The Infinite Game

by Simon Sinek

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.

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.

People start to realize that nothing and no one is safe. In response, some instinctually behave as if they were switched to self-preservation mode. They may hoard information, hide mistakes and operate in a more cautious, risk-averse way. To protect themselves, they trust no one. Others double down on an only-the-fittest-survive mentality. Their tactics can become overly aggressive. Their egos become unchecked. They learn to manage up the hierarchy to garner favor with senior leadership while, in some cases, sabotaging their own colleagues. To protect themselves, they trust no one. Regardless of whether they are in self-preservation or self-promotion mode, the sum of all of these behaviors contributes to a general decline in cooperation across the company,

We are human and we are fallible. We are subject to bouts of greed, fear, ambition, ignorance, external pressure, competing interests, ego . . . the list goes on. To complicate matters further, finite games are seductive; they can be fun and exciting and sometimes even addictive. Just like gambling, every win, every goal hit releases a shot of dopamine in our bodies, encouraging us to play the same way again. To try to win again. We must be strong to resist that urge.

Only when those around us—our colleagues, customers and investors—know how we have chosen to play can they adjust their expectations and behaviors accordingly. Only when they know the mindset we have adopted can they figure out the short- and long-term implications for themselves.

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.

Infinite-minded leaders actively seek out employees, customers and investors who share a passion for the Just Cause. For employees, this is what we mean when we say, “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.

If we articulate our Cause in terms of our products, then our organization’s entire existence is conditional on the relevance of those products. Any new technology could render our products, our Cause and indeed our entire company obsolete overnight.

Markets will rise and fall, people will come and go, technologies will evolve, products and services will adapt to consumer tastes and market demands. We need something with permanence for us to rally around. Something that can withstand change and crisis. To keep us in the Infinite Game, our Cause must be durable, resilient and timeless.

But no matter how much of the iceberg we can see, our leaders have the responsibility to remind us that the vast majority still lies unexplored. For no matter how much success we may enjoy, the Just Cause for which we are working lies ahead and not behind.

No matter how hard the challenge, no matter how impossible it seemed, the moon shot was an achievable, finite goal. More than an ideal future state, it is what 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. But after the moon shot has been achieved the game continues. Simply choosing another big, audacious goal is not infinite play, it’s just another finite pursuit.

Though moon shots are inspiring for a time, that inspiration comes with an expiration date. Moon shots are bold, inspiring finite goals within the Infinite Game, not instead of the Infinite Game.

Vision statements that place the product at the center of the vision are only useful so long as nothing better ever comes along, there is never a deviation in market conditions and no new technology is ever invented. If, however, any of these things does happen, the company will be left with a vision statement that often leaves them clinging on to an old business model and blind to the opportunities they could have captured.

A Just Cause should direct the business model, not the other way around.

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.”

Growth is a result, not a Cause. It’s an output, not a reason for being. When we have a Just Cause, we are willing to sacrifice our interests to advance it. When we think money or growth is the Cause, we are more likely to sacrifice others or the Cause itself to protect our interests.

Martin Luther King Jr. gave the “I have a dream” speech, for example. He didn’t give the “I have a plan” speech. There is no doubt he needed a plan. We know he had meetings to discuss the plan. But as the “CEO” of the civil rights movement, Dr. King was not responsible for making the plan. He was responsible for the dream and making sure those responsible for the plans were working to advance the dream.

Opening stores is not what makes a company successful; having those stores operate well is. It’s in a company’s interest to get things done right now rather than wait to deal with the problems high-speed growth can cause later.

Because we tend to measure only someone’s performance and not trust, we are more likely to miss the value of a trusted team member when deciding whom to promote.

In an organization, it is the leader’s responsibility to take the first risk, to build a Circle of Safety. But then it is up to the employee to take a chance and step into the Circle of Safety. A leader cannot force anyone into the circle.

