Simon Sinek: How Leaders Inspire Even in a Time of Crisis | Inc.

hello and welcome to real talk business reboots i'm lindsey blakely inks managing editor and i'm delighted to introduce today's guest simon sinek a little over 10 years ago simon cemented his influence on management thinking by tackling a common question facing business leaders how do you inspire customers and employees still very much a relevant question his answer and the resulting best-selling book was start with why his latest book published last year the infinite game examines a bigger question how do you build a strong adaptable company that's built to last when everything else around it is constantly in flux i would venture to say that very question is on the minds of many entrepreneurs right now simon we're delighted to have you welcome and thanks so much for joining us nice to be here thanks for having me so in the days leading up to this webinar we received a bunch of smart questions from attendees who by the way i'm seeing are are coming everywhere from sao paulo brazil to dallas new jersey uh france welcome everyone um we're going to try to get to as many audience questions as we can i'm going to start with a couple questions of my own um and then i also want to remind everyone you can use the live chat please do so and we will also take live questions so simon you are a self-described optimist uh the the crisis we're living through right now health economic racial inequality in this country it's enough to shake even the most confident leaders why are you still an optimist even now where does that come from well optimism is not a denial of the current state it's a belief that the future is bright um you know we can be in a dark tunnel um but as an optimist i'm i'm not fixated on the darkness of the tunnel i'm fixated on on the light at the end i don't know how long it's going to take to get there i know it's going to be difficult um but but that's where i i do fundamentally believe that that we will be better off because of this um not in spite of it that makes sense um the trick is is obviously to like keep your eye on that light right with so many so many distractions um you know much of the infinite game is about understanding the world in which businesses operate now um the book of course was published pre-pandemic but let's talk first about the infinite mindset and why it's particularly well suited to help entrepreneurs with crises like the one we're experiencing now so just to define what it is so that so that everyone has context in the mid-1980s a philosopher by the name of james carse articulated these two types of games finite games and infinite games a finite game is defined as known players fixed rules and an agreed upon objective football baseball there's always a beginning a middle and an end and if there's a winner there has to be a loser then you have an infinite game infinite games are defined as known and unknown players which means new players can join at any time the rules are changeable which means you can play however you want and the objective is to stay in the game as long as possible to perpetuate the game yeah if we think about it business is an infinite game new companies can start and join your industry at any time you don't have to run your business the same way somebody else runs their business and there there's no such thing as winning in business there's no such thing as being the winner of business it doesn't exist the objective is to stay in business as long as possible to stay in the game if you don't it's called bankruptcy you drop out but the game continues with you or without you and what i find so interesting is how many uh uh business owners play in this infinite game of business with a finite mindset they're trying to be number one or be the best or be there beat their competition based on what based upon what agreed upon objectives what agreed upon time frames what agreed upon metrics and the problem is when we play with a finite mindset in an infinite game when we play to win in a game that has no finish line there's some predictable and uh consistent outcomes amongst which include the decline of trust the decline of cooperation and the decline of innovation and so maintaining an infinite mindset is is is the recognition that whatever is happening today is not the end whether you hit your goals or miss your goals it's not the end right yeah um and i think it's been incredibly valuable during this time i really get a kick out of the fact that you know i've in interviews people keep asking me the question they say simon during these um during these uncertain times all times are uncertain there's never a time that is certain it doesn't exist all that has happened is something that we didn't expect has happened that has reminded us that time is uncertain it's the same reason we buy insurance we don't buy insurance expecting a house to burn down and we don't buy insurance after the house is burned down and so i think what this is what has happened is crisis is the great revealer and i think it's really shown which organizations have been maintaining an infinite mindset or which had been playing with a finite mindset which had been playing to be able to adapt to crises even ones that are as difficult as this and ones which uh really were just playing for the now and when something like this happened they're in a much weaker position both financially but also the quality of their teams yeah so it might help to to tell us what's what's an example that you're seeing particularly lately of a company playing with an infinite mindset uh specific to covet or just in general uh let's talk specific to covid since that's what we're all facing right now um so they come in big and small forms um and just there's a few patterns that i've seen in the ones that have had the infinite mindset that have it's helped them adapt um one the the the ones that are really struggling have put themselves at the center of the equation how are we gonna survive how are we gonna get more money right the ones that are uh playing with that infinite mindset that are having an easier time adapting doesn't mean it's not difficult but it's been easier than that less panic um are the ones that have put the customer at the center of the equation um we have something valuable that other people want how how can we help other people get what we have what what they want relative to the time we're in now and so what it does is unleash its creativity as opposed to panic you know they're basically saying okay we've got something valuable let's pretend that this we're starting from scratch and that this is this is where we're starting from now what would we do yeah and it's become a rather exciting period for some of them um some of my favorite i thought as in terms of big companies um i thought nike was pretty amazing they reacted unbelievably quickly they redefined athletics for something you do at home and completely pivoted their business for for home and their website um their e-commerce which is used to getting i'll i might get the number slightly wrong something like uh 50 something million hits a month is now getting 130 million hits a month i mean they've never seen numbers like this ever they were right at the front