LLM Book Knowledgebase

The Infinite Game

26 min read

The Infinite Game

Metadata

Highlights & Notes

Finite games are played by known players. They have fixed rules. And there is an agreed-upon objective that, when reached, ends the game.

In finite games, there is always a beginning, a middle and an end.

Infinite games, in contrast, are played by known and unknown players. There are no exact or agreed-upon rules. Though there may be conventions or laws that govern how the players conduct themselves, within those broad boundaries, the players can operate however they want. And if they choose to break with convention, they can. The manner in which each player chooses to play is entirely up to them. And they can change how they play the game at any time, for any reason.

Infinite games have infinite time horizons. And because there is no finish line, no practical end to the game, there is no such thing as “winning” an infinite game. In an infinite game, the primary objective is to keep playing, to perpetuate the game.

When we lead with a finite mindset in an infinite game, it leads to all kinds of problems, the most common of which include the decline of trust, cooperation and innovation. Leading with an infinite mindset in an infinite game, in contrast, really does move us in a better direction. Groups that adopt an infinite mindset enjoy vastly higher levels of trust, cooperation and innovation and all the subsequent benefits.

The game of business fits the very definition of an infinite game. We may not know all of the other players and new ones can join the game at any time. All the players determine their own strategies and tactics and there is no set of fixed rules to which everyone has agreed, other than the law (and even that can vary from country to country).

In a finite game, the game ends when its time is up and the players live on to play another day (unless it was a duel, of course). In an infinite game, it’s the opposite. It is the game that lives on and it is the players whose time runs out. Because there is no such thing as winning or losing in an infinite game, the players simply drop out of the game when they run out of the will and resources to keep playing. In business we call this bankruptcy or sometimes merger or acquisition.

succeed in the Infinite Game of business, we have to stop thinking about who wins or 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 many generations to come.

One group seemed obsessed with beating their competition. The other group seemed obsessed with advancing a cause.

The true value of an organization is measured by the desire others have to contribute to that organization’s ability to keep succeeding, not just during the time they are there, but well beyond their own tenure. While a finite-minded leader works to get something from their employees, customers and shareholders in order to meet arbitrary metrics, the infinite-minded leader works to ensure that their employees, customers and shareholders remain inspired to continue contributing with their effort, their wallets and their investments. Players with an infinite mindset want to leave their organizations in better shape than they found them.

Where a finite-minded player makes products they think they can sell to people, the infinite-minded player makes products that people want to buy. The former is primarily focused on how the sale of those products benefits the company; the latter is primarily focused on how the products benefit those who buy them.

A company built for the Infinite Game doesn’t think of itself alone. It considers the impact of its decisions on its people, its community, the economy, the country and the world. It does these things for the good of the game.

A company built for resilience is a company that is structured to last forever. This is different from a company built for stability. Stability, by its very definition, is about remaining the same. A stable organization can theoretically weather a storm, then come out of it the same as it was before.

And with a finite mindset firmly entrenched in almost all aspects of the organization, a sort of tunnel vision results. The result of which pushes almost everyone inside the company to place excessive focus on the urgent at the expense of the important.

A finite-minded leader uses the company’s performance to demonstrate the value of their own career. An infinite-minded leader uses their career to enhance the long-term value of the company … and only part of that value is counted in money.

If we believe trust, cooperation and innovation matter to the long-term prospects of our organizations, then we have only one choice—to learn how to play with an infinite mindset.

We don’t get to choose whether a particular game is finite or infinite. We do get to choose whether or not we want join the game. Should we choose to join the game, we can choose whether we want to play with a finite or an infinite mindset.

Any leader who wants to adopt an infinite mindset must follow five essential practices: Advance a Just Cause Build Trusting Teams Study your Worthy Rivals Prepare for Existential Flexibility Demonstrate the Courage to Lead

Only when those around us—our colleagues, customers and investors—know how we have chosen to play can they adjust their expectations and behaviors accordingly.

As for us, those who choose to embrace an infinite mindset, our journey is one that will lead us to feel inspired every morning, safe when we are at work and fulfilled at the end of each day. And when it is our time to leave the game, we will look back at our lives and our careers and say, “I lived a life worth living.” And more important, when imagining what the future holds, we will see how many people we’ve inspired to carry on the journey without us.