They know that good leaders sometimes suffer mission failure and bad leaders sometimes enjoy mission success. The ability to succeed is not what makes someone a leader. Exhibiting the qualities of leadership is what makes someone an effective leader. Qualities like honesty, integrity, courage, resiliency, perseverance, judgment and decisiveness, as the Marines have learned after years of trial and error, are more likely to engender the kind of trust and cooperation that, over the course of time, increase the likelihood that a team will succeed more often than it fails.

A bias for will before resources, trust before performance, increases the probability a team will perform at higher levels over time.

leaders are not responsible for the results, leaders are responsible for the people who are responsible for the results.

Process is great for managing a supply chain. Procedure helps improve manufacturing efficiencies. Ethical fading, however, is a people problem. And counterintuitive though it may seem, we need people—not paperwork, not training, not certifications—to fix people problems.

Ethical lapses happen and are part of being human. Ethical fading, however, is not a part of being human. Ethical fading is a failure of leadership and is a controllable element in a corporate culture. Which means the opposite is also true. Cultures that are ethically strong are also a result of the culture the leaders build.

A Worthy Rival is another player in the game worthy of comparison. Worthy Rivals may be players in our industry or outside our industry. They may be our sworn enemies, our sometimes collaborators or colleagues. It doesn’t even matter whether they are playing with a finite or an infinite mindset, so long as we are playing with an infinite mindset.

The infinite-minded players understood that the best option for their own survival, and indeed the ultimate goal of an infinite leader, is to keep the game in play.

Disruption, remember, is often a symptom of a finite mindset. Leaders playing with a finite mindset often miss the opportunity to use a disruptive event in their industry to clarify their Cause. Instead, they double down on the finite game and simply start copying what the other players are doing with the hope that it will work for them too.

Having a rival worthy of comparison does not mean that their cause is moral, ethical or serves the greater good. It just means they excel at certain things and reveal to us where we can make improvements. The very manner in which they play the game can challenge us, inspire us or force us to improve. Who we choose to be our Worthy Rivals is entirely up to us. And it is in the best interest of the Infinite Game to keep our options open.

What got us here won’t get us there, and knowing who our Worthy Rivals are is the best way to help us improve and adapt before it’s too late.

Without a Worthy Rival we risk losing our humility and our agility. Failure to have a Worthy Rival increases the risk that a once-mighty infinite player, with a strong sense of Cause, will gently slide into becoming just another finite player looking to rack up wins. Where once the organization fought primarily for the good of others, for the good of the Cause, without that Worthy Rival, they are more likely to fight primarily for the good of themselves. And when that happens, when the hubris sets in, the organization will quickly find its weaknesses exposed and too rigid for the kind of flexibility they need to stay in the game.

Existential Flexibility is the capacity to initiate an extreme disruption to a business model or strategic course in order to more effectively advance a Just Cause. It is an infinite-minded player’s appreciation for the unpredictable that allows them to make these kinds of changes.

Many start-ups are fueled more by an entrepreneur’s passion for a vision than by resources they have to advance it. An Existential Flex recreates that passion for something new at a time when the company is already enjoying success.

Again, the motivation for an infinite-minded player to Flex is to advance the Cause, even if it disrupts the existing business model. To the finite-minded player, the reason not to Flex is expressly to protect the current business model, even if it undermines the Cause.

Indeed, the pursuit of a Just Cause is a path of integrity. It means that words and actions must align. It also means that there will be times when leadership must choose to ignore all the voices calling for the company to serve the interests of those who don’t necessarily believe in the Cause at all.

Management becomes disconnected from the people and trust breaks down. And when performance necessarily starts to suffer as a result, these same leaders are quicker to blame others than to look at what set the company on the new path in the first place. In order to “fix” the problem, their faith in the people is replaced with faith in the process. The company becomes more rigid and decision-making powers are often taken away from the front lines.

In every case I wrote about to demonstrate the Courage to Lead, the hard decisions were not made by great women and great men. They are done by great partnerships. Great teams. Great people who stood together with deep trust and common cause.