Tao Te Ching
Infinite Game
By Simon Sinek
In this book, Sinek makes a strong case between our attitudes in business and life that have a specific, finite goal and those without a narrowly defined end point. The former works well when used in a game like basketball but falls short and creates many unnecessary problem when applied to "Infinite Games" like business and life. The finite version fosters competition and "take-the-money-and-run" thinking; the infinite collaboration, creative productivity, and meaningful work. The short-term, quick-fix, finite approach prioritizes winning and success and sometimes can have positive benefits. However, these can have high and even terminal costs long-term. Sinek makes a strong case against the status-quo business subservience of employees, customers, and the environmental consequences to "shareholder primacy." He challenges the misguided assumption that this finite business style works better and proposes one with both better humanistic values and more long-term benefits.
Themes
Quotes from Infinite Game
“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”
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“after Friedman's 1970 article executives and directors... became excessively focused on shorter-and-shorter-term gains to the benefit of fewer and fewer people.... in large part due to Friedman's ideas... in 1978, the average CEO made approximately 30 times the average worker's salary and by 2016, the average had increased over 800% to 271 times the average worker's pay... at a rate 70% faster than the stock market!”
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“any leader who wishes to lead in the Infinite Game must have a crystal clear Just Cause... the goal is not to win, but to keep playing... A Just Cause is bout the future. It defines where we are going. It describes the world we hope to live in”
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“Because leaders fail to envision the future as the world rapidly changes around them, in the '60's, the average life of a company was 60 years; now it's only 20 years.”
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“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.”
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“For the past 40+ years, we have been building companies with a definition of business that is actually bad for business and undermines the very system of capitalism it proclaims to embrace.”
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“George Washington forbade anti-Catholic organizing in his armies and regularly attended Catholic services to model the behavior he expected of his men.”
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“In an organization, it is often the founders and early contributors who have the clearest vision of the unknown future, of what, to everyone else, remains unseen.”
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“It is an infinite-minded player's appreciation for the unpredictable that allows them to make these kinds of changes. Where a finite-minded player fears things that are new or disruptive, the infinite-minded player revels in them.”
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“It is not technology that explains failure; it is less about technology, per se, and more about the leaders' failure to envision the future of their business as the world changes around them.”
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“leaders are not responsible for the results, leaders are responsible for the people who are responsible for the results-- for creating a safe, a trusted and trusting, supportive environment”
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“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.”
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“Very often, finite-minded leaders believe the source of will is externally motivated—pay packages, bonuses, perks or internal competition. If only that's all it took to inspire a human being! Money can buy a lot of things but it can't buy true will... the difference between an organization filled with mercenaries versus one filled with zealots. [ cf. Russian mercenaries and draftees vs the inspired Ukrainians defending their home. ]”
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“When a group shares in the suffering, it actually brings a team together.”
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“Without a Just Cause, an organization starts to function like a ship without a compass.”
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