Things I’ve learned from The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek

The infinite mindset: 1. A just cause, 2. Trusting team, 3. Worthy rival, 4. Existential flexibility, 5. Courage to lead.

Being ‘for’ focuses our attention on the unbuilt future in order to spark our imagination.

Human beings want to feel a part of something. We crave the feeling of belonging. We enjoy the feeling of being part of a group.

A just cause is a specific vision of a future state that does not yet exist.

The reality is everyone is passionate about something, but we aren’t all passionate about the same thing.

Hire for culture and you can always teach the skills later.

Servant leadership means the primary benefit of the contributions flows downstream.

Too many of our cultures are filled with people working to protect their own interests and the interests of those above them before those of the people they are supposed to be serving.

Markets will rise and fall, people will come and go, tchnologies will evolve, products and services will adapt to consumer tastes and market demands. our Cause must be durable, resilient and timeless.

The reason to grow is so that we have more fuel to advance the Cause. 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.

Growth is a result, not a Cause. It’s and output, not a reason for being.

The responsibility of the most senior person in an organization is to look beyond the organization. “I will go up and out. I need you to go down and in.

Chief Vision Officer = the holder, communicator and protector of the vision.

The theory of shareholder primacy → Milton Friedman 1970.

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business. Companies exist to advance something — technology, quality of life or anything else with the potential to ease or enhance our lives in some way, shape or form. That people are willing to pay money for whatever a company has to offer is simply proof that they perceive or derive some value from those things.

Money is a result and not a purpose.

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 possibe. An organization can do whatever it likes to build its business so long as it is responsible for the consequences of its actions.

Like is rational, love is emotional.

People are not like wet towels to be wrung out. They are not objects from which we can squeeze every last drop of performance. The answers to such a question might yield more output for a time, but it often comes at a cost of our people and to the culture in the longer term.

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

Customers tend to enjoy better service when employees feel looked after, which likely translates into higher average sales.

How we treat people is how they treat us.

Though we have control over how we spend or manage money, we have a lot less control over how we make it. Politics, economic cycles, market fluctuations, the actions of other players, customer preferences, technological advancements, the weather and all other forces majeures can wreak havoc with our ability to amass resources. Leaders can exert only limited control over any of these thing. However, leaders have near total control over the source of will. Will is generated by the company culture.

The more psychologically safe they felt around each other, the better information flowed.

‘I give a shit about you guys. I want you to come to work and feel like i give a shit about you and i want to build a culture in which every officer feels like someone gives a shit about them.’

Trust comes before the performance. Trust is about character.

Our goals, as leaders, is to ensure that our people have the skills — technical skills, human skills, or leadership skills.

In an organization, it is the leader’s responsibility to take the first risk, to build a Circle of Safety. But then it is up to the employee to take a chance and step into the Circle of Safety. A leader canot force anyone into the circle.

Fear can push us to choose the best finite option at the risk of doing infinite damage. And in the face of fear, we hide the truth.

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

When leaders are willing to prioritize trust over performance, performance almost always follows. However, when leaders have laser-focus on performance above all else, the culture inevitably suffers.

We humans have all sorts of clever ways to rationalize our behavior and deceive ourselves into thinking that the ethically questionable decisions we make are fair and justified.

Fulfilling one’s legal responsibility does not release a company from their ethical responsibility either.

Lazy Leadership chooses to put their efforts into building processes to fix the problems rather than building support for their people. Afterall, 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, but it may not be telling us the truth.” When leaders use process to replace judgment, the conditions for ethical fading persist.

Systemic ethical fading as a result of excessive process, procedure or demands placed on soldiers.

When we use process and structure to fix cultural problems what we often get is more lying and cheating. Little lies become bigger lies. And the behavior becomes normaized.

Ethical fading, however, is a people problem. And counterintuitive though it may seem, we need people — not paperwork, not trainin, not certifications — to fix people problems.

When we feel part of a group that cares about us, we want to do right by that group and make our leaders proud. Our standards naturally rise.

As social animals, we respond to the environments we’re in.

When we feel part of a group that cares about us, we want to do right by that group and make our leaders proud. Our standards naturally rise.

Leaders are responsible for the people who are responsible for the results.

Trust is built when we do the right thing, especially when we aren’t forced to.

Integrity does not just mean “doing the right thing.” Integrity means acting before the public outcry or scandal. When leaders know about something that is unethical and only act after the outcry, that’s not integrity. That’s damage control.

To parent with an infinite mindset, in contrast, means helping our kids discover 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 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 longafter we are gone.

None of us wants on our tombstones the last balance in our bank accounts. We want to be remembered for what we did for others. Devoted Mother, Loving Father. Loyal Friend. To serve is good for the Game.