The Game Most Companies Play Wrong

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. And there's definitely no such thing as winning business. 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. 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, is their own success. Because you stop playing offense and you start playing defense.