Best-selling author Simon Sinek has written yet another book destined to become a classic. The book is called The Infinite Game and it will change the way you look at your business. Sinek defines finite games as those that are played by known players and have fixed rules, agreed-upon objectives and a point in time when the game ends. In contrast, infinite games are played by known and unknown players and  have no agreed-upon rules. Players are free to operate as they choose, often break from convention and can play the game in any way he/she wants. One can’t win in an infinite game as “the primary objective is to keep playing, to perpetuate the game”.

Playing with a finite mindset in the infinite game of business “leads to all kinds of problems, the most common of which include the decline of trust, cooperation and innovation”. Sinek writes “Despite the fact that companies are playing in a game that cannot be won, too many business leaders keep playing as if they can”. He continues by writing “In infinite games there are multiple metrics, which is why we can never declare a winner…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”.

Throughout the book, Sinek refers to many businesses who are winners and losers in the Infinite Game of business:

  • Winner – Apple, whose founder, Steve Jobs, blew up his company to develop a computer (the Macintosh), that made it easy for anyone to use.
  • Loser – Microsoft under Steve Ballmer, who became obsessed with the finite game focused on quarterly numbers and lost the Bill Gates’ inspiration, imagination and innovation.
  • Losers – General Motors (obsessed with market share over profit), Sears, Circuit City, Lehman Brothers, Eastern Airlines, Blockbuster Video.
  • Winner – Lego, whose employees’ drive “is not to beat the quarter, but to continue to create innovative play experiences and reach more children every year”.
  • Loser – Mylan (owner of the EpiPen brand), whose obsession with short term profits led to excessive greed that led to increasing the price of an EpiPen to $600 in 2016, a 500% increase in over just six years.
  • Loser – Walmart – In 2009, new CEO Mike Duke bowed under pressure from Wall Street and adopted a finite mindset based on a focus on efficiency, short term stock price, numbers and market share – resulting in employee walkouts and protests in 2012, determination on the part of many communities to keep Walmart out, a 2011 employee discrimination lawsuit brought on by female employees, etc. Infinite minded Sam Walton, who simply wanted to offer the average working American “the lowest prices anytime, anywhere” so that they can have a better life, no doubt would have been irate over Duke’s finite mindset.
  • Loser – Home Depot – In 2000, Robert Nardelli took over as CEO and focused on relentless cost cutting that destroyed the company’s culture of innovation.
  • Loser – Dell – In 2004 Kevin Rollins replaced Michael Dell as the company’s CEO and presided over huge employee layoffs, a huge volume of customer complaints and an SEC investigation over accounting issues – because of a short term finite mindset.
  • Winner – Patagonia – Infinite-minded founder Yvon Chouinard has turned his company into an environmentally-focused organization that once took out an ad in 2011 in the New York Times that read “Don’t Buy This Jacket”. Chouinard used brutal honesty to decry the environmental cost of making one of Patagonia’s jackets – really living the company’s values. The company’s website says “Patagonia is a growing business – and we want to be in business for a long time”. This is an Infinite mindset.
  • Winner – CVS – In 2004, CVS stopped selling tobacco products in their 2,800 stores, costing the company $2 billion per year in lost revenue.  Infinite-minded CVS management was living up to its commitment to improve people’s health and lives. CVS lost cigarette sales for sure but more than made up for it by increasing sales of nicotine patches, vitamins and supplements and gaining the trust of its consumers. CVS’ EPS rose from $0.95 in 2003 to $1.77 in three years, a 70% increase.
  • Winner – Victorinox – This Swiss company “saw its business dramatically affected by the events of September 11”. Their infamous Swiss knife was instantly banned from hand luggage. Instead of taking a finite mindset (layoffs, cost cutting, etc.), Victorinox leaders adopted an infinite mindset and saw their September 11 predicament as an opportunity. They diversified their product line, which saw their Swiss Army knives decrease from 95% of volume to 35%. This helped Victorinox “nearly double its revenues compared to the days before September 11”.
  • Winner – Shell Oil – In 1997, Shell spent $1.45 billion to build the world’s largest offshore deep-water drilling platform. Rick Fox was called in to lead this expensive and risky operation and to ensure the safety of the team. Instead of using a finite mindset (focus on rules, regulations, technicalities and procedures), Fox used an infinite mindset to focus on building trust among crew members. He had them tell their life stories to each other and “they opened up about who they were versus who they pretended to be”. They shared with each other their hidden fears and insecurities that they had been hiding. Fox understood that “to build high-performing teams, trust comes before performance”. As a result of Fox’s infinite mindset, the Shell URSA platform ran at 99% up-time (43% better than industry benchmarks), outperformed their own production goals by 14 million barrels and exceeded their environmental objectives.

Sinek’s book refers to many other Infinite Game winners and losers and presents sound advice on how to build strong organizational cultures based on an infinite mindset.