What Leaders Can Learn From Stray Kids' Victory in Kingdom: Legendary War and GOT7's Departure
The value of creative freedom; STAY weeK (STAYK); The Tarantino & Malatang genre; The Great Resignation; and entrance-worthy location.
Friends of The Far Insights, I am confused.
After receiving DM responses on the similarities between B.I, G-Dragon & Jay Park, I’ve deduced that people resonate more with whenever I talk about stuff relating to K-world.
Undeniably, it is fun to talk about K-pop-culture. And people love reading about that because there's the entertainment factor involved.
It gave me ideas—should I niche down to only K-world-related insight? Or continue experimenting till I'm comfortable in one area?
Personally, I feel I am not qualified to talk about K-world only, as some of the stuff runs too deep and I still do not know much about the industry at large. Some of my friends still feed me with stories of K-world, and I am still surprised by how much I do not know. Every. Single. Time.
And what if I outgrow the K-world one day?
Exploring ‘life’ however, figuring out how to maneuver around it, and relating to the things I'm currently lovin’ (& it can be a Western/Malaysian series anytime; or a personal observation) is more of my thing, more of what I’m absolutely sure of.
But onto today’s insight…
Giving freedom/leeway to your subordinates
Inspired by my mother's occasional bits of leadership advice:
"As a leader, you cannot change/mold a person into the shape you think is good for them. You have to give them the freedom to do what they want and love, as long as they produce good results."
Deciding for subordinates every step of the way is called micro-managing. To a certain extent, it can be absolutely annoying. And it diminishes your subordinates' effort to give future problem-solving suggestions because you never even cared to implement any of their ideas in the first place.
They won't try more.
Or worse… they’ll leave!
This also reminded me of Stray Kids (abbreviated as SKZ), and GOT7.
Context: GOT7 is the 3rd generation Kpop boyband, formed by JYP Entertainment. Meanwhile Stray Kids, is the 4th generation Kpop boyband of the same company, formed in 2017. Fast forward Jan 2021, GOT7 has gone separate ways from JYP after a 7-year stint. Fast forward June 2021, SKZ was crowned as the M-net’s KINGDOM winner, and today, the very much talk of town.
Spot any similarities?
They’re formed by the same company.
If you know me in real life, you know I’ve been hopping from one group to another. And after quite a shocking five senses experience, I’ve decided to become a STAY1—I haven’t announced this in here yet so ✌🏼
And while I can give a million reasons to why I absolutely, stan Stray Kids (maybe I'll continue in part 2 cause there's too much to talk about)....
A few of them are:
They are self-producing idols. 90% of their songs are composed, and produced by SKZ’s producer unit, 3RACHA which is made up of leader Bang Chan, main rapper line Han & Changbin. There’s also the DANCERACHA unit, in charge of—you guessed right, self-choreographies.
They make it a point to also have fun experimenting with new music, even if it does not end up distributed through official streaming platforms.
They pay a tribute to the popular culture they love (like what I'm doing now with The Far Insights) in their works, but with a tinge of SKZ’s flavor—malatang2.
Bang Chan has always said in interviews that he wishes for stray kids to be known for their own genre and now more news articles are starting to call skz the pioneers of the mala taste genre
After perhaps the 10th time of watching this, I only found out that Felix was busy stealing the ‘ant’-sized of the tank before it enlarged to the ginormous tank centerpiece at the end! This made sense when Bang Chan said “we borrowed this from a little ant guy”—aka Marvel’s Antman wow right. 🤯
Side note: What's wrong with incorporating props in performances? If it makes the overarching storyline so much more sense, why not? We are all inspired by each other, some way or another. In this case, Ant Man, Deadpool, and…..
Coming back to why GOT7 left, and why Stray Kids won Kingdom:
It all goes back to the power of exercising creative freedom.
There were talks on how one of the reasons GOT7 left is because of the little creative freedom they had. Perhaps, it is this huge blow to JYPE that they lowered their guards down on newer groups like SKZ, passing the creative freedom baton on its whole to Bang Chan.
Fun fact: Unlike other groups in South Korea, SKZ group team members were all hand-picked by Bang Chan, not JYPE, and this was despite the fact that Lee Know and Felix were ousted from the survival show they participated prior to debuting. Woah isn't too much power like this is like, not permissible in kpop?
The creative freedom and trust they get from JYPE is also a huge drive to why SKZ keeps producing wow factor music that’s somehow meme-able; why they try so hard every time (click for proof: reality vs expectation), eventually leading them to their victory in Kingdom.