they reacted so quickly it was unbelievable in terms of small businesses one of my favorite examples is uh is a company it's a pizzeria in chicago called demo's pizza they made 70 of their revenues from selling slices well that went away quickly and they weren't necessarily prepared for pizza deliveries because they were sliced basically a slice pizzeria and so when business shut down they didn't look at their resources they didn't look at their pizza oven and say oh my god all we can do is make pizzas that's what pizza ovens do they said they looked at their resources and say what are all the things we could do with the resources we have and they realized that a pizza oven burns much hotter than a regular oven and they could bend industrial-grade plastics so they started ordering rolls of industrial-grade plastics and making face shields to make ppe to sell to hospitals that's genius to me that ability to pivot based on the resources and the talents they have rather than simply the product that they that they thought they had i love that example so you know as we've we've talked about like this sort of gets down to the the nitty-gritty here like a lot of attendees asked some form of this question how do you maintain an infinite mindset when a crisis of this magnitude might force you to make some very short-term very painful decisions the infinite mindset is not the absence of the finite it's the context within the in which the finite exists of course of course we have to have wins and losses when it is a finite objective um we use the wrong analogies when we think about our own businesses we use sports analogies and war analogies most of which are finite games right um uh but the a better analogy is is lifestyle like what does it take to be healthy right you know you have to exercise sleep well uh nurse your personal relationships um eat healthily i mean like like and probably 30 or 40 other things you have to do and it's perfectly fine to have finite objectives i want to lose x amount of weight by x date yeah right and the finite objectives are motivating they help us count progress human beings love metrics we love to count progress because it makes it tangible right you could never run a marathon without mile markers because you had no sense of speed or distance that's what metrics are they give us a sense of speed or distance but in business they don't indicate the end of the game goals are not the end of the game so that's like saying i want to lose x amount of weight by x date and if you hit your goal you're all excited and everything's wonderful but the problem is you have to keep exercising for the rest of your life the game isn't over right you hit your goal in business business doesn't end you've got to keep going and the opposite is also true what happens if you miss your goal you're all bummed out you missed your goal but here's the truth you're probably much healthier now than you were when you started and who cares nothing happens like if you miss your your goal nothing happens and if you just keep at it you'll hit your goal in 13 or 14 months instead of 12. it's exactly the same in business the the fine the finite games are there to help push us and guide us towards something much bigger and i understand the point of the question which is what if you have to make very difficult finite decisions i assume they're talking about layoffs yeah uh again the game is existential the game is about staying in the game what i'm against is using people's livelihoods to manage the books so we're profitable this year just not as profitable as we liked uh so we're going to lay off a bunch of people just so we can be as profitable as we promised we would be to meet our goal that's what i'm completely against however uh to use layoffs because literally we've tried everything else we've scrimped and saved we've cut back everywhere else we've tried temporary furloughs and if if we don't do this the business will die if it's existential then those difficult decisions have to happen for the greater good because a business exists on two on two levels which is will and resources you need both you need the will of the people but you need the fuel to to advance the cause so they're excruciating if it's anything other than excruciating i would be worried yeah excruciating decision and it should be made for existential reasons so let's talk about people managing your people particularly with this mindset um a viewer john asks um what are some of the best ways to convince your staff that the infinite game is the game we're truly in particularly if this is just not the way they think well first of all there should be no convincing of anything uh you know it's a double it's a double-edged question and here's the reason why which is if you have a sense of just cause and and your and your you built your your business to advance some sort of higher cause and vision then you should be hiring people who believe in that and so you know you make a couple hiring mistakes what the scenario he's talking about should be onesies and twosies but if you have a mass of people who don't believe in the cause then then it raises a few questions a do you really have one b um why did you hire those people did you only hire them for their resumes and their skill set and brush decide whether they fit the values and believe in the cause because you know they're so talented or which happens very often uh a leader realizes you know there's a better way to run a business i'm switching to an infinite mindset i'm trying to articulate my infinite uh my just cause for the first time um and it's not about convincing it's about inspiring which is it's about showing up and working and being very very honest hey guys i realize that i've been playing a short game in this in this infinite game of business i i explain the definition in 30 seconds you explain the definition to someone we the game of business is infinite it's like gravity it's like we don't get to debate it it is what it is um and so i realized that one of the things that i really want to do is use our energy and our resources in this business to advance a cause greater than ourselves and just keep talking about it and talking about it and talking about it some people will come over immediately some people think that's totally cheesy and they didn't sign up for this and then you'll start to see morale sort of do something and most people will self-select if that's not the company they want to be in like i didn't sign up for this and then you're left with onesies and twosies yeah um but it's not gonna happen overnight you know people adapt differently and we can't force people to go at the pace we want them to yeah they want to so a related question andrew asks um he says our people believe in our purpose and our values but they're not fanatical about them what moves the needle so that they are as obsessive about our purpose as i am i think it's a good question is it like a failure to inspire well it's it's a good question and without more context it's a i'd have to just guess uh uh sometimes uh and i've seen this very frequently where you have leadership that is fanatical about their purpose and the reason the people aren't fanatical about it is not because they don't have fanaticism