The Infinite Game

by Simon Sinek

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.

Lego invented a toy that has stood the test of time not because it was lucky, but because nearly everyone who works there wants to do things to ensure that the company will survive 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.

finite-minded players do not like surprises and fear any kind of disruption.

The infinite-minded player, in contrast, expects surprises, even revels in them, and is prepared to be transformed by them.

An infinite perspective frees us from fixating on what other companies are doing, which allows us to focus on a larger vision.

They weren’t trying to outdo Microsoft; Apple was trying to outdo itself.

Victorinox is not a stable company, it is a resilient one.

It’s not that America “lost” the Vietnam War, rather it had exhausted the will and resources to keep playing . . . and so it was forced to drop out of the game.

Great products fail all the time.

finite-minded leaders will set corporate strategy, product strategy, incentive structures and hiring decisions to help meet finite goals.

trying to win by playing defense.

Playing with the wrong mindset for the game they were in, Microsoft was chasing an impossible objective—“to win.”

Constrained by a finite mindset, Ballmer was more focused on the relative numbers the iPhone could achieve instead of seeing how it might alter the entire market . . . or even completely redefine the role our phones play in our lives.

Ballmer was trying to say that under the thirteen years of his leadership, his company had “won.”

“To empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.”

Because finite-minded leaders place unbalanced focus on near-term results, they often employ any strategy or tactic that will help them make the numbers.

Trust and cooperation suffered as internal product groups started to fight with each other instead of supporting each other.

Lead with an Infinite Mindset

❓What will be the "Infinite Leadership Mindset" in the scope of SEGA Development Services - Sofia?

“His mother laid the body inside the double-glazed window and sliced off a piece of him every day to feed her second child.”

And all the while, unbeknownst to the masses, a stash of hundreds of thousands of seeds and tons of potatoes, rice, nuts and cereal lay hidden in the heart of the city.

Over the course of his rule, which lasted from 1922 until his death in 1953, Stalin is said to have been responsible for the deaths of over 20 million of his own people.

In the end, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of seeds, tons of potatoes, rice, nuts, cereals and other crops that they refused to eat, nine of the scientists died of starvation.

This Just Cause, “a mission for all humanity,” as Vavilov called it, gave their work and their lives purpose and meaning beyond any one individual or the very real struggles they faced in the moment of the siege.

How many of those 400,000 kids would have been saved, if this "precious seed bank" was used for what its main purpose was?

The motivation to play in an infinite game is completely different—the goal is not to win, but to keep playing.

Eve Online World of Warcraft Any other massive universe game there.

any leader who wishes to lead in the Infinite Game must have a crystal clear Just Cause.

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...

when there is a Just Cause, a reason to come to work that is bigger than any particular win, our days take on more meaning and feel more fulfilling.

In an organization that is only driven by the finite, we may like our jobs some days, but we will likely never love our jobs.

As with our kids, we may like them some days and not others, but we love them every day.

Think of the WHY like the foundation of a house, it is the starting point.

Our Just Cause is the ideal vision of the house we hope to build. We can work a lifetime to build it and still we will not be finished.

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.

How do they know, however, whether the candidate is passionate for interviewing but not so passionate for the Cause?

EVERYONE is passionate about something, but we aren’t all passionate about the same thing.

“Hire for culture and you can always teach the skills later.”

Investors invest with the primary intention of seeing a return before anyone else.

But what else investors should seek, when they're investing?

Even an investor must not be the primary beneficiary of their investment. Rather it is the organization in which they believe and whose Just Cause they want to see advanced that must benefit from their financial contribution.

What a bunch of socialist crap!

This is what the idealized journey of a Just Cause feels like—no matter how much we have achieved, we always feel we have further to go.

Having a great player, a popular product or a killer app does not mean we are equipped for the Infinite Game.

Infinite-minded leaders understand that “best” is not a permanent state. Instead, they strive to be “better.”

Growth Is Not a Just Cause

the constant drive for hypergrowth creates a problem within mature markets—markets in which the product, technology or business is no longer new or special, but accepted and ubiquitous.

To offer growth as a cause, growth for its own sake, is like eating just to get fat.

Corporate Social Responsibility Is Not a Just Cause

Martin Luther King Jr. gave the “I have a dream” speech, for example. He didn’t give the “I have a plan” speech.

the responsibility of the most senior person in an organization is to look beyond the organization.

The average life of a company in the 1950s, if you recall, was just over 60 years. Today it is less than 20 years. According to a 2017 study by Credit Suisse, disruptive technology is the reason for the steep decline in company life span.

“In a free-enterprise, private-property system,” he wrote, “a corporate executive is an employee of the owners of the business. He has direct responsibility to his employers. That responsibility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom.”