Business Coaching

The strategies used by people on Survivor can be used in your office.

Everyone has at least one “job from hell” story.

If you don’t — count yourself lucky.

What the people who have had a job from hell know is that going to work is similar to going into battle, or a war zone, where you’ve got to rely on strategy, not just skill, in order to make it through another day and come back the next.

But if you’ve got no experience as a veteran or fighting on an actual battlefield, don’t worry: these same strategies can be seen in action on an episode of Survivor.

Yes, Survivor can teach you how to act in the workplace — if it’s a tense workplace — to, well, survive. Take a look at Spirit magazine’s first few points:

“1. Align yourself with the power person Survivor, like most offices, isn’t fair. Some of the nicest people go home first, and some of the sleaziest survive. It’s not about truth and justice, it’s about power, and in most offices the boss has all the votes. This isn’t true in every workplace—some companies have employees anonymously rate their managers and oust low scorers, and a teacher friend of mine can tell off his boss because he’s protected by a union. The rest of us need to identify who has the power—even if it’s someone as rotten as sock-burning, water-draining Russell, a finalist in season 19—and appear to be on his or her side.

2. Don’t fight the power—work it Most Survivor winners have been champions at charm and guile. I started at Crazy World Inc. horribly naive; I thought that honesty was the best policy, which just lead me to trouble in the conference room. Instead, I had to learn how to manipulate the unhinged bosses for my own needs. This made me feel like a sham until one of my mentors said to me, “Pretend you’re playing a part.” OK. I tried not to let the people who annoyed me know it. I tried to smile to their faces and make them think I’d never vote them out. I tried to keep my big mouth shut. When I did something well, I told them it was all thanks to them.

3. Blend in with the crowd Anyone who’s watched more than two seasons ofSurvivor comes to realize that, as they like to say in Japan, the nail that sticks its head out gets hit with a hammer. On Survivor, the first person voted off is almost always someone who is unusual in some way: older, more religious, more eccentric. People like people who are the most like them. If you stick out from the group—if you like to go sit by yourself on the beach, if you have strong opinions about how to build the shelter, if you’ve got a weird haircut (season 19’s mulleted Shambo) or tell long, strange stories (vainglorious, tattooed orchestra conductor Coach)—you could be exposing yourself to the group’s wrath and allowing yourself to be seen as a threat. Much better to be useless than different. The person fired fastest at Crazy World Inc. was bubbly and smart, but she talked too much about her love of roller derby for the boss’s comfort. Many a million-dollar winner of Survivorwas the best at lurking in the background and making minimal waves.”

Need more survival skills? Read the full article here.

If employee morale is down or your business environment isn’t the greatest, consider hiring a business coach to see if there’s anything you can improve.