for purpose it's because the leader has not properly articulated it's a poorly they poorly articulated the purpose it's done in a way that the leader understands kind of what it means in their gut but then everybody else sort of scratches their head and go yeah fine you know like to be the best to be the preeminent you know or or something you know to change the world well it's too generic yeah sure you know i see this i see this in pharmaceutical companies or insurance companies a lot where you know in in the insurance industry you ask any insurance company their purpose and they'll say you know uh to help people uh protect from the from the unpredictable well that's all insurance that doesn't help in your claim doesn't qualify or or uh you know anybody in in healthcare it's you know protect the health of people no kidding like no kidding but that doesn't help me understand the culture of one hospital versus another or one pharmaceutical versus another so the best purposes generally are not grounded in the product or the service but rather the product and the service will help us advance toward that cause and sometimes not even that barry waymiller which is a manufacturing company in the midwest they make big machines like the company that puts labels on bottles like like uh that they make the machines that do that and sell them to package goods companies things like that if you ask the ceo bob chapman what's your company's purpose he says it's to build great people to do extraordinary things and so their purpose comes to life in their culture and it comes to life and how they treat their vendors and how they treat their customers and most important how they treat each other but it has really nothing to do with the product interesting and that's that creates zealots inside the company right that makes sense um another question that i got in several forms from from different viewers um obviously fans of your first book they they say they've already identified their why and they've begun leading with with purpose and mind um but they say that this crisis has challenged their why in a significant way um if if this if this is the new normal and uh you know you're you're not identifying as much with your why your people aren't identifying as much with your why um what what's your take on that have you sort of misidentified your your true why in this situation or or is it normal for crises to sort of shake our confidence in in our purpose a why is is fundamentally who we are it's an origin story companies have have a why but so do individuals right we are the sum totals of how we were raised you are who you are um and uh the rest of your life lindsay will be spent you know trying to make decisions to be true to yourself we call it being authentic right we even have a word for it um and that basically means the things i say and the things i do i actually believe they're core to who i am and absolutely a crisis can put us off course and that usually feels like stress it usually feels like uncertainty it usually feels like panic um our friends will say to us it's like i don't know who you are anymore i'm worried about you what's wrong something's different so absolutely but it doesn't mean the why has changed it means we've we've stopped focusing on it because we've become obsessed with what we're doing and panicking rather than taking a step back and saying hold on why did i set out set out to do this in the first place or to your point it was poorly articulated in the first place you know think of a while like the foundation of a house which is in a hurricane or an earthquake the house will shake but the foundations they remain you know when we dig up ancient ancient uh ruins it's the foundations we find um and and and so for example with us my why our company's why is to inspire people to do the things that inspire them and what we did was we changed what we do but we didn't change why we do it we actually went backwards and say hold on guys why did we start this business now given the current circumstance how do we change how do we this is what the pivot is we're going around the y we're not going like this we're not protecting the product and sacrificing the why we're changing the product uh and the service and protecting the y that makes sense um again another really common topic that we heard from a lot of viewers is this shift to to a remote management environment um and and how exactly uh you know the uh managers um tactics to inspire and engage need to shift in this environment um so let's call them leaders not managers and nobody wants to wake up in the morning to be managed we want to be like that's fine i want to be led not managed um uh so again as i said at the beginning crisis is the great revealer right and so it reveals to us both the things we got right and things we got wrong in terms of good leadership and so one of the most important things to do in this crisis or every everything that we're facing right now not just covid um is is to check in on our people not send them an email not send a group email saying i'm here if you want me but to pick up the phone and say hey how are you it's tough it's been tough just wanted to see how you're doing yeah and let people talk well we should be doing that as leaders all the time not just in times of crisis again it's the great revealer it's more important now perhaps and we take for granted yeah that we we got away with not doing it um um but but we should be practicing you know the funny thing is people you know people keep asking how has leadership changed it hasn't all the tenants of great leadership are now reinforced which is empathy matters a huge amount checking in our people personally conducting business with telephones or zooms not email and a lot of people have organically started using less email because it doesn't feel right but it doesn't work well why are we using it so much in the past yeah um so it it doubles down on on the importance that there are human beings involved here and human beings deal with trauma in very different ways and there's no right or wrong way yeah a few other people um basically revealed that you know their people are starting from a place of fear you know i think that's that's common in a lot of businesses right now so when when your people are scared when they're in panic mode it might be affecting the culture um can you walk us through maybe how you start to handle that i mean someone specifically mentioned you know how do we start being others focused kind visionary and energetic enough to sort of join together in in this fight yeah um so i'm interested in sort of like the concrete steps to do that yeah and look for for many panic is fair i mean um they don't know if they will have a job in a few weeks or not yeah um and so it's a it's a it's a completely fair feeling to have we can't criticize someone for it um uh and again i i have found that honesty works best but also inviting the team to help solve the problem we don't want to be paternalistic about it you know um we don't want to be like i i'm figuring it out you know guys i'm gonna i'm gonna make sure that that everybody's got their job well one person can't do that especially in in in a time of incredible difficulty where almost everything