Simon Sinek - The Infinite Game - Nordic Business Forum Sweden 2019 - Full Keynote + Q&A

what if you showed up to play football when you were prepared to play basketball you've been practicing your basketball game but you show up and it's a football pitch it's not gonna go well this is very similar to how we actually build our businesses we are actually playing with the wrong rules for the game we're actually and if you have at least one competitor you have a game and according to James Carr see there are two types of games there are finite games and they're infinite games a finite game is defined as known players fixed rules and an agreed-upon objective like football there are referees there to manage the rules we all agree to the rules and whoever has more points at the end of the game is the winner there's a beginning there's a middle and there's an end then you have infinite games an infinite game is defined as known and unknown players new players can join at any time the game has changeable rules and the objective is to perpetuate the game to stay in the game as long as possible and if you think about it we are players in infinite games every day of our lives there's no such thing as winning marriage it doesn't exist and if you thought you could win in your marriage you are no longer married there's no such thing as winning global politics and there's definitely no such thing as winning business but if you listen to the language of too many leaders they talk about being number one being the best beating their competition based on what there's no agreed-upon metrics and there's no agreed-upon time frames in other words we're playing the infinite game of business with a finite mindset and if you're playing the game with the wrong rules something happens when you play an infinite game with the rungs with a finite mindset there's a few very predictable and consistent outcomes decline of trust decline of cooperation and the decline of innovation let me give you a real-life example that I experienced of the difference between somebody playing with a finite mindset and somebody playing with an infinite mindset I spoke at an education summit for Microsoft I also spoke at an education summit for Apple at the Microsoft summit the vast majority of the of the executives spent the vast majority of their presentations talking about how to beat Apple at the Apple summit a hundred percent of the executives spent a hundred percent of their presentations talking about how to help teachers teach and how to help students learn one was obsessed with where they were going the other was obsessed with beating their competition guess which one was struggling so at the end of my talk at Microsoft they gave me a gift they gave me the new Zune when it was a thing this was Microsoft's response to the iPod and this little piece of technology that they gave me was absolutely brilliant it was fantastic user interface was simple it was beautifully designed it worked flawlessly so at the end of my Apple talk I'm sharing a taxi with a senior Apple executive and I couldn't help myself I just had to stir the pot so I turned him and I said Microsoft gave me their new Zune it is so much better than your iPod touch and he looked at me and he said I have no doubt and the conversation was over when somebody's playing with an infinite mindset they know that sometimes you have the better product and sometimes somebody else has a better product there's no such thing as winning or losing there's no such thing as being the best there's only a head and behind and the goal is not to beat the competition the goal is to outlast the competition the only true competitor in the infinite game is yourself how do we make our products better than they were last this year than they were last year how do we make our culture stronger this year than it was last year how do we help our leaders grow more this year than last year everything is compared to ourself for if we play in the infinite game where the finite mindset it not only reduces trust cooperation and innovation but it also reduces the lifespan of the company itself in the 1950s the average age of a company was about 60 years today that average is 18 it is over 40 years less so which means we have to learn how to lead in the infinite mindset in the infinite game we have to learn to embrace an infinite mindset you're gonna need five things number one you're gonna have to have a Just Cause number two you have to have trusting teams number three you need a worthy rival number four you need a capacity for existential flexibility and number five you're gonna need the courage to lead let's talk about the first one just cause a Just Cause is a cause so just that you would willingly sacrifice your own interests in order to advance this cause it doesn't mean your life but it means sometimes turning down a better paying job to stay in this job it might be mean long business hours frequent business trips being away from your family and even though you may not like these things they feel worth it because they feel like the work you're doing is contributing to something bigger than yourself so valuable that you would willingly make these sacrifices in order to see that just cause advanced one of my favorite is the Declaration of Independence in the United States before the settlers had a revolution they wrote down a declaration of why they wanted their own country what their just cause was what they would be pursuing and in that declaration they wrote all men are created equal endowed with unalienable rights amongst which include life liberty in the pursuit of happiness it had nothing to do with borders it had nothing to do with products it had to do with an ideal that they wanted to live in and it was worth going to war it was worth sacrificing their honor their fortunes and their lives in order to advance the revolution was just a finite part you can win those you can lose those that's just the war but the cause was to advance this ideal yes the Revolution was won but then the real hard work began and you can see that though the United States will never actually get there because that's what a just causes it's an ideal you will never actually get there but you would be willing to die trying and you can see it after the Revolution was once shortly after they had the abolition of slavery shortly after that they had women's suffrage shortly after that they had the civil rights movement and shortly after that they had gay rights and you can see they're trying trying to get closer and closer and closer to this ideal the question is is what purpose does your company exist for what Just Cause is it hoping to advance that if everything went absolutely