What if I asked you what business game you’re playing? What would you say?
Is the game you think you’re playing geared to your success or your ego?
Great leaders play an entirely different game to everyone else … and so do great companies.
So what is that game?
Simon Sinek recently published a book called the Infinite Game. It is a deeply, interesting topic that he discovered in the work of James P Carse (Finite and Infinite Games – A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility).
Carse argues there are two types of games – finite and infinite.
Finite games have known players, fixed rules, clearly defined outcomes and a way of scoring that lets you know who won.
All sports contests are based on the finite game and they assume an objective of winning.
This is an ego game.
The infinite game has few or no rules, changing boundaries, unknown players, undefined outcomes and difficulty in scoring the specific result.
The purpose of the game is not to win just one contest, it is to keep the game going.
Selling is an infinite game yet so many businesses play it as a fixed and finite game.
The person playing a finite game against someone who is playing the infinite game cannot win.
So … what game are you playing in your business?