we're doing is new um and so to enlist the team where they have some agency over their own future the responsibility of the leader is to set the vision this is why we started the business this is what i i believe this is what i believe we can still do to give a speech about optimism we're in a dark tunnel but i know that if we work together we will head towards that light and we will come out of this uh dark tunnel even stronger than we went in and here's what i need from everybody i'm gonna need everybody to adapt not only do we have to pivot the business but you might have to pivot your job the job that we hired you for may not be your job anymore we may not need the job anymore that we hired you for we may need a completely separate job for this pivot that we're gonna do and what we're asking you is to pivot with us we're all going to put ourselves through stress and strain we're all going to have to struggle but we have each other we will take care of each other and then enlist people this is what we did i got an idea from my friend jen waldman where we gave our entire we said to the entire team i want 15 new ideas in the next 48 hours how to advance this vision i gave them the vision i said give me 15 new ideas each and everybody freaked out that 15 was too many well if i told them to come up with four they'd come up with the same four ideas that i came up with the superficial ones the easy ones the really good thinking happened that the eighth idea the ninth idea the twelfth idea i didn't mind if they worked in teams that was fine too and the thinking that we got was fantastic but the most important part was they all felt that they had agency and were able to contribute to to keeping the business alive yeah so a related question um jonathan wrote in and said um we already run our business uh very much based on transparency um we we show our team you know all aspects of the operation the finances is there a point at which being too transparent with employees is harmful i think there's a great misunderstanding what transparency means transparency doesn't mean showing everybody everything it just doesn't mean that transparency means providing context for the decisions we're making it means keeping people in the loop that's what it means right so um you know there is certain data um that if because a lot of um employees don't know how to read a balance sheet and we'll misunderstand the balance sheet we hear it all the time you know we hear it all the time which is um you know a company we have eight million dollars in revenues how can we be financially struggling well then that's not what revenues mean you know um uh um and so showing everybody everything um you probably will spend more time trying to explain the nuances of the data but rather it's to say here's the number we need to make every month to stay afloat to break even we're looking for every way to cut expenses to make this number lower we need your help we did this we went we went we went through like subscriptions that we had to some online things that nobody's ever used and we're like why are we paying for it like we went and we like really into the minutia to try and make that number smaller got everybody involved where we can scrimp and save but everybody knew that number and everybody knows that number and we and and um and everybody knows that that's our goal um and so providing context means here's the situation we're in here's here's what we have to achieve um here's the reason here's what we're thinking even though we don't know what decision to make yet let us tell you some of the things that are happening let us tell you the status of the ppp loan like let us you know giving people lots of context is what transparency really is because remember people can deal with good news and people can deal with bad news where people struggle is uncertainty because if we if we give uncertainty then our imaginations get involved and that's when panic sets in um and so i'd rather keep people in the loop at a contextual level and then invite them to join what about transparency on a personal level i know um you did a video i think just a couple weeks ago about why now is the time to embrace vulnerability um at the same time i think a lot of founders struggle with how how much vulnerability to show you know you need to be this this confident leader um so i'm curious your take on is there a point at which being too vulnerable with employees is a problem so one of the things that everybody has to remember when you occupy a position of leadership is a whisper becomes a shout out um everything is amplified um sarcastic comments that you might have been able to make in the past you can't make them anymore um the little things just the the game changes you know um because a whisper becomes a shout there is in other words it's a higher standard um and so um you can't come to work and say oh my god guys it's all over it's all over it's all over it's all over and then you're having a bad day anybody else in the company can do that somebody a junior person the company can come and be like it's all over it's all over and we're okay with that we're like don't worry man it's okay well you know um if the leader does that panic ensues even if it's just somebody having a bad day yeah um and so we have to be aware of that also we can't be excessively positive because that's not true either i think the biggest mistake that leaders make is they think they have to have all the answers and if they don't they pretend that they do there's and what vulnerability means doesn't mean sharing your darkest moments out loud with the team vulnerability means admitting i made a mistake i don't know i'm uncertain that's what it means and to come out and say guys this is uh this is a difficult time uh a very difficult time i'm being tested more than i've ever been tested um uh and uh um [Music] and i and i'm not 100 sure of the decisions i have to make here's what i do know i believe in our vision i believe in our team and i think that if we can get the right product mix and if we can figure out new ways to bring our cause to life i think we can beat this i'm going to be leaning very very very heavily on this team because i cannot do this alone um um and i will keep you in the loop of and like we made mistakes we we like run head forth in one direction and then we had to shift and we said to everybody we got it wrong we're making this step as we go along and we'll explain why we were wrong we explained why we changed but to express uncertainty but but but not end there uncertainty and here's what i plan to do is essential but to say i don't know is so powerful and to ask for help is so powerful yeah that makes sense so let's switch gears a little bit and talk about the infinite mindset specifically uh when it comes to customers um tristan a viewer that who's watching right now wrote in and said we are struggling to provide the same level of retail customer service that we built our reputation on everything's harder takes longer our customers seem to be less patient less grateful the complaints and the challenges don't stop how do we create a level of patience from our customers telling them we're doing the very best we can we're all trying our hardest how do you get