When you are given such a huge amount of trust, you would do anything in your power to retain that trust right?
Apparently, this performance is inspired by 300 and Lord of The Rings (and maybe more)? But all I see is Rhaegar Targaerhyun3 😵
It's easy to see the cues to why GOT7 left (despite what they claim in official media) JYPE; and why SKZ won (& very much deserved it) Kingdom: Legendary War.
There is an allure to self-ownership. And we, humans would go beyond leaps in regaining control and taking back our freedom.
It’s as simple as what if our country was controlled by outsiders? We would do anything in regaining our independence back, right?
This is a good point to remember for leaders out there.
When selecting new people into the club, inputs from the immediate subordinate should be taken into consideration. Give your immediate subordinate the power to choose who they wish to work with. Because in the future, the immediate superior will be working in tandem with the rookie, not you, the leader.
When handing tasks to subordinates, the common goal is the end result, not the process of getting the end results you want. Give your subordinates the freedom to handle a task. Unless you’re doing mathematics then I have no say to that.
And along the way, do not forget to HAVE FUN!
Taeyong of NCT is another singer that has talents in producing, but isn't given much power (yet) by SM Entertainment. 😴
Take it easy okay, leaders
Let your subordinates carry themselves and prove themselves to you. Your role is to guide, not to micromanage. If they strike you thrice, you decide…
Current obsession
In honor of STAY weeK,
Of course, this week’s current obsession is the amount of SKZ content I have been fed with 🥺
Crazy SKZ-penthouse family
Chan’s “I’m FOIVE”, Hyunjin’s sassiness, Felix’s Renegade, Leeknow’s beauty, Seungmin’s Park Jae-Eonized persona.. oh man I can’t even with these bunch of clowns.
The memeable NOEASY trailer.
Too much inside jokes in this trailer. But Han eating Felix’s brownies is the perfect representation of all STAYS!
Felix’s mullet.. and wink (timestamp: 1:20 your welcome)
Recently (half-) finished
If you went to film school, you’ll know this guy. If you’re like me back then, absolutely clueless to why Tarantino is a big name in the film scene, you better start watching his films!
But anyway, it is because his Filmworks—which have traces of his DNA—created a genre never existed in the Hollywood film world before. So… do yall see the resemblance to Malatang, SKZ’s own genre here? 😴
I had a mental trauma after sitting through a 2.5 hour seminar watching the amount of blood (ain’t my cup of tea) splattered in Inglorious Basterds.
This one was a long podcast, and I gave up somewhere at the mark 50:00. But there’s one bit that resonated with me: it is that the ‘flair of references’ in pop culture today is a product largely attributed to the pop cultures we grew up lovin’ in the past.
Hence why—again, Stray Kids went all out in honoring the pop culture they love! They are GEN Z, a generation that grew up with a bunch of pop culture!
Serious things
The pandemic is an eye-opening time to many people. Many folks have regained consciousness, realized what’s a priority and what’s not. And many, are hopping onto The Great Resignation.
If you are a leader, realize and work on the loopholes that need to be addressed to mitigate the high turnover rate. Be careful because you do not know who’s going to follow GOT7’s footsteps next in your team!
From Kitty City📍
Here’s a brilliant business idea, get a spot right at the entrance!
I’ve been meaning to try a local blended milkshake brand (not the one pictured below). But it is located on the topmost floor, at level 3. So I haven’t tried it, despite having been at this mall 3x since the shake’s establishment there.
I ended up getting this one instead, which was established way recently compared to the level 3’s blended milkshake. All because of its convenient location at the entrance.
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*Shoutout to Nia of Perceptive Madness for inspiring me to add this section & improve my email header. Check her out guys!
STAY: Stray Kids fandom name
Malatang/mala genre: Stray Kids’ very own genre, a genre that satisfies all five senses.
Rhaegar Targaer-hyunjin
This is such a fun issue, Farihah! Since I'm more of a GG stan (other than my ult BTS), I don't follow many boy groups, but SKZ has more than a few songs on my playlists. They're definitely a group worth listening to and following. As you said, they're self-producing idols, and I kinda have a soft spot for those idols who write their own music — no offense to those who don't. I think it takes a lot of bravery to showcase that to an audience because writing/composing is more intimate than singing (imho). Plus, Backdoor, Miroh, and Side Effects are such bops!
Also, you can make a section for K-pop issues within the larger The Far Insights newsletter — that'll keep them all in one spot, and you won't worry about moving on from your k-pop era (if that happens!).