The motivation to play in an infinite game is completely different—the goal is not to win, but to keep playing. It is to advance something bigger than ourselves or our organizations. And any leader who wishes to lead in the Infinite Game must have a crystal clear Just Cause.

A Just Cause is a specific vision of a future state that does not yet exist; a future state so appealing that people are willing to make sacrifices in order to help advance toward that vision.

others, but we love them every day. A Just Cause is not the same as our WHY. A WHY comes from the past. It is an origin story. It is a statement of who we are—the sum total of our values and beliefs. A Just Cause is about the future. It defines where we are going. It describes the world we hope to live in and will commit to help build.

Think of the WHY like the foundation of a house, it is the starting point. It gives whatever we build upon it strength and permanence. Our Just Cause is the ideal vision of the house we hope to build.

It is the Just Cause that we are working to advance that gives our work and our lives meaning. A Just Cause inspires us to stay focused beyond the finite rewards and individual wins. The Just Cause provides the context for all the finite games we must play along the way. A Just Cause is what inspires us to want to keep playing.

Again, a Just Cause is a specific vision of a future state that does not yet exist.

A Just Cause must be: For something—affirmative and optimistic Inclusive—open to all those who would like to contribute Service oriented—for the primary benefit of others Resilient—able to endure political, technological and cultural change Idealistic—big, bold and ultimately unachievable

Again, a Just Cause is a specific vision of a future state that does not yet exist; a future state so appealing that people are willing to make sacrifices in order to help advance toward that vision.

For a Just Cause to serve as an effective invitation, the words must paint a specific and tangible picture of the kind of impact we will make or what exactly a better world would look like.

A Just Cause must involve at least two parties—the contributors and the beneficiaries. The givers and receivers. Contributors give something, e.g., their ideas, hard work or money, to help advance the Just Cause. And the receivers of those contributions benefit. For a Just Cause to pass the service-orientation test, the primary benefit of the organization’s contributions must always go to people other than the contributors themselves.

If there is only one party, if we are the sole beneficiaries of our work, that’s not a Just Cause, that’s a vanity project.

Of course we can expect and even demand to be fairly compensated and recognized for our efforts and results. We can want our investors to benefit too, just not at the expense of the company, the people who work there or the customers who buy from us. No beneficiary, no customer, should be forced to buy a substandard product and no employee should lose their job as a result of cost cutting performed to benefit a shareholder, who is, after all, just one of a group of contributors. Again, only when the primary beneficiary of the Cause is someone other than the organization itself can the Cause be Just.

This is what “servant leadership” means. It means the primary benefit of the contributions flows downstream.

In the Infinite Game of business, a Just Cause must be greater than the products we make and the services we offer. Our products and services are some of the things we use to advance our Cause. They are not themselves the Cause.

To keep us in the Infinite Game, our Cause must be durable, resilient and timeless.

The clearer the words of the Just Cause, the more likely they will attract and invite the innovators and early adopters, those willing to take the first risks to advance something that exists almost entirely in their imaginations.

The question that a Just Cause must answer is: What is the infinite and lasting vision that a moon shot will help advance? A Just Cause is the context for all our other goals, big and small, and all of our finite achievements must help to advance the Just Cause.

Though moon shots are inspiring for a time, that inspiration comes with an expiration date. Moon shots are bold, inspiring finite goals within the Infinite Game, not instead of the Infinite Game.

Leaders with a finite mindset often confuse having a successful product with having a strong company. Which is a little like the owners of the Los Angeles Lakers thinking their team is relevant because LeBron James has relevance. Having a great player, a popular product or a killer app does not mean we are equipped for the Infinite Game.

Money is the fuel to advance a Cause, it is not a Cause itself.

Just as we don’t buy a car simply so we can buy more gas, so too must companies offer more value than their ability to make money. A company, like a car, is more valuable to all constituents when it takes us somewhere to which we would otherwise be unable to go. That place we envision going to is the Just Cause.

To offer growth as a cause, growth for its own sake, is like eating just to get fat.

