Leadership in the Infinite Game: Live Q&A Recap
Recently, Simon hosted a Live Q&A across our social platforms to answer questions from people like you, and talk all things Infinite Game. Check out what he had to say below:
Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What is the Infinite Game?
Simon: In the mid-1980s, a philosopher and theologian by the name of Dr. James Carse defined two types of games: finite games and infinite games. A finite game has known players, fixed rules, and an agreed-upon objective. Infinite games have both known and unknown players, so you don’t necessarily know who all the players are and new players can join the game at any time. When we play with a finite mindset in an infinite game—meaning we play to win in a game that has no finish line—there are some very predictable and consistent outcomes. The major ones ones being the decline of trust, the decline of cooperation, and the decline of innovation. And if you look, a lot of the challenges that we’re facing in our world—both in business and in politics—are because too many of our leaders are playing with the wrong mindset for the game that they are in.
Q: What other companies have you noticed are playing with an infinite mindset since the book was published?
Simon: Some companies have actually been pretty public about this. Brian Chesky over at Airbnb has publicly said he wants to build an infinite company and be more infinite-minded; I love that. I’ve had conversations with some folks at Nike who said that they’re trying to be more infinite-minded. Walmart is trying to be more infinite-minded.
I think what’s happening is a lot of leaders that are coming in are recognizing that some of those leaders that came before them were so excessively finite-minded that they’ve actually done damage to the companies that they now lead. They have to change their mindsets to actually put their companies back on a longer path. I’m very proud that the little idea that Dr. Carse originated, and that I’ve been able to build upon, is really finding its momentum.
Q: What do you do to teach kids about the Infinite Game?
Simon: There’s a great story that really captures what it means to live with an infinite mindset… There’s a young monk with a remarkable natural ability for horse riding. And everyone in the village says, “You’re so lucky.” And the monk says, “We’ll see.” And then one day he has an accident, falls off his horse, breaks his leg, and ruins his career. And everyone in the village says, ‘You’re so unlucky.” And the monk says, “We’ll see.” Then war breaks out, and all the young men are sent into battle, but he can’t go because of his busted leg. And everyone in the village says, “You’re so lucky.”
The point is good news, bad news, who knows? Everything bad that happens to us will end, and everything good that happens to us will end. As Maya Angelou said, “Every storm eventually runs out of rain.” But teaching kids about that little Chinese proverb is really, really helpful.
Q: How do we teach an infinite mindset to Gen Z?
Simon: Well, we need to be teaching it to every generation, and frankly, it’s some of the older generations that struggle the most. It’s the Boomers that are the most finite-minded because that’s the Jack Welch generation, but I digress.
The way we teach it is the way we teach anything, which is we talk about it, we talk about it, we talk about it. Read my book, read Dr. Carse’s book, talk about it yourself. The great thing about finite and infinite games is that you don’t need me to share these ideas. They’re so simple, understandable, and repeatable.
I think we also need to build it into our schools. Too many schools are finite-minded. We teach math and science, but we don’t teach mindset. We don’t teach how to manage stress, we don’t teach how to view the world. I think we need all of that in our curricula.
Q: How is AI affecting the Infinite Game?
Simon: If AI is used for constant improvement—so if we plug it into a system so that it’s constantly finding errors and mistakes that we can constantly improve something and never feel that the work is done—then I really like it, and I think AI is valuable. When we use AI to try to “win”, to figure out formulas even though there’s no such thing as winning, then I think it only exaggerates all the ills of a finite mindset. It’s like rank or power: is power and rank good or bad? Well, it depends what you’re doing when you achieve it. So I think it’s the application of the AI that I’m more nervous of, and I think it’s important that we know about these two different games so that we apply it in the right way.
Q: How do we influence people we have no influence over?
Simon: I get this question all the time. We can only take responsibility for ourselves, and so we have to be the leaders we wish we had. No number of anonymously sent books to our boss will change the way that they lead, unfortunately.
What does change is that we become the examples. And when we lead the way that we think leadership should, what you find is that morale is higher, performance is higher, and any open-minded senior leaders will look down and say “What are you doing?” Then we can tell them, but we’ve got to make the case first. Or, if they continue to ignore us, it’s okay because we’re building great teams that will eventually get promoted out or move to other companies and take all the lessons they learned from us. This is very much a part of the infinite mindset, which is accepting and learning that we may not see results in the short term, but if we keep acting true to our values and keep acting toward our vision, then eventually it starts to ripple.
Q: What if I’m not a leader?
Simon: Every one of us is a leader and a follower. The best leaders are the best followers. No matter how senior they get, they still believe they’re in service to something bigger. The pope, for example, is in service to something even bigger than himself. So, believe it or not, the best leaders are the best followers. And if you’re just part of the group, then that’s okay. But if you’re the one who says, “I’m gonna take care of the people in my group, if I’m gonna take care of the people on my team,” you’re a leader.
Good followership looks a lot like good leadership, which is care about the person to the left and care about the person to the right. And the weaker ones are taught gratitude and learn to push harder, and they are welcome back into the team. And so the really interesting thing is if you really choose to be just a part of the team and not actually work toward the team, weirdly you’ll find that the team organically pushes you to the sides to try to teach you a lesson, which is “come be a part of the team”. Because we care about the group, and everybody knows if you support the group, you live longer.
Q: How can I bring The Infinite Game to my team and make it into an ongoing practice?
Simon: What I have found if you want to bring new ideas to a team is start talking about them. Just say, “I heard this idea. Can I share it with everybody?”
All of my ideas started off as conversations. All of my ideas start off as thoughts. Going out for lunch with friends or with teammates and I said, “Can I share with you an idea that I’ve had or have learned about or heard?”
It all goes back to the Law of Diffusion which tells us not to worry about converting people. Find the people who are more drawn to these early ideas. So when you talk to them, some people say, “You’re an idiot.” Okay, that’s fine. We don’t need to convince them. And some people say, “That’s cool! I love that. Where did you learn about that? I want to learn more about that.” And then you’ll start to build a community of people around ideas. But talk about them—talk about them obsessively. When I have an idea or find an idea, I become obsessed with the idea, and it’s all I talk about for a while.
Q: Why are Team-Building Programs so effective?
Simon: Whenever I would give a talk, invariably, someone would raise their hand and say, “Simon, it’s all fine and good what you talk about, but our company—we have no budget for leadership curriculum.” I talk about learning listening, about learning how to give effective confrontations and difficult conversations, all these great leadership skills—and people would always say, “We don’t have the budget for it,” or “Our company is too small,” or “My boss has no appetite for this.” And I’d always reply with the same answer, “Can you afford a book? Buy a book; start a Team-Building Program.”
A Team-Building Program is one of the best ways to start a leadership curriculum without any formal budgets or any formal learning. One of the things we found is when people did start Team-Building Programs, is they sometimes got a little stuck. So what we did is we built a Team-Building Program where I ask the questions, and they come with guided discussions, and we really offer a way for you to go deep and have really good conversations.