in a way your customers to sort of be with you in in that infinite mindset and stick with you it's such a good question because it's such a mixed bag right because so many of us have become more patient i mean you know online shopping now is like the early days of online shopping where things used to normally come in two weeks that was normal like if you got something it was like a wonderful surprise like you like you won something because you completely forgot that you ordered it um uh you know we got used to this overnight delivery thing which is nonsense um uh and i think people have sort of we shrugged ourselves and say oh my god it's it's like old times you know um and i think again providing context which is um in these coveted times you know the health of of our people is absolutely paramount and unfortunately we've been forced to scale back the speed at which we can operate and uh and other things we we're we're we're we're trying hard to ensure that our people and you remain safe here are the some of the specific things we're doing um all we ask is be a part of the um ask to join us and and we'll work together to solve this and what we ask is just can you please be a little patient with us we're a little slow we're on email replies we're a little slower here but fear not we care about you and we'll be back in touch with you soon and i think again over-promising yeah simple and and and by the way you'd better be doing that you know don't be saying that you're doing these things and not like if you if you're slowing things down because you have new protocols to protect the health of your people you actually better be doing those things right right what about marketing messages um right now i mean i think a lot of companies i mean they're in a position where they need to start selling more they also want to be sensitive to what everyone's going through right now um what what changes in your view must a company make to sort of be attuned to this environment i mean that's the six million dollar question especially um with the rise of the black lives matter um yeah you know i i've seen some people that put out one solitary message and it's business as usual and and i i find it tone deaf to be honest like every day is more and more more sell sell sell and you know i understand that business has to go on but you know maybe it's okay to slow down for a couple weeks just to like let the country breathe for a little bit you know yeah and if you want to contribute great and if not maybe go into like a listening mode maybe maybe learn you know um it's it's um i think we saw this in covid which is everything was free because everybody wanted to do the right thing and then within a few weeks realized wait this is unsustainable and we've seen a slow a slow pedaling back you know and i i think we're all fumbling through it together um and and i think you know again if you take an infinite mindset no nothing's the end like you know if you get it right don't get cocky um and if you get it wrong it's okay adjust adjust learn yeah that's what the infinite mindset is um but i think they're you know i think we i think this is this time more than ever has reminded us that we don't operate our businesses in vacuums um and uh people actually do listen to the things we say in our advertising in our marketing and and it does affect people how they respond to us emotionally as again crisis is the great revealer right yeah on that topic um arnold wrote in and said in fact what is the best leverage we have in business to spark rational and productive conversations on hot issues and i'm assuming he's talking about black lives matter well first of all it's not it's not all rational deeply deeply emotional and so if your goal is to have a rational conversation then you don't understand what listening is um listening is about understanding where the emotions come from that's what it is and by the way not always rational um um it's based on experiences it's based on perspective it's based on on on all kinds of things and so i think it's absolutely essential now that we as individuals should be having uncomfortable and necessary conversations with our friends and our loved ones our black friends and our white friends you know about our role and responsibility and and like those conversations have to happen um but equally so we have to have those difficult and uncomfortable conversations at work because we work together and we do have biases and we do have blind spots you know and and to to think we don't is is a blind spot sure um um and there are multiple ways to have those conversations um but vulnerability is the best way to start them um if if you're a leader and you're white and you you want to say something but you don't know what to say and you don't want to get it wrong and you don't want to offend and so you you go quiet yeah what i recommend is is get your black employees in the room and say guys i'm struggling like help me here i want to say the right thing i don't know what to say and i'm stuck i need to understand your experience at our company like do we get things right do we get things wrong help me understand your experience here and help me navigate so that i can get it right if we've made mistakes include people but that that expression of vulnerability is hugely valuable and and um have you know if and get the whole team together you know regardless of of race and have that same conversation and create a safe space without judgment that allows people to express themselves because we make it rational arguments will ensue but if we learn to listen and try to understand where someone's coming from um to understand how difficult and different our lives are but not to play moral equivalencies well you had that but i had this you know right that doesn't that doesn't make anybody feel heard because that's the goal of listening it's that the other party feels heard not that you heard the words that's great advice i want to switch gears a little bit and grab a live question uh from the chat um michael jackson assuming that's his real name um simon can we eradicate the phrase the new normal and just talk about what the future will look like in your opinion sure stop talking about it how do you how do you talk talk about these times so always uncertain but i talk about it i say it tongue-in-cheek i talk about the new abnormal um uh you know this is like world war ii which is the life that our grandparents lived before the war was not like the life they lived after the war the world will be different yeah everybody has seems to have an opinion about what it's going to be like i don't know i have some hopes i have some fears um but uh um but it's gonna be different this youngest generation you know many of our grandparents were frugal and miserly because they grew up during the depression and the war you know they saved every piece of tin foil in every jam jar um uh well that's not because there's something wrong with them it's because they went through the depression and the war and it affected how they lived the rest of their lives there's a young generation that has to keep socially distant has to wash their hands before they open anything aren't allowed to touch people like it's gonna have an effect you know