Just like it would affect a human being, it should come as no surprise that the organizations that eat to get fat will eventually suffer from health problems.

The order in which a person presents information more often than not reveals their actual priorities and the focus of their strategies.

The problem isn’t how skilled an executive is when they take over as CEO. The problem is whether they have the right mindset for the job they are given.

Words matter. They give direction and meaning to things. Pick the wrong words, intentions change and things won’t necessarily go as hoped or expected.

That is the primary job of the person who sits at the pointy end of the spear. They are the holder, communicator and protector of the vision.

This is one of the reasons the best organizations are often run in tandem. The combination of the keeper of the vision (CVO) and the operator (the CFO or COO). It is a partnership of complementary skill sets. We are more likely to get these partnerships if we adjust the formal hierarchies in our companies to promote the right mindset to fit the purpose of the job. This means that we need to stop seeing the CEO as number one and the CFO or COO as number two and start thinking of them as vital partners in a common cause. One does not know how to do the other’s job better than they do (which is why they need each other).

Opening stores is not what makes a company successful; having those stores operate well is. It’s in a company’s interest to get things done right now rather than wait to deal with the problems high-speed growth can cause later. The art of good leadership is the ability to look beyond the growth plan and the willingness to act prudently when something is not ready or not right, even if it means slowing things down.

They are giving people advice on how to buy and flip a house, not how to find a home to raise a family. If short-term-focused investors treat the companies in which they invest like rental cars, i.e., not theirs,

Where there is unbalance, there is unrest.

the definition of the responsibility of business must: Advance a purpose: Offer people a sense of belonging and a feeling that their lives and their work have value beyond the physical work. Protect people: Operate our companies in a way that protects the people who work for us, the people who buy from us and the environments in which we live and work. Generate profit: Money is fuel for a business to remain viable so that it may continue to advance the first two priorities.

The responsibility of business is to use its will and resources to advance a cause greater than itself, protect the people and places in which it operates and generate more resources so that it can continue doing all those things for as long as possible. An organization can do whatever it likes to build its business so long as it is responsible for the consequences of its actions.

A better question to ask is, “How do I create an environment in which my people can work to their natural best?”

Too often, when performance lags, the first thing we do is blame the people.

In any game, there are always two currencies required to play—will and resources. Resources are tangible and easily measured. When we talk about resources, we’re usually talking about money.

Will, in contrast, is intangible and harder to measure. When we talk about will, we’re talking about the feelings people have when they come to work. Will encompasses morale, motivation, inspiration, commitment, desire to engage, desire to offer discretionary effort and so on.

Infinite-minded leaders, in contrast, work hard to look beyond the financial pressures of the current day and put people before profit as often as possible.

When companies make their people feel like they matter, the people come together in a way that money simply cannot buy.

How we treat people is how they treat us.

Will is generated by the company culture.

There is a difference between a group of people who work together and a group of people who trust each other.

If you’ve ever felt frustrated, excited, angry, inspired, confused, a sense of camaraderie, envious, confident or insecure while at work, then congratulations, you’re human. There is no way we can turn off our feelings simply because we are at work.

In other words, to build high-performing teams, trust comes before the performance.

Performance is about technical competence. How good someone is at their job. Do they have grit? Can they remain cool under pressure? Trust is about character. Their humility and sense of personal accountability. How much they have the backs of their teammates when not in combat. And whether they are a positive influence on other team members.

Our goal, as leaders, is to ensure that our people have the skills—technical skills, human skills or leadership skills—so that they are equipped to work to their natural best and be a valuable asset to the team.

Only when a team member proves uncoachable—is resistant to feedback and takes no responsibility for how they show up at work—should we seriously consider removing them from the team.

A Circle of Safety is a necessary condition for trust to exist.

Fear is such a powerful motivator that it can force us to act in ways that are completely counter to our own or our organization’s best interests. Fear can push us to choose the best finite option at the risk of doing infinite damage.

“You have a problem,” he would tell them. “You are not the problem.”

It is the combination of what we value and how we act that sets the culture of the company. Culture = Values + Behavior

Just as customers will never love a company until the employees love the company first, the community will never trust the police until the police trust each other and their leaders first.

How they feel affects how they do their job.

