This content was created by Clegg. This content was uploaded by Clegg. This is a YouTube video titled "What Is This All For? | Simon Sinek" featuring a talk by Simon Sinek from July 7, 2020, discussing the concept of the infinite game in business, emphasizing the importance of long-term thinking and ethical practices over short-term metrics.
Chapters
So the infinite game and the infinite mindset is not the absence of the finite game. It's the context within which the finite game exists. And so we overuse sports analogies and war analogies in business, which, as you pointed out, very often are finite in nature. Definitely sports, most of the time, a war. And so I go back to my metaphor a moment ago, which is we need to adjust our mindset to understand what business actually is.
Which is it's a lifestyle. So we can have finite goals. We can have arbitrary goals set to arbitrary dates. I want to lose X amount of weight by X date. And you work really hard to. And metrics are really important. You know, as tangibly driven animals, we need to be able to count metrics. It makes us feel like we're making progress. Really, really important. And so I'm doing all the right things and I'm measuring myself.
And I hit my goal on the date. And the problem is I have to keep doing it now, every single day for the rest of my life. It doesn't end. Business is the same. Even if we hit our goals, we have to keep going. So what the infinite game provides is, what is this all for? There has to be something bigger than just hitting these dates. Conversely, if we miss our goal, do you know what happens? Nothing. Nothing happens. In fact, if we've been building a good business, if we've been living a healthy lifestyle, we're way better off now than we were when we started. And if we just keep on this path, we'll hit our goal in another month or two. Right? And so I think one of the things that the infinite game provides and how we do, how we conduct business at the front line is not just. Is not just the finite metrics. It's not just did we hit the goal on the date, but rather, how did we get there? What's the trend data?
Did we get there in an ethical way? Are we promoting people who are building a strong company for the long term, for the infinite, or we only promoting people who hit the arbitrary number and the arbitrary date?
We only evaluate. So too often we evaluate someone's performance, but we don't evaluate what kind of character they have. And so many businesses, so many leaders in businesses will know that there's a toxic team member, but their numbers are so good, so we just let them keep their job as opposed to sitting down with them, coaching them, or eventually removing them, regardless of what their numbers are. At the end of the day, though, the front line has to be more preoccupied with the finite game. Right. Because there are beginning, middles and ends for them. So let's take an airline analogy. We absolutely want those gate agents obsessed with the finite game. We want a beginning, middle and end, and we want that plane to leave on time and then they'll repeat the process. But we need them to be aware of the infinite game. We need them to understand that this company needs to survive beyond this flight. In other words, they need to treat the customers nicely because they want the customers to want to come back, as opposed to just getting this flight off the line on the time and then be done with it. And we hear that all the time. I'm just doing my job, right? This is what we have to do. And this is sort of where bureaucracy seeps in, because bureaucrats don't care about the infinite game. They're just trying to follow what's in front of them. But as we make our way through the ranks at the senior level, and you touched upon this, we have to become more obsessed with the infinite game. We have to become obsessed with understanding how all these pieces of the puzzle contribute to the long game and how sometimes we're going to have to make decisions that hurt us in the short term to. Because it's the right thing to do for the long term. And that's really hard to do. And when you have senior leaders who are overly obsessed with the finite game, then they just make short decisions that are good for now that actually do long term damage. But at the front lines, we need our people to understand what the vision is. We want them to be involved. We want them to work on trusting teams. We want them to start learning leadership. So as they work their way through the ranks, they bring that infinite mindset with them as they come. Sam.
