How the workplace helps you win Survivor

0:01Carmen D. Andreu:NPR.

0:12Chris D. McKinney:Here's how Yulakuan usually introduces himself in social situations.

0:16Penny A. Hill:Just usually say I work at Google. And if they ask me more questions, I don't know, I kind of feel weird about saying what I do. And if they really like press me on like, well, I don't know, what is your title? It's like, well, I'm like a VP there.

0:29Natalie Anderson:Yeah, I mean, Yul says he's a pretty introverted guy. And that actually might be surprising for people who know him from something he did back in 2006. It comes down to one vote left.

0:42Penny A. Hill:The winner of Survivor Cook Islands.

0:47Chris D. McKinney:That's right. Yul Kwan is one of 47 people on the planet who have won the legendary reality TV show Survivor. This is Legendary Economics Podcast, the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong.

1:02Natalie Anderson:And I'm Darian Woods. Survivor is roughly halfway through its 50th season. And one way to look at this long-running reality TV series is as a microcosm of the workplace. Sometimes there's collaboration and sometimes there's scheming.

1:18Chris D. McKinney:Yes, there are complex social dynamics at play and plenty of game theory. So today on the show, three previous Survivor winners tell us about their careers before the show and the skills they learned on the job that helped them come out on top.

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2:36Chris D. McKinney:If you've never seen Survivor before, here's the basic premise. You take about 20 strangers and maroon them on an island. They have to work together for food, water, and shelter. They're competing in physical challenges, and they're recorded 24-7 and edited for maximum TV drama.

2:54Natalie Anderson:During the season, the contestants start voting each other off the island. And then when there are only a couple of people left, all of the eliminated contestants vote on the winner. The prize is$1 million. And there's lying involved, manipulation, plenty of social engineering.

3:11Chris D. McKinney:And for Yule, at least, some game theory. You know, strategy and trying to maximize results.

3:17Penny A. Hill:One thing I used is a strategy called Tit for Cat. You start off being nice, and as long as the other person's nice, you keep being nice. But you don't take crap, right? If the other person tries to hurt you, you retaliate. But if the other person starts working with you again, you don't hold grudge and you start cooperating with them again.

3:36Chris D. McKinney:Before competing on Survivor, Yule was a management consultant at McKinsey. Other contestants have been cops, firefighters, office workers, and surgeons.

3:44Natalie Anderson:Kyle Frazier, the winner of Survivor 48, was an attorney before the show, and his legal training was useful on Survivor. He told us that in law school around five years ago, he got to defend a client at trial, which is rare for a law student to do. In his opening argument at that trial, he just owned it.

4:02Carmen D. Andreu:I'm a law student. I haven't even studied evidence yet. I didn't say that. But I made clear to them that I care about this case and that I'm going to do my best to advocate for my client. I think that we connected with the jury more than the seasoned prosecutor who had had probably 15, 20 years under rebelling at that time.

4:18Natalie Anderson:Years later, Kyle had to present something like a closing argument on Survivor. And remember, he had to make his case to everyone he had helped vote off earlier in the season. Kyle decided to use the same strategy. He came totally clean.

4:32Carmen D. Andreu:And so I had to make clear that I care about each and every one of you, that you saw exactly who I am as a person, but at the end of the day, the allegiances that I have to my fiancé, now wife back home, and my family trump everything. And I hope you can understand that. And that's my pitch.

4:46Chris D. McKinney:Survivor is a complex social game. Winning takes navigating fragile interpersonal dynamics and building trust with people who have a million-dollar incentive to lie to you.

4:56Natalie Anderson:Savannah Louie worked as a TV station reporter before winning last year's Survivor 49. She says the interpersonal skills she honed during her career came in handy on Survivor.

5:07Chris D. McKinney:I've been unintentionally training for Survivor for the past decade because of my work as a journalist. And so I thought that I could use those people skills to get the right people to trust me. The right people. Because again, much of Survivor involves lying. So the last thing you want to do is think someone is your ally when in fact they're conspiring to oust you. Here's Savannah on an episode of Survivor putting the screws on someone she thought was planning on voting her out. I know Christina wants me gone so bad. So I'll just be real. Like, I am someone who's very direct. If I want to know who you're voting for, I'm going to ask you, who are you voting for?

5:44Chris D. McKinney:Who else are you considering? Like, who else are you considering, guys?

5:48Natalie Anderson:Savannah told us that her pointed question came right from her reporter's toolkit.

5:52Chris D. McKinney:So one of the things that I learned as a journalist is to be very direct with people when you're questioning them. She was so flustered. And I could tell in that moment, she's obviously going against me or my allies. She's someone who I can't trust.

6:04Natalie Anderson:So we've now heard from survivor winners who were a management consultant, an attorney, and a TV reporter. All professions that hinge on direct communication and relationship building.

6:14Chris D. McKinney:Now, one of the more common professions among survivor winners is protective services. That's according to an analysis from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Protective services includes cops, firefighters, and security guards. And in fact, one of the two people who have won Survivor twice came from this background.

6:31Natalie Anderson:So this seems pretty intuitive, you know, when you think about the physical stamina and survival skills needed to thrive on a desert island.

6:39Chris D. McKinney:Yeah, you don't learn those in podcasting.

6:40Natalie Anderson:My mic lifting muscles are getting pretty strong.

6:44Chris D. McKinney:Okay, Vidarian, here's a plot twist. The BLS says the most common profession for a Survivor winner is actually management. You know, boardroom folks and executives, CEOs and VPs. Plus people like Survivor 13 winner Yul Kwan, the former management consultant.

7:01Penny A. Hill:Survivor is basically a show about group dynamics and interpersonal relationships. It's about interacting with other people and influencing them, forging alliances and getting people aligned behind a goal and a strategy and executing against it. And that's basically what management is.

7:19Chris D. McKinney:And Yul told our producer Vito that those management skills were especially crucial in negotiations. Being able to understand when people are responding due to pressure as opposed to how they would normally behave if they were in character.

7:33Penny A. Hill:And then using that in the context of like negotiations and just trying to like make sure, hey, you know what, let's lower the temperature in this room.

7:41Carmen D. Andreu:Have there been any moments in your professional life where you've been like, oh man, if I were on Survivor, here's how I would deal with this?

7:48Penny A. Hill:You mean like if I could vote this person off the island? I would. Yeah, sure. If I could have a secret hidden vote and just be like, all right, this person is like gone from ever having to deal with this person.

8:01Chris D. McKinney:Do you like his idea for a new kind of 360 review, Darian?

8:04Natalie Anderson:That does sound terrifying. I'm quite happy with my catch-ups with my manager.

8:10Chris D. McKinney:No, light the torches. We're holding a vote, Darian.

8:13Natalie Anderson:And that's also why perhaps that Yule prefers most of the time the real world.