positively and negatively um i'm fascinated by what's gonna happen and totally unpredictable uh totally uncertain like all times um but i i i agree i think anybody who thinks that we're going back to the way things were you know has sort of been asleep for the past four months five months um and that goes for covet as it does for black lives matter these these are these are these are significant points in time and in history that that because of the the the the suddenness of it because of the the volume of it um cannot be ignored and will profoundly shift the way we live our lives um for better um but yeah i i mean i i concur i mean i think those were the conversations we had in the early days of code um you know it's just semantics whatever okay hugo juarez would like you to unpack a little bit more how how one should see one's competition uh while also having an infinite mindset so his question is you know you identify a worthy rival isn't it crucial to understand what they're doing um and and sort of incorporate that into our plans while also still having an infinite mindset okay so uh just a 30-second dalliance so that so that others who don't know what he's talking about know what he's talking about so in in the infinite game to maintain an infinite mindset i talk about um no longer seeing the other players in the game as competitors but to start to see them as rivals and some of those rivals are worthy of comparison they're worthy rivals in other words they do some or many things better than you better leadership training better leaders better marketing better product who knows what right um and their strengths reveal to us our weaknesses so that way we may build upon our weaknesses and become a better company because the the only true competitor in the infinite game is ourselves the goal is how do we outdo ourselves that we can stay in this game as long as possible that's the value of comparing so absolutely compare yourselves to other companies pick the best ones pick the ones who who who dominate who and even though you may sell more and have more market share let's be honest their their product is better again playing the fool's errand of you know i love when companies say to me we're number one my answer is always for now you know for now that doesn't last um uh um and and if you view them as a competitor that means you want to beat them so if you're comparing market share and you're like ha ha we beat them you're missing the point that's not the comparison you want to make the comparison you want to make is what are their what do they do that's better so that we can improve the way we do business um and there's enough business out there for everyone to do well so whether you have you know 32 points market share and 34 it doesn't mean you're profitable it doesn't mean you're a better business it doesn't mean that your employees are happy it doesn't mean your customers are happy it doesn't mean that you're going to survive 10 years uh and so absolutely make comparisons without a doubt but don't make the comparisons with the intention of beating them based on some arbitrary metric on arbitrary time frame that's a fool's errand you have a great personal story on this this point that that i've heard you um tell before can you can you tell us about uh your your rival and my my worthy rival yeah there's another guy who does what i do he writes books he gives talks he's extremely well respected and extremely good at what he does i hate him he never did anything to me personally i just hate them and uh um you know we have we've met each other professionally and we have a very cordial relationship um um and as a result of my my discomfort um i'm very competitive with him and so i will regularly check my book sales and compare my book sales to his book sales i don't check compare them to anyone else's just his and if i'm ahead i'm all smug and if he's ahead i get all angry you know and uh one day we were invited to speak at the same conference and i don't mean like him in the morning me in the evening i mean like we were going to be interviewed together on the stage at the same time and the interviewer thought it would be fun if we uh introduced each other and uh so i went first and i turned to him and i said um you make me really uncomfortable i said you make me really insecure because all of your strengths are all of my weaknesses and whenever your name comes up i get uncomfortable he turned to me and he said funny i feel the same about you the reason i had such a visceral uh feeling towards him and the reason i had i was so competitive with him had nothing to do with him it had to do with me it's because his strengths revealed to me my weaknesses and it was much easier to redirect that energy at him rather than do the difficult work of taking a hard look at myself and saying where can i improve as a result of that cathartic experience we've actually become very close friends house and we realize that we're more powerful as a team than we are as competitors because being competitors is stupid turns out people can buy more than one book right um and and i recognize this is where my lesson of worthy rival comes from which is if you have an emotional response discomfort anger hatred whatever even an an over intense sense of competition for another player in the game they're probably touching something like there's probably something being revealed in you that yeah don't want to look at yeah um and so yeah so it was a very very cathartic experience by the way i've never checked his book sales ever since and i wish him nothing but luck because i and i i want him to do well okay so ben is asking um in the past three months what is a new belief behavior or habit that has most improved your life oh that's a great question um i there's a couple things that i've really that i think coveted was an absolute gift um one was family dinner most people don't have family dinner anymore or if they do it's a treat and the regularity with which so many of us are having family dinner has become really special you know where we actually put away our phones and we have family dinner every night um the other thing is space you know i think that we you know our our nation over indexed on how we define success in terms of how fast you're getting promoted how much money you're making and yet it was an unhealthy way to live and not necessarily the right way to build a business or live a life and i think we've you know we're still working hard but there seems to be more space you know there seems to be time to just chill out or enjoy the weekend and we're not so attached to our phones as much anymore because we're sort of on zoom all day and then we walk away you know and we're not we're not strangely attached to the devices all the time you know i actually can go and get a bite to eat and not bring my phone with me which you know prior to covet i took my phone to get a bite to eat um so i think space has been and i realized this this pace is better and and and i think black lives matter has also been um i think that a lot of good has come out of black lives matter in in terms of daily practices which is i think it's challenged me and challenged others um to really be better listeners and and learn the skill of having an