Infinite and Finite Mindset
Upon reading ‘The Infinite Game’ by Simon Sinek, I have learnt a few things about the infinite and finite game in business. When there are two players or more, then there is a game and there are two types of games, infinite and finite games. A finite game has set rules, games, and players that everyone agrees to, such as a football match. A football match has a set duration, rules, and players governed by a referee. In an infinite game, there are no set rules, duration and no set end time. The primary objective of the game is to keep playing the game. However, no business knows whether the other businesses are in an infinite or finite game. This is why you see timespans of businesses become shorter. An example is MySpace, once the most popular social media network on the internet before the emergence of Facebook. However, once MySpace got bought out, their priorities started to become finite and their objectives were about making money, hitting short term goals, and getting stakeholders happy. While Facebook’s objective during its emergence was to connect people globally.
Video: The Lifestyle of an Infinite Mindset by Simon Sinek
Just Cause
A Just Cause is a perfect vision that your company is building towards. Your company could spend a lifetime building towards it; the Just Cause gives focus and direction for your company and individuals. The Just Cause will inspire individuals to sacrifice, endure in the present and lifetime. The Just Cause will keep you and the company focused on the infinite game.
A Just Cause must be:
For something – affirmative and optimistic
Inclusive – open to all those who would like to contribute
Service-oriented – for the primary benefit of others
Resilient – able to ensure political, technological, and cultural change
Idealistic – big, bold, and ultimately unachievable
Teams
For a company to succeed, it must look to the employees to work towards the goal/Just Cause. When a company is failing or losing profits, they may focus on a short-term fix and start layoffs or they want employees to work long hours to hit targets. However, these short-term fixes may fix the immediate issue, but they may not fix long-term problems and may break trust among the employees with management.
Simon Sinek gave a perfect example of Ford motor company when they were losing money and needed to turn the company around. First, they hired a new CEO and he needed to identify the problems within the company so he asked the executives to present what they are working on and mark the status with red (major issue), yellow (medium issue), and green (no issue) every week. During the meeting, all the executives marked their status with green. The CEO got frustrated and said that they are losing money. The next presentation came and again the presentations were filled with green. The reason why the executives did not highlight any problems was because the previous CEO would embarrass them and shout at them. This would break down the trust barrier between management and employees. So when the new CEO wanted to find issues, the executives hid the issues in fear. Over the weeks, the new CEO would continue to repeat the same sentence that the company was losing money. One week, one of the executives highlights a project in red. The new CEO clapped and said, “Finally, so who can help”. The following week the executives were surprised that the same executive that highlighted the issue was in the room. Over time the presentations started to get more colourful, and the new CEO started to see the issues he got to work fixing the issues slowly, turning the reds to yellow, and the yellows to greens. The moral of the story is that the new CEO thought of the infinite game and then in order for him to find out the issues, he needed to build the trust of the executives to highlight issues that he needed to know to turn the company around. Once he fixed the trust among the executives, he was able to see the mammoth task to turn the company around.
Summary
Companies have a choice of whether they want to play the finite or infinite game. The type of game that the company wants to play can be seen by the action and direction they take in various areas. However, from the book, I have learnt that playing the infinite game is a long, undefined game to stay in the game for long as possible.