In weak cultures, people find safety in the rules. This is why we get bureaucrats. They believe a strict adherence to the rules provides them with job security. And in the process, they do damage to the trust inside and outside the organization. In strong cultures, people find safety in relationships. Strong relationships are the foundation of high-performing teams. And all high-performing teams start with trust.

The ability for any organization to build new leaders is very important. Think of an organization like a plant. No matter how strong it is, no matter how tall it grows, if it cannot make new seeds, if it is unable to produce new leaders, then its ability to thrive for generations beyond is nil.

They are interested in training leaders who can create an environment in which everyone feels trusted and trusting so that they can work together to overcome any obstacle.

leaders are not responsible for the results, leaders are responsible for the people who are responsible for the results. And the best way to drive performance in an organization is to create an environment in which information can flow freely, mistakes can be highlighted and help can be offered and received. In short, an environment in which people feel safe among their own. This is the responsibility of a leader.

Ethical fading is a condition in a culture that allows people to act in unethical ways in order to advance their own interests, often at the expense of others, while falsely believing that they have not compromised their own moral principles. Ethical fading often starts with small, seemingly innocuous transgressions that, when left unchecked, continue to grow and compound.

Those who meet their goals are given bonuses or promoted often without consideration of the manner in which they met their goals, while those who acted with integrity but missed their targets are penalized by being overlooked for recognition or advancement. This sends a message to everyone else in the organization that making the numbers is more important than acting ethically.

(As an aside, accountability is when we take responsibility for our own actions, not when we blame our actions on the system.)

One of the ways we are able to deceive ourselves comes from the words we use. The use of euphemisms, to be exact. Euphemisms allow us to disassociate ourselves from the impact of decisions or actions we might otherwise find distasteful or hard to live with.

The words we choose can help us distance ourselves from any sense of responsibility. They can, however, help us act more ethically too. Imagine if we actually started calling things what they are within our organizations.

After all, process is objective and reliable. It’s easier to trust a process than to trust people. Or so we think. In reality, “process will always tell us what we want to hear,”

When we use process and structure to fix cultural problems what we often get is more lying and cheating.

Cultures that are ethically strong are also a result of the culture the leaders build.

Ethical decisions are not based on what’s best for the short-term. They are based on the “right thing to do.” Whereas short-termism at the expense of ethics slowly weakens a company, “doing the right” thing slowly strengthens it.

The truth is, even though we do similar things, he isn’t my competitor, he is my rival. My very Worthy Rival.

In the Infinite Game we accept that “being the best” is a fool’s errand and that multiple players can do well at the same time.

For Mulally, the reason to study the other car manufacturers wasn’t simply to copy them or outsell them, but to learn from them.

The infinite-minded players understood that the best option for their own survival, and indeed the ultimate goal of an infinite leader, is to keep the game in play.

Competitors compete for customers. Rivals look for followers.

Having a rival worthy of comparison does not mean that their cause is moral, ethical or serves the greater good. It just means they excel at certain things and reveal to us where we can make improvements. The very manner in which they play the game can challenge us, inspire us or force us to improve. Who we choose to be our Worthy Rivals is entirely up to us. And it is in the best interest of the Infinite Game to keep our options open.

Like in business, times change and so do the players. And, like in business, if a big company goes bankrupt, it doesn’t mean the game is over or that any company is the winner. The players left standing know that other companies will rise up and new ones will join the industry. When our most important Worthy Rival, the one who pushes us more than any other, drops out of the game, it does not mean that there are others on the bench waiting to immediately rush in to play either. It can take years for a new or different Rival or Rivals to replace them. The advanced player in the Infinite Game understands this and works to remain humble at the loss of a major Rival. Cautious not to let hubris or a finite mindset take hold, they play knowing that it is just a matter of time before new players emerge. Patience is a virtue in infinite play.

Having one primary Worthy Rival has huge advantages. It provides for a single point of focus for strategies to be developed, resources to be allocated and the attentions of internal factions to be pointed.

Once he realized that the company was on a path that could no longer advance his Cause, he was willing to put everything on the line to start over again. He didn’t leave because he saw an opportunity to make more money. He didn’t leave a failing business. He found a better way to advance his Just Cause and he leapt at it.