perfectly the world would be different than it is now and your company is devoted to helping to build that world because that is what gives the people who work in our company a sense of purpose that their work has more worth than simply the things they do during the day that their lives and their work have meaning you must give your people a Just Cause that is worth sacrificing for two trusting teams I went on a business trip to Las Vegas and they put me up at the Four Seasons which is a beautiful hotel and the in the for since the Four Seasons is a beautiful hotel is not because of the fancy beds the comfortable beds any hotel can buy a fancy bed it's because the people who work there that when somebody says hello to you you get the distinct feeling that they wanted to say hello not that they were told to say hello I was they happen to have a coffee bar in the lobby and so one afternoon I went and bought myself a cup of coffee and the barista working that day was a young man named Noah Noah was funny and engaging and I had way too much fun buying a cup of coffee from Noah I stood there far longer than anyone should stand there buying a cup of coffee so as is my nature I asked Noah do you like your job immediately he replied I love my job now in my line of business that's significant like is rational I like the people I work with I like the challenge I get paid well I like my job love is emotional it's a higher order feeling you know do you love your wife I like her a lot right it's different Noah said I love my job so immediately my ears perk up I follow up tell me specifically what the Four Seasons is doing that you would say to me you love your job without skipping a beat Noah says throughout the day managers will walk past me and ask me how I'm doing ask me if there's anything that I need to help do my job better not just my manager any manager and then he said I also work at Caesar's Palace and there the managers won't past us and catch us when we're doing things wrong there they're just trying to make sure we get everything right make the numbers he says there I like to keep my head below the radar just get through the day and collect my paycheck only at the Four Seasons do I feel I can be myself this is the exact same human being and yet our experience of him would be profoundly different not because the person but because of the leadership I get this question all the time Simon how do we get the most out of our people people are not a towel we don't wring them out how much can we get out of them the correct question to ask as a leader is how do we create an environment in which our people can work at their natural best and the answers will be completely different and we very often blame our people when we have performance issues or customer service issues but as I just said it's the exact same human being the only difference was the quality of the leadership to be on a trusting team to create an environment in which trusting teams can exist mean that the people can come to work and feel safe raising their hand and saying I made a mistake I don't feel like I have enough training to do the job that you've asked me to do you promoted me to a level where I need more help I'm scared I'm having trouble at home it's affecting my work I need more help I want to be myself I can be myself they can say these things and do these things without any fear of humiliation or retribution in fact they do so with the absolute confidence that their colleagues and their leaders will rush to them to support them this is what it means to be on a trusting team if you do not have trusting teams in your company if you are not creating a leadership environment in which trusting teams can exist what you do have is a group of people who show up to work every single day lying hiding and faking their hiding mistakes they're pretending that they can do a job that they don't know how to do they're not gonna ask for help they definitely don't feel like they can be themselves and eventually things will start to crack and eventually they will break and it will be the fault of the leaders we've seen this play out we know what this looks like in the extreme I'm sure you all remember a few years ago in the United States United Airlines pulled a passenger off their aircraft with a broken nose broken teeth and a concussion I feel sorry for every member of that crew because every single member of that crew knew what the right thing to do was but did not intervene because they feared getting in trouble more than doing the right thing this was not an anomaly this was not this does not happen overnight this was built up over years of no trusting teams I saw it years before I saw Clues I was getting ready to board a United Airlines aircraft and a scene played out in front of me where one of the passengers attempted to board the plane before their group number was called which as everybody here knows is a serious crime and that was how the gate agent treated him step aside sir I haven't called you a group yet please step aside and wait till I call your group is how she talked to a paying customer so I spoke up I said why do you have to talk to us that way why don't you talk to us like we're human beings and she looked me in the eye and said sir if I don't follow the rules I could get in trouble or lose my job what she told me was what she will what I what I could hear was that she does not feel safe in our own company and her leaders do not trust her to do the job for which she's been trained to do and guess who suffers company customer and her the reason we've loved flying airlines like virgin it's not because they have some magical formula to hire the best people it's because the people who work there feel safe to do their jobs they feel like their leaders trust them to do the job for which they've been trained to do and guess who benefits customer company and all the employees we have a responsibility as leaders to create an environment in which our people can feel like they can be themselves and they can work to their natural best and feel safe when they need help that's what it means to be a trusting team you must have trusting teams if you want to play in the infinite game number three worthy rival there's another guy who does what I do he writes books he gives talks like this one he's exceptionally good at what he does he's extremely well respected I hate him he's always been very nice to me when I'd seen him at conferences I hate him and I will go online and I will check his book ranking and then I will immediately check mine I don't check anybody else's just his and if I'm a head I'm smug and if he's a head I'm angry I want to be him we were invited to speak at the same