THE INFINITE GAME – MINDSET and SUCCESS the STUNNING truth!!

FINITE GAME 

They are played by known players. They have fixed rules. And there is an agreed goal that, when achieved, is game over.

ES: Football is a finished game there is always a beginning, a development and an end.

INFINITE GAME

Instead, they are played by both known/unknown players. They have no precise or agreed rules.

Although there may be conventions or laws governing the conduct of players, within these broad boundaries players can operate as they see fit, there is no such thing as “winning”. In an endless game, the main goal is to keep playing.

INFINITE GAME FINISHED MENTALITY

Playing an infinite game with a finite-type mindset can cause all sorts of problems, the most common of which include a drop in trust relationships, which in turn will hurt cooperation and innovation.

ENDLESS GAME ENDLESS MINDSET

Playing an infinite game with an infinite mindset, on the contrary, points us in the right direction. Groups that embrace an infinite mindset enjoy much higher levels of trust, cooperation, and innovation, with all its attendant benefits.

In the infinite game, the true value of an organization cannot be measured by looking at its success based on arbitrary metrics applied at arbitrary time intervals.

The true value of an organization is measured by the desire of others to contribute to its growth even beyond their own mandate.

While a narrow-minded leader works to get something out of their employees, customers and shareholders in order to meet arbitrary parameters, the infinitely minded leader works to ensure that their employees, customers and shareholders do not lose the will to continue to contribute. their efforts, their portfolios and their investments.

Gamers with an infinite mindset want to leave their organizations in better shape than they found them.

According to Carse, a finite-minded leader plays to end the match: that is, to win. And if he’s going to emerge as a winner, then there needs to be a loser as well. Each of them plays for himself and wants to defeat the other participants.

BE LEADERS WITH INFINITE MENTALITY

1. It’s not up to us to choose whether a given game is finite or infinite.
2. It’s up to us to choose whether or not to take part in the game.
3. Should we choose to join the game, we can choose whether to play with a finite or infinite mindset.

If we decide to play a finite game, we evidently want to play by the correct rules to increase our chances of winning.

Choosing to lead with an endless mindset has less to do with preparing for a football game and more to do with the decision to get in shape, consistency is more important than intensity.

Any leader who wants to adopt an infinite mindset must follow 5 fundamental practices:

1. Promote a just cause
2. Build trusted teams
3. Study worthy rivals
4. Prepare for existential flexibility
5. Demonstrate the courage necessary to lead

Everyone has their own WHY (and can only know it by allowing themselves to discover it).

But we don’t necessarily have to have our own just cause. We can choose to join others’ cause. This gives you the strength to move forward and face all the difficulties.

A just cause must be:

1. FOR SOMETHING, positive and optimistic
2. INCLUSIVE open to all those who want to contribute to it
3. SERVICE-ORIENTED, aimed at the primary benefit of others
4. RESILIENT, able to withstand political, technological, and cultural changes
5. IDEALISTIC, large, bold, and fundamentally unattainable

A just cause serves as an invitation to join others in advancing something larger than ourselves.

When they help us imagine a positive, specific, alternative vision of the future, the words of the just cause arouse within us the desire to raise our hand to join and participate.

We call it a “VISION” because it must be something we can “see”.

For a just cause to be effective as an invitation, the words must outline a precise and tangible image of the type of impact we will have or of how the better world we have in mind should be exactly.

A just cause must involve at least 2 parties:

1. THE CONTRIBUTORS (those who donate).
2. THE BENEFICIARIES (those who receive).

The contributors give something, for example their ideas, hard work or money, to help advance the just cause.

And the beneficiaries of those contributions benefit from them. For a just cause to pass the service-oriented test, the primary benefit of the organization’s contributions must always go to people other than the contributors themselves.

Write down your cause so others can follow it when you’re no longer there.

Most of the time, the order in which a person presents information reveals their actual priorities and where their strategies focus.

Where Sam Walton started by citing people’s interests, Mike Duke started with Wall Street’s.

If you create a trust bond between your company and customers, your company will grow much longer-term, so prioritize people then shareholders.

The average life of a company has decreased over the years.

CAPITALISM AND ITS IMBALANCE

Adam Smith believed that competition to offer better products could be good for us consumers, but this can happen in a balanced system.

The problem is that there are outsiders like analysts and external investors who exert pressure to have lower prices and higher profits because they are selfish.

Over time, CEOs have become richer at the expense of customers, employees, the environment… because they are selfish and always want more.

They use buybacks to buy shares of their company and appear even richer.

There is an imbalance because only 1% has everything and when there are imbalances there will be disorder.

CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY must:

1. PROMOTE A PURPOSE: offer people a sense of belonging and the feeling that their lives and work have a value that transcends physical labor.
2. PROTECT PEOPLE PERSONE
3. GENERATE PROFIT

LEADER-EMPLOYEE RELATIONSHIP

A leader is concerned about how employees are doing.

Employees should not be seen as a cost, but as an investment and treated well with fair salaries and benefits.

To increase trust among people, they must be made comfortable by showing that everyone makes mistakes, so information circulates and they help each other.

TRUST

Trust is more important than performance because you can be as good as you want, but if you create disorder among people, you do a lot of damage.

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

We deceive ourselves by thinking that our choices are right and ethical, to avoid admitting our faults and blaming something else.

ENVY

If you feel envy for abilities that a person has, it is most likely because you lack or have underdeveloped those skills, so you should not waste time envying but improving those weak points.

Making the defeat of the opponent the primary goal not only becomes tiring in the long run, but also prevents any progress.

Look at your cause from another point of view.

WORTHY RIVAL

When they do not have a worthy rival, strong players tend to delude themselves into thinking they can control the direction of the game and other participants.

A worthy rival serves to improve each other and when he/she exits the scene, it takes time to find another worthy one.