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If we choose the path to Fulfillment, The journey will be long. There will be times in which we must watch our step There will be times we can stop to enjoy the view we keep going. we keep going. Crowds gather to join us on the journey. And when our lives are over, those who joined us on the path to Fulfillment will keep going without us and inspire others to join them too.
we felt like we were contributing to something bigger than ourselves, something with value that would last well beyond our own lifetimes.
For all its benefits, acting with an infinite, long-term view is not easy. It takes real effort. As human beings we are naturally inclined to seek out immediate solutions to uncomfortable problems and prioritize quick wins to advance our ambitions. We tend to see the world in terms of successes and failures, winners and losers. This default win-lose mode can sometimes work for the short term; however, as a strategy for how companies and organizations operate, it can have grave consequences over the longer term.
Finite games are played by known players. They have fixed rules. And there is an agreed-upon objective that, when reached, ends the game.
In finite games, there is always a beginning, a middle and an end.
Infinite games, in contrast, are played by known and unknown players. There are no exact or agreed-upon rules. Though there may be conventions or laws that govern how the players conduct themselves, within those broad boundaries, the players can operate however they want. And if they choose to break with convention, they can. The manner in which each player chooses to play is entirely up to them. And they can change how they play the game at any time, for any reason.
Infinite games have infinite time horizons. And because there is no finish line, no practical end to the game, there is no such thing as “winning” an infinite game. In an infinite game, the primary...
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There is no such thing as coming in first in marriage or friendship,
However, if we listen to the language of so many of our leaders today, it’s as if they don’t know the game in which they are playing. They talk constantly about “winning.” They obsess about “beating their competition.” They announce to the world that they are “the best.” They state that their vision is to “be number one.” Except that in games without finish lines, all of these things are impossible.
When we lead with a finite mindset in an infinite game, it leads to all kinds of problems, the most common of which include the decline of trust, cooperation and innovation. Leading with an infinite mindset in an infinite game, in contrast, really does move us in a better direction. Groups that adopt an infinite mindset enjoy vastly higher levels of trust, cooperation and innovation and all the subsequent benefits.
In finite games, there’s a single, agreed-upon metric that separates the winner from the loser, things like goals scored, speed or strength. In infinite games, there are multiple metrics, which is why we can never declare a winner.
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.
Players with an infinite mindset want to leave their organizations in better shape than they found them.
According to Carse, a finite-minded leader plays to end the game—to win. And if they want to be the winner, then there has to be a loser. They play for themselves and want to defeat the other players. They make every plan and every move with winning in mind. They almost always believe they must act that way, even though, in fact, they don’t have to at all. There is no rule that says they have to act that way. It is their mindset that directs them.
Where 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; the latter is primarily focused on how the products benefit those who buy them.
To ask, “What’s best for me” is finite thinking. To ask, “What’s best for us” is infinite thinking.
A company built for the Infinite Game doesn’t think of itself alone. It considers the impact of its decisions on its people, its community, the economy, the country and the world. It does these things for the good of the game.
infinite-minded leaders don’t ask their people to fixate on finite goals; they ask their people to help them figure out a way to advance toward a more infinite vision of the future that benefits everyone.
Bill Gates’s original infinite vision: “To empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.”
A finite-minded leader uses the company’s performance to demonstrate the value of their own career. An infinite-minded leader uses their career to enhance the long-term value of the company . . . and only part of that value is counted in money.
There are three factors we must always consider when deciding how we want to lead: We don’t get to choose whether a particular game is finite or infinite. We do get to choose whether or not we want join the game. Should we choose to join the game, we can choose whether we want to play with a finite or an infinite mindset.
Any leader who wants to adopt an infinite mindset must follow five essential practices: Advance a Just Cause Build Trusting Teams Study your Worthy Rivals Prepare for Existential Flexibility Demonstrate the Courage to Lead
A Just Cause is a specific vision of a future state that does not yet exist; a future state so appealing that people are willing to make sacrifices in order to help advance toward that vision.
If we work for an organization with a Just Cause, we may like our jobs some days, but we will always love our jobs. As with our kids, we may like them some days and not others, but we love them every day.
For example, my WHY is to inspire people to do what inspires them so that together we can each change our world for the better. It is uniquely mine. My Just Cause is to build a world in which the vast majority of people wake up inspired, feel safe at work and return home fulfilled at the end of the day, and I am looking for as many people as possible who will join me in this Cause.
A Just Cause must be: For something—affirmative and optimistic Inclusive—open to all those who would like to contribute Service oriented—for the primary benefit of others Resilient—able to endure political, technological and cultural change Idealistic—big, bold and ultimately unachievable
Being for something, in contrast, is about feeling inspired. Being for ignites the human spirit and fills us with hope and optimism.
