The Infinite Mindset: A Powerful Strategy to Improve Your Leadership Style
What do successful companies such as Apple, Microsoft (in its early days and the recent months) as well as American Airlines have in common?
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| Photo by Conner Denessen on Unsplash |
Two things: They are very successful, and their vision is based on an “Infinite Game” as Simon Sinek explains in his New York Times bestseller The Infinite Game.
But what is an infinite game? How can you utilize it as a leader and how do you derive objectives in a world with finite resources?
If you are interested, read on!
What are Infinite Games?
Simon Sinek defines the “Infinite Game” as the opposite of the “Finite Game”.
The latter has clear rules, a start and an end, and is competitive. Competitive sports, in general, can be seen as a finite game (Football, Basketball, Rugby, …). In contrast, life itself is an infinite game - you cannot “win” life. Other examples are:
- Finite Games: Vietnam War, Microsoft Zune, …
- Infinite Games: Apple mindset, Victorinox (post 9-11), …
Why is the Infinite Game better?
This is quite simple.
When thinking infinitely, it is not about short-term wins (or just increasing shareholder value). It is more about having a long-term goal and enjoying the way pursuing it.
How to Build an Infinite Mindset
Leaders who want to build an infinite mindset should follow these five essential points:
- Drive a Just Cause
- Trusting teams
- Study worthy rivals
- Prepare for existential flexibility
- Demonstrate the courage to lead
(1) Just cause
A just cause is the core of every infinite mindset, and it consists of 5 characteristics:
- It stands for something (is optimistic).
- It is inclusive (open to all who want to accept it).
- It is service-oriented (benefits others).
- It is resilient (survives change).
- It is ideational.
A just cause is different from the Why - the latter is personal and unique to you. Everyone has a Why. However, you can have or follow several Just Causes.
An example of a very strong just cause is that of the world’s first seed bank and the team of Nikolai Vavilov. To protect the seeds (their just cause) during the siege of Leningrad they went to starvation.
This is an extreme example, but in my opinion, it shows what is meant by a just cause - it goes beyond the personal Why. If you, as a leader, can create such a just cause for your team and yourself it can be a seed for prolonged motivation.
A moonshot is not a just cause
Some people confuse a just cause with a “moonshot”. The latter are finite goals - even if they are difficult to reach and take a long time to achieve, they are finite.
Neither is being “the best” an infinite goal. Infinite would be to strive to be better.
The role of top management
The main objective of a CEO of a company is to be the keeper of the Just Cause. She should have the title CVO (Chief Vision Officer). All too often, large corporations get into trouble after a change in leadership when the mindset of the top executive changes from visionary (infinite mindset) to fact-driven (finite mindset).
Infinite mindset in capitalism
Capitalism as Milton Friedman saw it, is a finite mindset: CEOs make decisions that are geared towards short-term success and increase shareholder value. That is the overriding credo.
If you think of the ideas of Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations) on the other hand, it is infinite: the customer is already at the center. So, the origin of capitalism is therefore infinite!
(2) Trusting teams
Innovative teams need trust. People need to feel psychologically safe to challenge the status quo and come up with revolutionary ideas.
Also, performance comes after trust: Simon Sinek tells the story of the URSA oil rig. At first, the performance of the team was rather low. The cause? They didn’t trust each other. So they started a program where the employees shared personal stories in discussion groups (“armchair circles”). This built trust. After some weeks, the accidents dropped significantly, and also their performance increased.
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| Navy SEAL Trust Matrix, source |
Trust is understood as whether team members understand each other on a personal level (not just professionally).
The Navy SEALs use the matrix above. We have found that team members with High Performance & Low Trust are toxic team members. Navy Seals even prefer team members with lower technical skills but higher personal skills.
The job of a leader is to create an environment where team members trust each other.
Ethical fading
Ethical fading happens particularly in organizations with a finite mindset. If it is all about performance and it does not matter by what means this is achieved, then ethical fading takes place.
An example where this happened was Wills Fargo: employees falsified sales on a large scale. After the scandal broke, around 5,900 employees were fired.
But there are positive examples too. Patagonia, a company with an infinite mindset, is an extremely positive example of corporate ethics.
(3) Worthy rival
A worthy rival has a very strong effect on us: it shows us our weak points.
In this context, Simon Sinek writes about his rival: Adam Grant, and how he used to motivate him. One day, when he was supposed to give a lecture together with him, he realized that his strengths were his weaknesses (this section of the book motivated me to read more from Adam Grant - he too has some very interesting books, like e.g. Think Again).
But don’t confuse a rival with an opponent. In a finite game, you can have opponents, but in an infinite game, it is not about winning. Rather, it’s about the process: having a better process than your rival.
Apple (throughout the book it is clear: Simon Sinek is a fanboy) has had many rivals over the past decades: with the advent of the PC, it was IBM and later Microsoft, with the smartphone Blackberry, and today it is Google and Meta.
The essence is: that a rival helps us to recognize our weaknesses, to understand our own Just Cause more clearly, and to work on our vision.
(4) Existential flexibility
This can be put simply: it is what drives our Just Cause. You need to be flexible in your day-to-day operations. This is why a Just Cause must not be too concrete - you need to have some flexibility woven into it.
(5) The courage to lead
Having the “courage to lead” means that you also have to make unpopular decisions that are aimed in the direction of the infinite mindset.
The CEO of America West and later American (Doug Parker) made such an unpopular decision (for the shareholders): America raised the salaries of its pilots and flight attendants in the middle of a contract period to lift them above the industry average. Wall Street saw this negatively and the share price fell by 9 %, but recovered after just two weeks and was up 20 % by the end of the year.
A finite mindset driven by the ideals of Milton Friedman has the goal of maximizing shareholder value. This is important to be successful in the short term.
However, it is only the infinite mindset that guarantees long-term success. A popular example is Microsoft who have just recently found their way back to the infinite path. On the other hand, if you stay on the finite path for too long, you may lose the just cause and the company will slowly become unprofitable.
My conclusion and learnings
To me, the book was very interesting - especially the core idea of thinking very long term stuck with me. Why decide just for the next 1-3 years? Think big and have a vision for longer than that.
Additionally, I noted some key learnings I want to remember and incorporate into my daily work:
- Better > the best: an infinite mindset is not about achieving a goal, but about getting better and on the way to a just cause → the key is continuous improvement.
- Adam Smith’s form of capitalism is aligned with the infinite mindset (in contrast to Milton Friedman’s finite shareholder value).
- The way an organization treats its members is passed on. Treat your employees like your best customers!
- Team members who are low-trust and high-performing are often toxic and poison the culture of a team. “Always hire for culture. You can teach skills later!”
- A rival helps us to recognize our weaknesses, understand our own just cause more clearly, and define our vision.
Thank you so much for reading! What do you think about the infinite mindset? Let me know in the comments on Medium or reach out to me at LinkedIn