Highly recommend reading the book “The Infinite Game” by Simon Sinek, which offers a framework for leading with an infinite mindset. The fleeting thrills of a promotion earned or a tournament won fade quickly. However, in pursuit of a Just Cause we will commit to a vision of a future world so appealing that we will build it week after week, month after month, year after year. Although we do not know the exact form this world will take, working toward it gives our work and life meaning. Leaders who embrace an infinite mindset build stronger, more innovative, more inspiring organizations. Ultimately, they are the ones who lead us into the future.
Simon Sinek is the author of “Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action” and “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t“, “Together Is Better: A Little Book of Inspiration” and “Find Your Why: A Practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team“, which have helped organizations around the world inspire their people to reach new heights. Sinek is working to build a world in which the vast majority of us will wake up inspired, feel safe at work, and return home fulfilled at the end of the day.
I highly recommend this book. The key points are meant as a preview and not a replacement for the original work. If you are intrigued after reading this, please consider purchasing the original book to get the full experience as the author intended it to be.
Key Points
- Finite games, like football or chess, have known players, fixed rules and a clear endpoint. The winners and losers are easily identified. Infinite games such as business or politics, or life itself, have players who come and go, there are known and unknown players, there are no exact rules or metrics and rules are changeable (though there may be conventions or laws that govern how the players conduct themselves) and its has no defined endpoint. There are no winners or losers, only ahead and behind.
Finite players in a business context misunderstands which game their in, and will claim i.e. that their the best. Well, the best in what sense? Revenues? Market share? Contribution margin? Number of employees? Number of offices? What metric are they referring to? Did all the players of the game of business agree upon this metric, and within which timeframe? Thus, companies can arbitrary declare themselves as number one in anything they want, if they set the standards and the time frames.
So, how do we play to succeed in an infinite game? The book offers a framework for leading with an infinite mindset. Rewards such as a promotion earned or a tournament won, fades quickly. However, in pursuit of a Just Cause, we will commit to a vision of a future world so appealing that we will continue to build it. Although we do not know the exact form this world will take, working toward it gives our work and our life meaning.
Sinek argues that leaders who embrace an infinite mindset build stronger, more innovative, more inspiring organizations. Ultimately, they are the ones who lead us into the future. - Infinite games are journeys, not events.
- In a finite game, the game ends when its time is up and the players remains to play another day. In an infinite game, the game lives on while the players’ time runs out. The players usually drops out of the game when they run out of the will and/or resources to keep playing i.e. through bankruptcy or merge/acquisition.
- In the infinite game, the true value of an organization cannot be measured by the success it has achieved based on a set of arbitrary metrics over arbitrary time frames. The true value of an organization is measured by the desire others have to contribute to that organization’s ability to keep succeeding, not just during the time they are there, but well beyond their own tenure. While a finite-minded leader works to get something from their employees, customers and shareholders in order to meet arbitrary metrics, the infinite-minded leader works to ensure that their employees, customers and shareholders remain inspired to continue contributing with their effort, their wallets and their investments. Players with an infinite mindset want to leave their organizations in better shape than they found them (“the boy/girl scout rule”).
- Infinite game leaders do not trust their people to follow the rules. They trust people to know when it makes sense to break them.
- Infinite players play to keep playing. In business, that means building an organization that can survive its leaders. They also play for the good of the game, which means seeing beyond the bottom line (as we see to today an increasing amount of companies now focus on the “triple bottom line”). Whereas a finite-minded player makes products they think they can sell to people, the infinite-minded player makes products that people want to buy. The former is primarily focused on how the sale of those products benefits the company, while the latter is primarily focused on how the products benefit those who buy them (customer at the heart).
- The infinite-minded player expects that there will be surprises and is prepared to be transformed by them. They embrace the freedom of play and are open to any possibility that keeps them in the game. Instead of looking for ways to react to what has already happened, they look for ways to do something new. An infinite perspective frees us from fixating on what other companies are doing, which allows us to focus on a larger vision. Instead of reacting to how new technology will e.g. challenge our business model, those with infinite mindsets are better able to foresee the potential applications of new technology.
- There are often several finite games within an infinite game. It is the difference between a goal and a vision.
- Infinite game: Place of the vision and mission. “Why” we exist and do what we do. The never changing values, lies here. Inherently difficult to measure. This part should be run by the visionary, and the CEO (or CVO: Chief Visionary Officer) should be such a person. A good vision is about knowing where you are heading, but not knowing how far away it is. However, it should be so ambitious that it’s inspires people, and so far away that for all practical purposes we’ll never get there. This is what makes the journey towards that vision, that ideal. Constant refinement. Continuous improvement. Kaizen. We want to stand for something. We want our efforts to count towards something.
However, if we start progressing so much towards our vision that it starts to feel like it’s within our grasp, then we should readjust our vision so that it once again feels almost unattainable and continues to inspire us. Sinek argues that innovation is born out of struggle and resourcefulness that you’re forced to figure out how to progress towards a vision that seems unachievable.
We want to focus on trends. How can we ensure positive trends over time, rather than arbitrary metrics measured at arbitrary dates? (Penalizing people for missing such arbitrary goals diverging focus from what’s important, leads to unwanted behavior. It’s counterproductive.)
Imagine running a marathon, and you get this great feeling. Then you keep running marathons and at the end of your life you ask yourselves why am I running all these marathons..? Your efforts needs to contribute to something, in order to fill you with a sense of purpose. - Finite game: Place of the “What”, what is in our interests. It is inherently tangible, and easy to measure. This part is run by the operator, often the COO. This person should help the CEO and the rest of the company progress towards the vision in the best possible way.
- The goal is to run all our decisions through our values, through our purpose or cause first, then through our interests.
- When you run a company based on your interests, while ignoring your values you make decisions in a vacuum and will often end up spending a lot of time reacting to your competitor landscape. This may lead you to hire people based on e.g. their resumes (great people, but perhaps with a completely different set of values). After a while, you may end up with a broken culture and nobody knows what you stand for.