The Infinite Game
By Simon Sinek
“None of us will every be declared the winner of parenting, friendship, learning, or creativity either. However, we can choose the mindset with which we approach all these things.”
“To live with an infinite mindset means thinking about the second and third order effects of our decisions. It means thinking about who we vote for with a different lens. It means taking responsibility for later impacts of the decisions we make today. And like all infinite games, in the game of life, the goal is not to win, it is to perpetuate the game.”
Simon Sinek is best known for his leadership books, Start with Why and Leaders Eat Last. While those may be more popular, I’d argue that The Infinite Game is the superior book. He borrows the infinite game concept from the James Carse book “Finite and Infinite Games.” Sinek, however, takes the idea, expands upon it, and adds the right anecdotes to make his point.
Sinek describes two types of games: finite games and infinite games. Finite games have specific agreed upon rules, winners, losers, and set players who know what game they are playing. Chess, hockey, poker, and basketball are finite games. There is a beginning and an end. The goal is to win. An infinite game, on the other hand, has no winners, no set, players, and no rules to speak of. The goal of the infinite game is to perpetuate the game – to keep playing. And knowing the ‘game’ being played has profound implications for decision making. As someone who likes games, this idea resonated with me. It changed the way I approach problems, tackle work issues, frame political discourse, and interact with others. Viewing life, leadership, and decision making through the lens of an infinite game fundamentally alters how one looks at the world.
In life, for instance, one can approach business with either a finite or an infinite mindset. An infinite minded leader will make radically different decisions than one with a finite mindset. A finite minded leader plays to ‘win.’ This person may make decisions with only short-term gains in mind. They may focus on maximizing profit for a couple quarters, thus satisfying stockholders. Finite thinking, though, may doom the company because one plays only to beat the competition or post the greatest profits rather than focusing on the long-term health of the firm. A leader playing the infinite game has an entirely different calculus. They are not concerned about ‘winning’ or crushing the competition. They are playing to keep the game going. To perpetuate the game. To survive. One cannot win an infinite game, but one can continue playing. For those who are focused on a business's longevity and establishing an organization that will endure for generations, one’s decisions must be about more than just next quarter's returns.
Business, politics, your relationships, these are infinite games. But, as indicated above, far too many leaders do not understand the game they are playing. And playing the wrong game will lead to failure. Sinek points out that, “when we lead with a finite mindset in an infinite game, it leads to all sorts of problems, the most common include the decline of trust, cooperation, and innovation.” To succeed (notice I did not say ‘win’) at the infinite game “we have to stop thinking about who wins and who’s the best and start thinking about how to build organizations that are strong enough and healthy enough to stay in the game for generations to come.”
It’s frustrating to watch corporations make business decisions that will harm the company not too far in the future. Politics too, is painful to watch. Political actors are notorious for playing a finite game. This is infuriating because running a country and ensuring its long-term health is the very definition of an infinite game. How often does the political class brag about “destroying the right” or “owning the libs?” How often are decisions made with only the next election in mind? Are your representatives more concerned about scoring soundbites than listening to constituents? Do they work for the party or the people? Politics is a source of endless frustration as I look at the country’s future being mortgaged by finite-minded leaders. Pick any issue you like but the left and the right are both guilty.
The blame, however, does not lie solely with the elected officials. As citizens, we need to realize civics is an infinite game. Too often we vote and elect leaders with a finite mindset. We tend to be lazy and vote for the same party, without regard to the candidate’s quality. As voters we prioritize the short term, thinking only about our most current considerations. Politicians then pander to the least common denominator paying scant attention to the long term good. The consequences are beyond profound. The politics of a finite mindset can destroy a country because, by definition, it is limiting and short sighted. The politics of an infinite game is played to perpetuate the success of our country.
On a personal level, the concept of an infinite game is powerful. And knowing which game you are playing is crucial. I have seen how easily finite minded groups can fail. I have been part of building new organizations, and one leading indicator of future failure is when the sole focus centers around beating the competition. We would pat ourselves on the back and tell ourselves we were better, that we could do everything quicker and cheaper than everyone else. And we suffered. It turns out that we didn’t know what game we were playing. We were playing a finite game. This error influenced our decisions. We focused on certain metrics that, as it turns out, only mattered in the short term such as how quickly we can get parts and materials on contract. In our rush to award contracts, we neglected to manage the vendors appropriately. Decisions were made which looked good for a quarter or two but soon everything started to fall apart. Had we adopted an infinite mindset and aligned our values appropriately, it wouldn’t have mattered what our competition was doing. We wouldn’t have spun our wheels and worked people to exhaustion by chasing the wrong things. We decided to grow too quickly rather than scale strategically. There was too much work with too few resources. The wrong mindset killed us. If we were playing an infinite game, we could have taken our time up front, focused on our most important values, and built a culture of infinite minded thinkers. By the way, our competition is still operating today.