uncomfortable conversation because if you can have an uncomfortable conversation about race you can have an uncomfortable conversation about pretty much anything yeah what's what has helped you get better at having uncomfortable conversations about race about anything i called it friends for advice i i didn't i i made a very conscious decision not to react which is i didn't want to be i didn't want to offer pablum nor did i want to be an echo um and i called friends and had very difficult and uncomfortable conversations and the way my conversation started was i picked up the phone and said i don't know what to say and i don't know what to do and i know i i know what i know how i feel but i'm struggling how to express it properly and what ended up happening is i started having i started hearing stories from my friends that i'd never heard before you know i i understand i've read stories we've all read stories about um african-americans who have suffered um uh uh institutionalized bias we know them we know the stories um but i've never had a conversation about racism with my friends because it well just we just hung out like we didn't talk about those things and so for the first time my friends were telling me stories that were familiar and similar to many of the other stories the differences these were my friends you know the stories of friends being i have one friend who was getting off a plane and he was detained for an hour because there was a report of a six foot five african-american man who'd escaped from jail and might be on his plane my friend is five foot eight wow they they saw a black man and detained him and ignored the fact that six foot five and five foot eight is not as is isn't is not enough you know like you got to be kidding yeah and and like it was so hard to hear because these are people i love and to hear the stories again intellectually i know but to hear their stories it was really hard for me and i got very choked up and my friends weren't getting choked up and i asked them how come you don't get choked up they said because i've been through this a hundred times before like this black lives matter thing is new for you it's not new for me you know um and i think this is a the you know the question has been raised why is why is why does this one feel different why does this why does the murder of george floyd feel different and i think the reason is is because this is the first time the rest of us saw the whole video usually we see the end the aftermath or we see some blurry something or other and then you know there's a police report that says he fought back and you don't really you don't really know and all the biases sleep in but this is the first time we saw the whole thing from beginning to end from multiple angles there was no there was no argument there was no rationalizing and it was shocking um and i and i and i think that's what what we all saw for the basically for the first time saw not understood what we saw for the first time is something that um our african-american friends have seen and experienced multiple times over and i think that was that's the difference you know that's the difference so one question um that actually has been a recurrent question in in many of these real talks that we've done so far um what to do when you want to give up what's what's your take on this question uh i'll tell you a story so uh when i wrote leaders eat last it was the most difficult thing i've ever done [Music] i couldn't figure out how to organize all this information i just couldn't do it and i was already missed multiple deadlines and i was sitting at my computer one evening and i just realized i couldn't do it and so i i gave up i did give up and i went for a long walk literally to plan my exit and i went through the steps of things that i have to do i have to return the advance that the publisher gave me because technically i'd be in breach of contract um i would have to tell my friends i'm not going to finish i'd be humiliated i was preparing myself for that i'd get over it so would they um i rationalized i did a lot of rationalizing you know 10 000 books a year come out nobody's going to miss one and i literally was just going through my exit plan and for some reason i called a friend of mine he used to be in the air force special forces and he picked up the phone i don't even think i said hello i think i just asked a question i think i said i i said um what do you do if you can't complete the mission and as is his nature he started telling me a story and he told me a story about when he was in afghanistan he was a helicopter pilot um and uh they were about to perform a mission but all of the intelligence said that that it was a suicide mission that the air defenses were too great they were all going to get shut down and this wasn't like a kill hitler mission where we're all going to die but we'll kill hitler this is like we're all going to die and the mission will fail like literally a pointless mission and as they were prepping their helicopters his wingmen turned him and said what do we do we've got families like do we refuse to go and my friend said no this is what we signed up for we have no choice this is what we signed up for we go and then he said to me he said um uh clearly the mission was canceled at the last minute but uh he said to me um you know is this new book that you're working on more or less powerful than than start with why i said it's affected me more he said okay funny story for you before i met you i was disillusioned with the air force i wanted to leave i read this crazy little book called start with why it re-inspired me to the point where i'm a better leader now and i decided to stay in the air force and if you're saying that this book has affected you more than the first one then we need this book he said this is what you signed up for you have no choice now what was what's important about what he said to me is he wasn't giving me tough love and it wasn't some don't worry do what you want he basically what he was saying to me is i'm here with you he says this is what you signed up for you have no choice but i'm there with you the whole time and it was the camaraderie it was the the deep knowledge that i had someone by my side that gave me the courage to go finish um that was the underlying message that you're not alone and so if you if you're if you think you're gonna quit you know uh call someone who believes in you um you know i i reach out to folks in the military because they have a different way of doing things you know in the private sector people like well it's the right thing for you to do then you should do it you know um in the military they go i'm there with you man like i gotcha and it's and it's that intense camaraderie that we need you need someone not to help you make the decision you're making you need someone who tells you that no matter what decision you make they'll be by your side you can still make any decision you want yeah but you won't be doing it alone that's the most important thing someone to accompany you on the journey somebody to accompany you the journey so we we've got a little more than five minutes so i want to just give everyone um that five-minute warning to to go ahead and throw any other questions you