# The Infinite Game ## Metadata * Author: [Simon Sinek](https://www.amazon.comundefined) * ASIN: B079DWSYYB * ISBN: B09VMFNSXP * Reference: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079DWSYYB * [Kindle link](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB) ## Highlights 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. — location: [139](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=139) ^ref-34473 --- Despite the fact that companies are playing in a — location: [151](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=151) ^ref-21426 --- game that cannot be won, too many business leaders keep playing as if they can. They continue to make claims that they are the “best” or that they are “number one.” — location: [151](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=151) ^ref-5345 --- to 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. The benefits of which, ironically, often make companies stronger in the near term also. — location: [167](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=167) ^ref-4461 --- 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. — location: [190](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=190) ^ref-21126 --- Players with an infinite mindset want to leave their organizations in better shape than they found them. Lego invented a toy that has stood the test of time not because it was lucky, but because nearly everyone who works there wants to do things to ensure that the company will survive them. Their drive is not to beat the quarter, their drive is to “continue to create innovative play experiences and reach more children every year.” — location: [194](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=194) ^ref-47856 --- Carse also expects the infinite player to play for the good of the game. In business, that means seeing beyond the bottom line. 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. — location: [201](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=201) ^ref-16637 --- infinite-minded leaders don’t ask their people to fixate on finite goals; they ask their people to help them figure out a way to advance toward a more infinite vision of the future that benefits everyone. The finite goals become the markers of progress toward that vision. — location: [232](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=232) ^ref-6713 --- It will never go only up. It will never go only down. It will go up and down and up and down. . . . We do not think in quarters,” he says. “We think in generations.” — location: [255](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=255) ^ref-45821 --- When Microsoft launched the Zune, there was no grand vision that the product was helping to advance. They weren’t thinking about what possibilities the future might hold. It was just a competition for market share and money—one in which Microsoft wasn’t doing very well. Ballmer’s prediction that the Zune could “beat” the iPod couldn’t have been more wrong. — location: [290](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=290) ^ref-55924 --- leaders can become so obsessed with what the competition is doing, falsely believing they need to react to their every move, that they become blind to a whole host of better choices to strengthen their own organization. — location: [307](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=307) ^ref-52744 --- It’s like trying to win by playing defense. — location: [308](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=308) ^ref-36230 --- Bill Gates’s original infinite vision: “To empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.” — location: [326](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=326) ^ref-56386 --- finite-minded leaders place unbalanced focus on near-term results, they often employ any strategy or tactic that will help them make the numbers. Some favorite options include reducing investment in research and development, — location: [335](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=335) ^ref-6682 --- These decisions can, in turn, shake a company’s culture. People start to realize that nothing and no one is safe. In response, some instinctually behave as if they were switched to self-preservation mode. They may hoard information, hide mistakes and operate in a more cautious, risk-averse way. To protect themselves, they trust no one. Others double down on an only-the-fittest-survive mentality. Their tactics can become overly aggressive. Their egos become unchecked. They learn to manage up the hierarchy to garner favor with senior leadership while, in some cases, sabotaging their own colleagues. To protect themselves, they trust no one. Regardless of whether they are in self-preservation or self-promotion mode, the sum of all of these behaviors contributes to a general decline in cooperation across the company, which also leads to stagnation of any truly new or innovative ideas. — location: [338](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=338) ^ref-47243 --- span of an S&P 500 company has dropped over forty years since the 1950s, from an average of sixty-one years to less than eighteen years today. — location: [363](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=363) ^ref-8516 --- constraints of a finite mindset, playing by the rules for a game we are not in. This is an untenable situation. And the data reflects it. After the 1929 stock market crash that lead to the Great Depression, for example, the Glass-Steagall Act was introduced to curb some of the more finite-minded corporate behaviors that were the cause of the instability in the markets at that time. Between the time Glass-Steagall was passed until the 1980s and ’90s, when the act was virtually gutted in the name of opening up the financial markets, the number of stock market crashes that happened was zero. Since the gutting, however, we have had three: Black Monday in 1987, the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2000 and the financial crisis of 2008. — location: [370](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=370) ^ref-13579 --- Maintaining an infinite mindset is hard. — location: [403](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=403) ^ref-7423 --- To complicate matters further, finite games are seductive; they can be fun and exciting and sometimes even addictive. Just like gambling, every win, every goal hit releases a shot of dopamine in our bodies, encouraging us to play the same way again. To try to win again. We must be strong to resist that urge. — location: [405](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=405) ^ref-11373 --- The scientists who carried on Vavilov’s work during the siege felt like they were a part of something bigger than themselves. This Just Cause, “a mission for all humanity,” as Vavilov called it, gave their work and their lives purpose and meaning beyond any one individual or the very real struggles they faced in the moment of the siege. To have fed themselves or even to have fed the masses of starving residents in the city would have been a finite solution to a finite problem. Though they may have helped prolong the lives of some who would likely still have died or even saved the lives of others, they were looking beyond the immediate horizon. — location: [471](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=471) ^ref-509 --- 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. — location: [484](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=484) ^ref-16476 --- Though we may not like the sacrifices we make, it is because of the Just Cause that they feel worth it. — location: [488](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=488) ^ref-51988 --- in science, nation building or business, leaders who want us to join them in their infinite pursuit must offer us, in clear terms, an affirmative and tangible vision of the ideal future state they imagine. — location: [510](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=510) ^ref-15443 --- Those who are unsure whether their purpose, mission or vision statement is a Just Cause or those interested in leading with a Just Cause can use these standards as a simple test. 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 — location: [545](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=545) ^ref-7814 --- Resilient—able to endure political, technological and cultural change Idealistic—big, bold and ultimately unachievable — location: [549](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=549) ^ref-36913 --- Imagine if instead of fighting against poverty, for example, we fought for the right of every human to provide for their own family. The first creates a common enemy, something we are against. — location: [556](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=556) ^ref-10861 --- The second gives us a cause to advance. The — location: [559](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B079DWSYYB&location=559) ^ref-22120 ---