There are at least two games in the world.
One can be called a finite game and the other is an infinite game.
Limited games aim to win, while unlimited games aim to continue the game. ”
This definition comes from the best-selling book "The Game of Finite and Infinite" by Professor James Cass of the Department of Religious History at New York University.
In my opinion, the recent super hot "squid game" is a limited game like the workplace.
The only differences are:
The "Squid Game" is nothing more than a well-designed high-level scam, and even if you are the winner in the end, it is nothing more than entertainment for the capital behind the scenes.
In the workplace, regardless of success or failure, you can become your own "hero";
Source: Korean drama "Squid Game"
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="169" >01 Workplace Games & "Squid Games"</h1>
"Squid Game" tells the story of hundreds of people who are trapped in their lives and participate in 6 real life and death battle royale games for tens of billions of won in prize money.
Simple and rough rules of the game, tense and exciting mutual temptations, revealing the black metaphor of human nature.
Many people say that after watching this play, they no longer believe in human nature, but I think that seeing the evil of human nature can more cherish the goodness of human nature.
Moreover, compared to "The Hunger Games", which also dies once lost, this drama is more like a cruel workplace extreme survival game.
For example, a person who wears red clothes and has a "circle, triangle, and square" on his face is a metaphor for a chain of management hidden in society:
Ordinary people who have access to other people's resources and opportunities → hierarchical management who only know how to enforce the rules → the highest decision makers who decide on so-called fairness and resource allocation;
Another example: the male protagonist is an old good man who always suffers losses, and the villain Shang Yu, who was once a bully but was chased for debts, is an unscrupulous elite;
There are also naïve workers, strong and murderous leaders, old people who have dedicated their lives to the company, but who are full of experience but are left to fend for themselves...
The superiors are strategizing, acquiescing to the fight, while maintaining the stability and balance of this ecological circle by various means.
The money jar hanging in the air, like a pie drawn by the boss, seems to be within reach, but it can never be touched.
The inferior ones, for the sake of profit and survival, eat the weak and compete viciously.
All the plots that occur in the play, in the real workplace, will appear in different scenes and in different forms, but in most cases, losing is just out, and will not involve life and death.
Because none of us came to work because we owed a blood debt, but just paid off a mortgage, and we didn't need to gamble our lives on it.
But if you think about it, life is a game of warm boiled frogs that don't die easily.
How to create infinite possibilities in the finite rules is what we need to think about.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="54" >02 Work hard vs. Work smart</h1>
The first level of "Squid Game" is a "one-two-three wooden man" game that we all played when we were children.
Some people hear the password and ignore it, they know to rush forward, and the result is the fastest to run and the fastest to die.
In real life, there are similarities: after getting the task, I don't even understand the rules and rush into it.
That's why some people work very hard, but they don't seem to be able to do it.
I once did an outdoor team building for the sales executive team of a Fortune 500 company. The rule of the game at that time was to go to the village to find food and find the most group to win.
After announcing the rules of the game, before the words had fallen, they saw everyone running away, and only one team stood still. The captain led everyone to sit on the floor, discussing the strategy first, and then looking for it separately.
In the end, this group recovered the most food.
Duan Yongping, chairman of BBK Group, has a famous saying: "The real masters dare to compete for the world after the world."
What does that mean? Just don't think that doing too much, doing fast you will win, and spending time on the right thing is the real master.
Therefore, one of the criteria for measuring the maturity of a professional person is: do you know how much effort to spend in a place?
Don't stumble where you shouldn't spend your effort, and feel free where you should spend your mind.
That's the difference between Work Hard vs. Work Smart.
In the second level of Squid Games, participants need to use an embroidery needle to completely remove the shape of sugar, and if they accidentally break it, they will game over. But in fact, no matter how carefully buckled, the sugar cake may also be broken.
Many people are always cautious in dealing with people and things in the workplace, thinking that as long as they do not go wrong, they will definitely win.
