If it’s not about winning or losing, what’s it about?
“No one of us will ever be declared the winner of parenting, friendship, learning or creativity.”
― Simon Sinek, The Infinite Game
The theme of Simon Sinek’s The Infinite Game comes from a 1986 short book by Dr. James Carse titled Finite and Infinite Games. In short, the book discusses the theory that there are two types of games: finite games and infinite games. In finite games, the players are known, there are fixed rules, there’s an end point, and there’s a clear winner. Think basketball, Settlers of Catan, even The Bachelor (yes, the hit reality TV show where hopeful bachelorettes go to find love). In contrast, in infinite games, players come and go, rules change, there’s no end point, and there’s no winner. The objective of the game isn’t to reach the end or win, but to keep playing. Examples of infinite games are life, relationships, and business. You can’t win in life. There are no winners in relationships (though The Bachelor would have you believe otherwise). And you might not be able to tell based on how some companies run these days, but you can’t really win at business.
This book is not marketed as a creativity book. In fact, there are only seven mentions of “creative” and “creativity” throughout its pages. However, it’s a highly relevant read for anyone who wants to challenge the status quo and replace it with a reality that works for the best interests of their community. If an aspect of creativity is turning new and imaginative ideas into reality, the book is an instruction manual on how to do so. Anyone who’s studied creativity will be able to easily draw parallels and links to creativity.
In his book, Sinek gives a road map for how leaders can adopt an infinite mindset to stay in the game for the long run. He shares five practices that leaders playing with an infinite mindset must follow:
- Advance a Just Cause — organizations have to offer their employees a Cause so just that they would be willing to sacrifice their own interests to advance it.
- Build trusting teams — a trusting team is when people feel safe and can be vulnerable. It’s where people can raise their hand and say they made a mistake or share that something in their personal life is affecting their work without fear of humiliation or retribution.
- Study your worthy rivals — as opposed to competitors, worthy rivals are those who can help us become better players by revealing our weaknesses and presenting opportunities to improve ourselves.
- Prepare for existential flexibility — existential flexibility is the capacity to make a profound strategic shift in order to advance your Just Cause.
- Show the courage to lead — it requires courage to use a Just Cause as the guiding principle when it means making decisions that hurt in the short term and internal and external pressures are pushing you to think about the current financial situation first.
All five of these principles are noble, but the key takeaway I want to spend time on is the following quote that he repeats throughout the book:
“Leaders are not responsible for results, they’re responsible for the people who are responsible for the results.”
― Simon Sinek
I like this thought for several reasons, but most of all because it frees leaders to focus on what actually matters. When you free yourself from delivering on the numbers, you can:
- Stop micromanaging, focus on the vision, and bring people along on that journey. The primary job of the big boss (also known as the CEO) is to be the holder, communicator, and protector of the vision. There are other people in the company that can focus on the number-related results, but the job of the Chief Vision Officer (CVO) as Sinek retitles CEO, is to ensure that everyone clearly understands the Just Cause and directs their efforts towards advancing that Cause.
- Develop your people. A leader’s goal is to ensure that people have the skills — technical skills, human skills or leadership skills — to work to their natural best and be a valuable asset to the team. When you can stop seeing the low performers as “bad for business” and as people, you can help them learn and grow their technical skills to improve their performance.
- Build trust and relationships. Being driven by quarterly or annual targets wrongfully places value in high performance without consideration of what means were used to reach the ends. You may have high performers here and there, but the key to high-performing teams starts with trust. When you can forget about rewarding the lone high performer, you can focus on building trust, relationships, and a culture where people find safety in relationships rather than relying on processes and rules.
- Put people before profit. Focusing on numbers before people comes at a cost. In tough times, rather than resorting to layoffs, an infinite-minded leader may opt for furloughs, requiring employees to take a set amount of unpaid time off. People may be asked to sacrifice some money, but no one loses their job. A finite-minded leader might be asking “where can we cut costs?” whereas an infinite-minded leader might ask “what might be all the ways we can save money?”
So if it’s not about winning or losing, what’s it about? It’s about playing the game. It’s about closing out the year by asking questions like “how do we make our culture stronger than last year?” or “how do we make our systems better than last year?” instead of scrambling to meet metrics that prove you somehow “won” a game that can’t can’t be won.
If you want a more thorough summary of the book and its key points, there are lots of great blogs and videos out there. Simon Sinek’s own Infinite Game playlist on YouTube walks through each of the five principles and examples to explain what each principle is. Better yet, read the book. It’s a quick read.
