Simon Sinek explains James Carse's concept of finite versus infinite games: finite games have winners and losers, infinite games never end. Companies like Circuit City collapsed because they played to win rather than to keep playing. Leaders who focus on beating competitors and short-term metrics miss the adaptability needed to survive.
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In the mid-1980s, a philosopher and theologian named James Karse defined these two types of games: finite games and infinite games. A finite game is defined as known players, fixed rules, agreed-upon objectives. Football, baseball. If there's a winner, necessarily there has to be a loser or losers, and more important, there's always a beginning, a middle, and an end. Then you have infinite games. Infinite games are defined as known and unknown players, which means new players can join the game whenever they want. The rules are changeable, which means every player can play however they want, and the objective of the game is to stay in the game, to perpetuate the game, right? We are players in infinite games every day of our lives, whether we know it or not. No one will ever be declared the winner of career. No one will ever be declared the winner of health. You can't be number one in your marriage. That's not going to work either. You can try. It won't work. And there's definitely no such thing as winning business, right? Like when Circuit City went bankrupt, Best Buy didn't win anything. But it's really funny when you listen to leaders in business how they don't actually understand the game they're playing, because they talk constantly about being number one, being the best, and beating their competition. Based on what? Based on what agreed-upon metrics, objectives, and timeframes? And this is a problem because when we play to win in a game that has no finish line, there are very predictable outcomes with that mindset, which is over the course of time, you will see a decline of trust, a decline of innovation, and a decline of cooperation. And you see it usually in mature companies, right? Because when young companies are starting out, they're not trying to win, they're not trying to beat, they're not trying to take down, they're trying to advance. They're trying to inspire. They're trying to challenge. These are all very infinite concepts. And the biggest challenge companies have is their own success, because you stop playing offense and you start playing defense. Let's go back to the Best Buy example, right? Best Buy thought that they were amazing because they survived where Circuit City couldn't. But then over the course of a few years, you saw the rise of Amazon. And now Best Buy can't do what it did to challenge Circuit City. Now the whole game has changed because of new players in the game and because of new technology. And the companies that get— the mature companies that go into decline never see the competitor that takes them down. 'Cause they're so focused on, you know, like the movie industry was, and the TV industry were focused on the other channels. They weren't focused on Netflix.
Right.
You know, and so I think to understand the game you're actually playing is essential if you want to do well and survive for very long.