In fact, recklessness does not allow you to win, nor can you simply be cautious.
Because you probably didn't grasp the rules of the game at all, but just cautiously walked in the wrong direction.
A friend of mine was just promoted a while ago to global executive vice president of a Fortune 500 company, in charge of the global marketing department. As soon as the news was announced, his American colleagues were stunned.
To know that the marketing department is a position with high language and cultural requirements, everyone did not expect that after the original American boss retired, this position was actually taken by a Chinese colleague.
Outsiders must think he is "lucky", but I listened to him talk about how he got along with his boss and what key projects he had implemented around the world in the past few years, and I could see that he knew how to brush out his sense of existence while doing things, and every time he brushed a little, it was basically step by step.
All games have their own rules, and mastering the rules of the game has already won half of them.
If you don't understand the rules, you will feel that others are "lucky", "thick black", "engaged in wrists", in fact, people are just familiar with the rules of the game.
And the so-called rules of the game are: find out what problem you want to solve?
Albert Einstein said, "If I had 1 hour to answer a question that would determine my life or death, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and then 5 minutes solving it." ”
Just like the game of the second level of the sugar cake in "Squid Game", if you can transform your thinking and change the problem from how to cut out the sugar cake in the middle to how to let the sugar cake outside get rid of it, you will think of the last way for the male protagonist: lick with his tongue.
This friend of mine knows that if he wants to go further, he can't just do a good job of the part he is responsible for, but also must jump out of the original "vision", put himself at a higher strategic level, build strategic contacts, and promote strategic projects...
However, most people in the workplace prefer to mask strategic laziness with tactical diligence.
The end result is a wild run on the wrong path.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="171" >03 Breaking the rules of the game is the king</h1>
In "Squid Game", Shang Yu hesitated for a moment after analyzing the rules of the game, but still did not tell his teammates the rules of the game he knew.
Because he knows that these teammates who are now good friends with him are also his potential opponents, and they must meet in a narrow way when the game is going to the end, so it is better not to make any friends now.
Déjà vu, right?
Although in the workplace, there is no such extreme setting as in the play: losing = dying. But we've all met some people who use unobtrusive means to get resources.
Although these people are also well versed in the rules of the game, they can only continue to be involuted and involved in this game defined by others.
Because they see work as a "limited game." The only goal of the work is to "win".
For example: get a business, get a "title", the company successfully listed, and so on.
In this way, it is bound to fall into the binary opposite thinking of "you die and I live" and "you have me and I have nothing".
"Limited games take place in the middle of the world.
The fact that it must be limited in time, space, and quantity implies that there is something opposed to a boundary.
Each limited game has its exterior.
Unless there is a wider space, a longer period of time, and more possible participants, the so-called limited cannot be discussed. ”
- "The Game of Finite and Infinite"
Limited game participants play within the boundaries and in accordance with the rules of the game prescribed by others;
The participants of the infinite game play "horrizon".
They understand the rules of the game in order to eventually break the rules and establish new rules.
So, if you think of work as an "infinite game," work is no longer passive participation, nor is it designed to become a so-called "winner," but to constantly create new possibilities for yourself and for others.
These constantly emerging possibilities will continue to expand their "boundaries".
Work has become a tool for continuous improvement and growth.
——Written at the end -
If you look at life as a "limited game" one after another, you will be tempted by "wealth", "status", "fame" and fall into a state of exhaustion.
You don't want any uncertainty and want to make your life script a "success story."
And when you see life as an "infinite game", breaking boundaries, letting go of the desire for "titles", and accepting the possibilities that life brings;
In this way, you hope that your life script is a "story of growth".
Regardless of success or failure, you can become a hero in your own story.
The past is not in love, the future is not welcomed, the present is not mixed ...
P.S. The Squid Game is a contemporary guide to corporate team building and is recommended for HR and executives to read it over and over again.