Imagine if instead of fighting against poverty, for example, we fought for the right of every human to provide for their own family. The first creates a common enemy, something we are against. It sets up the Cause as if it is “winnable,” i.e., a finite game. It leads us to believe that we can defeat poverty once and for all. The second gives us a cause to advance. The impact of the two perspectives is more than semantics. It affects how we view the problem/vision that affects our ideas on how we can contribute.
Human beings want to feel a part of something. We crave the feeling of belonging.
“Hire for culture and you can always teach the skills later.” For customers and investors, this the root of love and loyalty for the organization itself.
This is what “servant leadership” means. It means the primary benefit of the contributions flows downstream.
Too many of our cultures are filled with people working to protect their own interests and the interests of those above them before those of the people they are supposed to be serving.
America’s Just Cause has yet to be fully realized, and for all practical purposes it never will be. But we will die trying. And that’s the point. Indeed, the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, the Civil Rights Act and gay rights are some of the big steps the nation has taken to realize its Cause. And though each of those movements, infinite in their own right, are still far from complete, they still represent clear steps along the nation’s march toward the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
The clearer the words of the Just Cause, the more likely they will attract and invite the innovators and early adopters, those willing to take the first risks to advance something that exists almost entirely in their imaginations. With each success, a little more of the iceberg is revealed to others; the vision becomes more visible to others. And when others can see a vision become something real, skeptics become believers and even more people feel inspired by the possibility and willingly commit their time and energy, ideas and talents to help advance the Cause further.
Jim Collins, author of Good to Great and Built to Last, calls a BHAG, a big, hairy, audacious goal. It’s easy to mistake a BHAG for a Just Cause because they can indeed be incredibly inspiring and can often take many years to achieve.
Infinite-minded leaders understand that “best” is not a permanent state. Instead, they strive to be “better.” “Better” suggests a journey of constant improvement and makes us feel like we are being invited to contribute our talents and energies to make progress in that journey. “Better,” in the Infinite Game, is better than “best.”
The problem isn’t how skilled an executive is when they take over as CEO. The problem is whether they have the right mindset for the job they are given.
Today it is so generally accepted that the “owner” of a company sits at the top of the benefit food chain and that business exists solely to create wealth, that we often assume that this was always the way that the game of business was played and is the only way it can be played. Except it wasn’t . . . and it isn’t.
Put simply, the company’s interests should always be secondary to the interest of the consumer (ironically, a point Smith believed so “self-evident,” he felt it was absurd to try to prove it, and yet here I am writing a whole book about it).
It was common for people to work a practical lifetime for one company. The company took care of them and they took care of the company. Trust, pride and loyalty flowed in both directions.
And if capitalism was intended to benefit the consumer and the leaders of companies were to be the stewards of something greater than themselves, they are not using it that way today.
As Henry Ford said, “A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business.” Companies exist to advance something—technology, quality of life or anything else with the potential to ease or enhance our lives in some way, shape or form. That people are willing to pay money for whatever a company has to offer is simply proof that they perceive or derive some value from those things. Which means the more value a company offers, the more money and the more fuel they will have for further advancements. Capitalism is about more than prosperity (measured in features and benefits, dollars
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The Economic Policy Institute reported that in 1978, the average CEO made approximately 30 times the average worker’s salary. By 2016, the average had increased over 800 percent to 271 times the average worker’s pay. Where the average CEO has seen a nearly 950 percent increase in their earnings, the American worker, meanwhile, has seen just over 11 percent in theirs. According to the same report, average CEO pay has increased at a rate 70 percent faster than the stock market!
As King Louis XV of France said in 1757, “Après moi le dèluge.” “After me comes the flood.” In other words, the disaster that will follow after I’m gone will be your problem, not mine. A sentiment that seems to be shared by too many finite leaders today.
Where there is unbalance, there is unrest.
The American colonists chose to revolt only after years of appealing for change. Begging for it. They were only partially drawn to revolution for ideological reasons. They were pushed to it because they saw their lives and their economic well-being suffering or restricted as a result of a gross imbalance of power and wealth. The vision of an alternative future came later.
it is upon the backs of ordinary people that wealth and power are produced.
Advance a purpose: Offer people a sense of belonging and a feeling that their lives and their work have value beyond the physical work. Protect people: Operate our companies in a way that protects the people who work for us, the people who buy from us and the environments in which we live and work. Generate profit: Money is fuel for a business to remain viable so that it may continue to advance the first two priorities.
The responsibility of business is to use its will and resources to advance a cause greater than itself, protect the people and places in which it operates and generate more resources so that it can continue doing all those things for as long as possible. An organization can do whatever it likes to build its business so long as it is responsible for the consequences of its actions.
People are not like wet towels to be wrung out. They are not objects from which we can squeeze every last drop of performance. The answers to such a question might yield more output for a time, but it often comes at a cost of our people and to the culture in the longer term.