Existential Flexibility is the capacity to initiate an extreme disruption to a business model or strategic course in order to more effectively advance a Just Cause. It is an infinite-minded player’s appreciation for the unpredictable that allows them to make these kinds of changes. Where a finite-minded player fears things that are new or disruptive, the infinite-minded player revels in them.

Many start-ups are fueled more by an entrepreneur’s passion for a vision than by resources they have to advance it. An Existential Flex recreates that passion for something new at a time when the company is already enjoying success.

The Courage to Lead is a willingness to take risks for the good of an unknown future. And the risks are real. For it is much easier to tinker with the month, the quarter or the year, but to make decisions with an eye to the distant future is much more difficult. Such decisions may indeed cost us in the short term. It may cost us money or our jobs. It takes the Courage to Lead to operate to a standard that is higher than the law—to a standard of ethics.

Courage, as it relates to leading with an infinite mindset, is the willingness to completely change our perception of how the world works.

So how are we to find the courage to change our mindset? We can wait for a life-altering experience that shakes us to our core and challenges the way we see the world. Or we can find a Just Cause that inspires us; surround ourselves with others with whom we share common cause, people we trust and who trust us; identify a Rival worthy of comparison that will push us to constantly improve; and remind ourselves that we are more committed to the Cause than to any particular path or strategy we happen to be following right now.

But purpose is not something we only find after a successful career.

The whole point of having a statement of Cause or purpose is that they actually believe it. That they really believe the purpose of business is bigger than making money.

The courage to see the Infinite Game—to see the purpose of business as something more heroic than simply making money, even if it’s unpopular with the finite players around us—is hard.

What causes an organization to stray off course is often quite consistent. It occurs when leaders become more interested in their own finite pursuits than the Infinite Game and drag the organization along with them.

Organizations will also find themselves at a crossroads when their leaders start to believe their own myths—that the success the company enjoyed under their leadership was a result of their genius rather than the genius of their people, who were inspired by the Cause they were leading.

In my life, the only common factor in all my failed relationships is me. The common factor in all the struggles and setbacks that finite leaders face is their own finite thinking. To admit that takes courage.

In every case I wrote about to demonstrate the Courage to Lead, the hard decisions were not made by great women and great men. They are done by great partnerships. Great teams. Great people who stood together with deep trust and common cause. Like a world-famous trapeze artist would never attempt a brand-new death-defying act for the first time without a net, neither can we find the courage to lead without the help of others. Those who believe what we believe are our net.

Courageous Leaders are strong because they know they don’t have all the answers and they don’t have total control. They do, however, have each other and a Just Cause to guide them. It is the weak leader who takes the expedient route. The ones who think they have all the answers or try to control all the variables.

Leaders who prioritizes themselves over the group breed cultures of employees who prioritize their own advancement over the health of the company. The Courage to Lead begets the Courage to Lead.

Our lives are finite, but life is infinite. We are the finite players in the infinite game of life. We come and go, we’re born and we die, and life still continues with us or without us. There are other players, some of them are our rivals, we enjoy wins and we suffer losses, but we can always keep playing tomorrow (until we run out of the ability to stay in the game). And no matter how much money we make, no matter how much power we accumulate, no matter how many promotions we’re given, none of us will ever be declared the winner of life.

In any other game, we get two choices. Though we do not get to choose the rules of the game, we do get to choose if we want to play and we get to choose how we want to play. The game of life is a little different. In this game, we only get one choice. Once we are born, we are players. The only choice we get is if we want to play with a finite mindset or an infinite mindset.

To parent with an infinite mindset, in contrast, means helping our kids discover their talents, pointing them to find their own passions and encouraging they take that path. It means teaching our children the value of service, teaching them how to make friends and play well with others. It means teaching our kids that their education will continue for long after they graduate school. It will last their entire lives … and there may not be any curriculum or grades to guide them. It means teaching our kids how to live a life with an infinite mindset themselves. There is no single, greater contribution in the Infinite Game than to raise children who will continue to grow and serve others long after we are gone.

To live a life with an infinite mindset means thinking about 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 impact of the decisions we make today.

Backlinks