Simon Sinek argues that companies obsessed with short-term metrics adopt a finite mindset that backfires. A sales team hitting quarterly targets through price cuts stays dysfunctional, while one with steady growth but missed targets builds lasting value. He proposes a hybrid bonus model: 50% goal, 50% cultural contribution.
Chapters
Human beings are not very good at imaginary things. And goals are— if you don't have a goal, growth is imaginary. That doesn't really work very well. Nobody's motivated by that. You need to have numbers. You need to have metrics. You need to be able to count. It's a dopamine reward system that we have. And this is where dopamine's doing the right thing, not the wrong thing. We always talk about it as a pejorative thing, but it's a very healthy thing. And it's invigorating to see ourselves getting closer and closer to our goal. What's really important is at the end of the season, we have to be very careful because I said the trend is really important, right? So just from a, let's just take a quick sidestep sort of about incentives, for example. Like, let's take a sales team, right? They have a sales goal and they've not been hitting it. Then the last quarter, they drop the prices, they have a bunch of promotions, Everybody goes into afterburner, they stab each other in the back, and they hit their goal. It's still a shit team, but they hit their goal. So do we give them rewards? And then you have a great team where the esprit de corps is high, the camaraderie is high, they take care of each other, they treat the customers right. You know, and you can see this beautiful trend line that's just, it's not this, it's just this beautiful trend line. And at the end of the year, they're just shy of the goal, but hey, they're going to hit it. It's obvious. It's a great team. No attrition. Everybody loves each other. How come we don't give that team a bonus because they missed their goal? You know? I knew a company that had 50/50 bonus structures, 50% goal, 50% contribution to culture. So if you only hit your goal, you got 50% of your bonus. And if all you did was kumbaya and walk around and make sure everybody's OK, you got 50% of your goal, 50% of your incentive. Anyway, this is the danger of a purely finite mindset. Like, we're a performance-driven company. It works for a while until it doesn't. When the tides turn, the weather hits, weird things that you don't expect show up, tariffs, supply chain, these things just show up out of nowhere. Now let's see how it goes. Let's see how strong that team is. And so those trending, its trend becomes really important. Anyway. Going back to what you're saying, finite games have beginning, middles, and ends. So real finite games within the game is like you're competing for a piece of business. You know, that's real. There's going to be a winner and there's going to be a loser. Or like in an airline, for example, like you put a lot of pressure, we put a lot of pressure on those gate agents to make sure that that flight leaves on time. Beginning, middle, and end, because that's really important. But we want them to be aware of the infinite game because you can't yell and scream at the customers on the way to getting the plane off on time because then they won't come back on your airline the next trip. But you'll be like, "What? You told me to get the plane off on time. I did exactly what you told me to do." Right. No, I want you to make sure that you do that and ensure that they'll come back because that's the infinite game. Because if they don't come back, we go out of business no matter how many flights leave on time. So the awareness that this is in a context of business, that it doesn't beginning— it doesn't end with this. And that's the problem with a lot of excessive finite-minded executives is they treat the financial year like it's the end of the game. It's just a waypoint. It's just a waypoint. Or they treat getting that plane off the ground like it's the end of the game. It's just a waypoint.