conference and I don't mean like me in the morning him in the evening I mean like on the stage at the exact same time we were gonna be interviewed together and the interviewer thought it would be fun if we introduced each other so I went first I turned to him and I said you make me really insecure I said all of your strengths are all of my weaknesses and when your name comes up I get uncomfortable he looked mean he said funny I feel the same about you the reason I had so much anger towards him the reason I was so competitive with him is because his strengths revealed to me my weaknesses and it was much easier for me to direct that energy against him than it was to take a hard look at myself that's the value of a worthy rival competitors of people we want to beat we want to win but the problem with that is this game has no finish line it's like running in a race and we're so driven to beat our competitors that we would trip them we would resort to anything to win the problem is we may win the race but we're still a slow and there's gonna be another race in another race in another race there is no finish line in this game and so when we have that kind of competitive energy it actually hurts us if we take on this new idea that we no longer have competitors we now have worthy rivals and a worthy rival is another player in the game that is worthy of comparison sometimes they can be in your industry and sometimes not but they have a strength they're actually better at things than you are maybe their products are better maybe their customer service is better maybe their website is better maybe their culture is better maybe their leaders are stronger and instead of being angry about it we thank them we're grateful that their strengths reveal to us our weaknesses so we know where we have to work because remember the only true competitor in the infant game is ourselves if we truly think we're the best that makes us blind to our weaknesses remember myspace they had no clue they thought they were the 800-pound gorilla until Facebook showed up that's called blind you can have a worthy rival in your own office we have these little competitive things sometimes at work where we hear that one of our colleagues gets a promotion and we get mad they don't deserve it I deserve it's like Gollum or we can admire them they're good they're great leaders the command respect and loyalty in a way that I don't and instead of hating them because it makes me feel insecure I'm gonna commit myself to become a better version of myself you get to choose your own worthy rivals make sure they challenge you make sure they work make sure they push you to be a better version of yourself and when they drop out of the game you find another one back in the day apples worthy rival was IBM IBM was the Navy and Apple were the Pirates and then they fell out of the game then it was Microsoft Microsoft was the Navy and Apple were the Pirates then they fell out of the game and these days maybe it's Facebook or Amazon but once again Apple uses these worthy rivals to make them to push them to be even better who are you worthy rivals learn from them push yourself number four you have to have a capacity for existential flexibility what does that mean this is not about the daily flexibility that you have to have in business existential flexibility is big if the willingness to profoundly change course at great personal expense to the company because it's the right thing to do to advance your just cause I'll give you two examples as a classic example back in 1979 Apple was already a big company Steve Jobs was already a famous CEO they're already well-known and doing right quite well an apple had a just cause there's to empower individuals to stand up to Big Brother they love the idea that we as individuals could compete with a corporation and that's why they were so drawn to the personal computer because clearly this device could give individuals great power jobs and a bunch of his senior executives went on a tour of Xerox Park which was Xeroxes R&D division and while they were there a Xerox showed them a new invention called the graphic user interface that they had invented this gave us the ability to move a cursor over the desktop to click on icons to work the computer as opposed to having to learn a whole computer language they leave Xerox and Jobs sees this graphic user interface thing and he says to his his executives we have to invest in that that will help us advance our cause and give even more people more power to use these computers to stand up to Big Brother compete with corporations the voice of reason in the room said Steve we can't we can't do that we've already invested millions of dollars and countless man-hours in a different strategic direction if we walk away from that we will blow up our own company to which actually said better we should blowed up than someone else that decision became the Macintosh a computer operating system so profound that has literally changed the way computers exist in our lives in fact the entire software of Windows is designed to act like a Macintosh that is existential flexibility that you find a better way to advance your cause that if you stayed on the path you're on eventually it's gonna run out you're gonna go to business that's what happens if you don't blow up your own company to advance the cause the market will blow it up for you George Eastman the founder of Kodak he had a just cause he wanted to Ma critize photography prior to do George Eastman the only way that we could take pictures is we had to hire a professional photographer and because of George Eastman he invented film it allowed the rest of us to take pictures ourselves you didn't have to learn how to coat big metal plates with chemicals that took hours and was expensive and heavy and dangerous and photography took off and the company was obsessed with making photography cheaper and simpler and cheaper and simpler for all of us and in 1975 one of their scientists a man by the name of Steve Sasson invented the digital camera and the executives at Kodak suppressed the technology because they feared that it would cannibalize film sales they couldn't bring themselves to imagine a digital world they couldn't bring themselves to recognize that they had to go through this upheaval to go from a film company and a chemical company and a paper company into a digital company and they knew that this digital thing would catch on in about ten years and sure enough almost to the year ten years later digital showed up in the rest of our lives in fact Kodak made billions of dollars from the royalties they made from the patents they had then the patents ran out and five years later they went bankrupt