speak up during collaboration calls as appropriate and reach out to coworkers via phone rather than message them if they are available.
4) Marbles may include when a co-worker holds onto a part, an important document, or any of the office supplies you need to complete a job. It’s pettiness and greed here or just ignorance of what others need.
How to win at this game in the office: Do your due diligence in finding what you need. If you can find it where it is supposed to be located, ask the person who attains it for the office. Make a point of asking who got the last of whatever it is and then ask that person if they used it all. If they didn’t, ask for what they aren’t using. They will likely give you what they have.
5) Glass Bridge may be played moving your way up the promotional ladder. You need to have a plan and recognize how to climb the rungs without falling. You also can’t wait for someone to reveal the path for you since your time may run out before the person in front of you moves.
How to win at this game in the office: This is where you may want to seek out a mentor. Find someone who’s climbed the rungs and achieved what they went after. Take note of others you see moving up the ladder and the path they took. Their performance growth may be based on their work ethic, customer feedback, how your work with your team or even the trust senior leadership has in you. Finally, increase your skills while learning what the organization does rather than only what the area you work in supports.
6) Squid Game is most likely played by the people who have been in the office the longest against the new hires. The longer they have been there, the more they know about office politics, organizational history (good and bad), and corporate knowledge.
How to win at this game in the office: This will be the hardest game to play. The best way to approach it is to start with a tactical silence. Listen first before speaking. Don’t come into your job with the idea to change things before you’ve heard the history of what’s been done before and how it came to be. Meet as many people as you can and learn what they do so you can have real conversations with them which can lead to collaboration, problem-solving, and a truly pleasant work experience.
Childish behavior through games, Squid or office, will continue to exist. Understanding the rules, as well as the knowledge of how to maneuver or gain required experience of office politics will be a daily challenge, but you can succeed. Remember that when playing these office games, you don’t win by making others lose, but by bringing others up with you.