might have into the live chat um i have a couple of couple of questions some topics we've touched on but i want to sort of leave people with um succinct kind of tactical advice based on on what we've talked about um and these are these are again based on on some viewer questions um so what is the one thing if you had to identify the one thing you can do today to make an impact on on leading your team through this incredibly difficult time yeah i think it's one of the things we said before which is call call somebody and and check in on them you know too many leaders are are trying to lead by email yeah you know what you can't leave by email you can't do it um too many people are relying on on you know statements that come from the company you know even if they're perfectly articulated what we need more now than ever is humanity you know um just call somebody and say i haven't talked to you in a while how you doing you know and just shut up and listen and if they talk about problems they're having don't try and fix them don't try and push it into a business context if they say they're struggling don't start worrying that their their work product is going to suffer you know what would you do for a friend go just do that with your with your people treat them as friends you know go listen go hear them just you know and and and and make sure that they feel heard at the end of the call like and you'll know because they'll say hey thanks for this this really meant a lot or they say hey i really feel appreciate you listening to me you know they'll say something that indicates that that they felt heard um some of them will be quick and some of them will be longer take the time yeah you don't have to do it but just check in on people now and then if it's a larger company then lean on your leaders first of all check in on your other leaders and lean on them to go check in on their teams it doesn't have to come from up on high but it has to come from somewhere great jess is saying what books are on your nightstand right now um i have a you know i tend not to read things in my own category um i have a book called um oh what the hell is it called uh it's all about the history of dictionaries so wow um i wish i could remember the names that you could all buy it because it's so good um oh i'll have to leave someone google it and put it in the chat yeah yeah it's it's it's word something or other um i think it's word but i think this might be word by word anyway something like that um and i also there's a book that somebody gave me called thinking and bets um which i haven't started yet um uh i always have um one of my favorite books is man search for meaning by victor frankl well they just found out um they just found out uh there it is word by word the secret life dictionaries that's the one there we go it's if you're in if you're a nerd and you like words and scrabble and things like that uh um they found a new manuscript by victor frankl that hadn't been published before called yes to life um i'm very very excited to read that that's on my nightstand okay great um i think i know the answer to this but i'll ask you anyway so dave is asking um what do you think is the number one character trait to display right now if all else fails what impact will will this have on your your people courage courage and integrity i think i don't think you can separate the two um trying to do the right thing and ignoring the the noise you know um as i said crisis is the great reveal we talked about worthy rivals what's so funny in this coveted time is there's not a single company trying to beat their competitor they're just trying to stay alive yeah well that you should be doing that all the time um you know during good times we have the luxury of being stupid you know we waste money and we make stupid decisions and and when and when times are tough we we have to make better decisions because each one actually counts more and if we make the wrong one we may not have the time or the money to fix it yeah and so we realized that the the futility of the excessive amount of attention and time we put on studying our competition because really nobody's doing that right now and if they are it's only because they're trying to learn from them or take cues from them they did a good job on that we should do that too you know um but but courage courage to to do the right thing courage to to play the play with an infinite mindset courage to ignore if you're a public company ignore shareholders because they don't know how to run your company um uh but you know it's the card should take time if you need it you know the courage to have difficult conversations the courage to say i don't know the courage to ask for help um i think courage is is the thing and i've heard you say courage to lead is one of your your five practices in in the infinite mindset and i've heard you say it's embarrassing that this needs to be on the list why did you say that well i mean like you know caring about what how people feel like you know my it's embarrassing that i have a career i talk about trust and cooperation there should be no demand for my work you know um uh but it isn't it is embarrassing that the courage to lead leadership is not about being number one leadership is not about being in charge leadership is about taking care of those in our charge leadership is a great responsibility to see that those around us rise and having a leadership position is not the same thing as being a leader having a leadership position gives you rank and authority that's it but being a leader means that you take responsibility for the people around you um and the courage to lead means i'm gonna i'm not gonna lean on my position i'm gonna lean on my on on the skills the skills that are required to be a leader and and sometimes that means going against the grain yeah that's what doing the right thing is right right fantastic well i want to um to end on time um simon thank you so much for joining us this this was such an enlightening session well thanks for having me it's always a joy to do things uh with things so i really really appreciate you having me on we've had a long relationship and it's it's nice to do stuff with you so thank you appreciate it um and if you if you want to continue the conversation with simon he's graciously agreed to um to keep it up uh on twitter um twitter handle is at simon cynic so you can send him your questions there we go grab it on the screen you can check out his podcast it's called a bit of optimism and then i also want to remind everyone to join us for our next inc real talk business reboot series daniel pink the author of drive the surprising truth about what what motivates us uh will be joining us wednesday june 24th at 1pm you can see the link on the screen you can register to attend um simon again thank you for being so generous with your time thanks for having me i really appreciate it thanks lindsay take care

Channel: Inc.

Views: 157,533

Rating: 4.8826666 out of 5

Keywords: Inc. Magazine, Inc.com, Small Business, Entrepreneurship, Business, News, Entrepreneur, Startup, Leadership, Business tips, successful business, simonsinek

Id: uhZdbL-ekW8

Length: 58min 57sec (3537 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 24 2020