The Infinite Game

by Simon Sinek

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

I personally find it quite troubling when executives take credit for their “culture of performance,” yet take no responsibility for a culture consumed by ethical fading.

The words we choose can help us distance ourselves from any sense of responsibility. They can, however, help us act more ethically too.

Remember, ethical fading is about self-delusion. Anyone, regardless of their personal moral compass, can succumb to it.

When problems arise, performance lags, mistakes are made or unethical decisions are uncovered, Lazy Leadership chooses to put their efforts into building processes to fix the problems rather than building support for their people.

“process will always tell us what we want to hear,”

in their paper “Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession,”23 Dr. Wong and his research partner Dr. Stephen Gerras, both retired army officers who now work at U.S Army War College, discovered systemic ethical fading as a result of excessive process, procedure or demands placed on soldiers.

Indeed, it is the very standard of an effective Just Cause—that we may never reach the ideal we imagine but we will die trying.

Though Patagonia is a certified B Corp—a company that practices “stakeholder capitalism”—it is not a charity. It is a for-profit organization that wants to make more money this year than they made last year.

The company has experienced a quadrupling of revenue over the past decade, with profits tripling. In the words of Patagonia’s CEO Rose Marcario, “Doing good work for the planet creates new markets and makes [us] more money.”

In an instant I understood the reason why I felt so competitive with him. The way I saw him had nothing to do with him. It had to do with me. When his name came up, it reminded of me of the areas in which I grappled.

Traditional competition forces us to take on an attitude of winning. A Worthy Rival inspires us to take on an attitude of improvement. The former focuses our attention on the outcome, the latter focuses our attention on process.

“They were the navy. We were the pirates.”

Just Causes exist in our imaginations, but companies and products are real. And for a person or a company with a clear sense of Cause, that individual or organization itself can become the tangible symbol of their intangible vision.

I have a friend who is so focused on her Cause, it is as if she has forgotten that there are other points of view in the world besides her own. My friend, sadly, has labeled anyone who has a different opinion as wrong, stupid or morally corrupt. My friend suffers from Cause Blindness.

Cause Blindness is when we become so wrapped up in our Cause or so wrapped up in the “wrongness” of the other player’s Cause, that we fail to recognize their strengths or our weaknesses.

Douglas understood that, as unconscionable as we all find serial killers, for example, the best way to catch one was to acknowledge that they were very good at the exact same thing that the FBI does … which meant the FBI had to be better. Having Worthy Rivals—criminals adept at evading the FBI—pushes the FBI to constantly improve their techniques.

Having one primary Worthy Rival has huge advantages. It provides for a single point of focus for strategies to be developed, resources to be allocated and the attentions of internal factions to be pointed.

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.

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.

Existential Flexibility is always offensive. It is not to be confused with the defensive maneuvering many companies undergo to stay alive in the face of new technology or changing consumer habits.

When a visionary leader makes an Existential Flex, to the outside world it appears that they can predict the future. They can’t. They do, however, operate with a clear and fixed vision of a future state that does not yet exist—their Just Cause—and constantly scan for ideas, opportunities or technologies that can help them advance toward that vision.

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.