because if you're not willing to blow up your own company the market uh blow it up for you they didn't have the strength to say we have to make this change even though it's gonna hurt and I call it a capacity for existential flexibility because you do not have the capacity practice essential flexibility until you have a just cause because otherwise it's just random shiny object stuff or two that you don't have trusting teams because you're gonna put your company through unbelievable stress and the people better know why you're doing it because they agree with the move and they're willing to suffer in the short-term because it's the right thing to do to advance the cause we're in let's do this every company that goes through an existential flex like Apple becoming the Macintosh put the company through hell and it was worth it and if you don't have to do it in your tenure you may never have to do it as the leader of your company but is your company prepared to do it for the leader who takes over after you you have to prepare your company for existential flexibility if you want to stay in the infinite game if you want your company to die when you quit then ignore everything I'm telling you number five you have to have the courage to lead this may be the hardest one of all because everything that I have explained to you today is unbelievably difficult work making decisions that are the right decision to make to advance your cause which sometimes means turning down more money from someone else is hard to do building trusting teams is unbelievably difficult it's not an event you don't just have a company off site it's a lifestyle it's the difference between having children and being a parent having children takes like five minutes if you're lucky raising children takes a very long time getting a promotion and becoming earning a leadership position takes five minutes your boss says you're promoted yeah go out for dinner celebrate being a leader is unbelievably difficult and it's a completely new lifestyle it means putting my interests aside to create an environment in which my people can work to their natural best it's being invested in the growth of others it's sometimes lonely and thank sometimes you don't get immediate results it's like going to the gym you go to the gym you come back you look in the mirror what do you see nothing you go to the gym the next day you come back you look in the mirror what do you see nothing but you commit yourself you can meet yourself to the lifestyle that if I work out every single day for 20 minutes I know with 100% certainty I will get into shape I don't know when and that's the problem because in the finite game we like to predict we like to guess our results and we like to predict when they're gonna happen in the infinite game the results are 100% certain I just can't tell you exactly when they're gonna happen it's good to have goals there are finite games within the infinite game there are wins within them within the infinite game the infinite game is the context within which those finite games exist those finite games exist to advance a cause bigger than ourselves that's hard building a company for existential flexibility and then actually going through it hard having to look at our competitors but then really look at ourselves and admit that we suck and then have to work on it oh so much easier to just spend more money in advertising hard it's easy to write your purpose on your website it's really hard to actually make decisions based on your purpose hard all of these things are hard not to mention all the pressures that we're all under the overwhelming amount of pressure that we have either that's the incentive structure inside our companies that are telling us make the numbers by the end of the year make the numbers by the end of the year think short term think short term be selfish be selfish those are the pressures upon us if you work for a public company oh my god even worse the pressures on us in this modern day and age are overwhelming for us to maintain a finite mindset the courage to lead means I will reject that mindset and I'll embrace a new mindset even though I may feel that I am in the minority and here's the irony we've been suppressing these feelings for a long time we keep being told that we're now you don't understand how business works we feel like we're in the minority but in reality we are the majority we have all worked for people or sometimes if we own the company ourselves felt this is uncomfortable this doesn't feel right I'm gonna do the decision it makes it makes sense on paper but it doesn't feel right that might just be because we're playing by the wrong rules for the game that we're actually in just because something's normal doesn't mean it's right there was a while ago that everybody thought the world was flat until we realized it's not the business world is not finite why are we playing my finite rules this whole raise is a very interesting question what does it mean to live an infinite life clearly our lives are finite we're born we die but life is infinite the game of life is infinite there's no winner of life the game will continue with us or without us like business will continue with you without you it doesn't care if you go bankrupt or not that means every single one of us has a choice how we live our lives do you want to live by finite rules or do you want to live with an infinite mindset living our lives with a finite mindset means we're trying to make more money than anybody else we want to advance ourselves higher than all our friends we want to be the biggest we want to be the best we're gonna be the strongest and when we die you don't take any of it with you the choice to live with an infinite mindset means you commit to see that the people around you will carry on your ideas without you and you will have a profound and positive impact in their lives that one day in the future I can go up to any of them and say how did you become so wonderful and they will say your name I am Who I am today in part because of you you will literally live on beyond your own life you will literally live an infinite life it is just a choice we get to choose how we want to live our lives we get to choose how we want to run our businesses it's not a question of right or wrong it's just a choice to play by the rules for the game that were actually in or not thank you very much [Music] thank you started today ladies and gentlemen thank you I promised inspiring and we delivered now uh we've got plenty of time for questions and and Simon you've got plenty of tea there so I feel like we're set I've got some questions here but if there's some live ones on the catch box look at this right up here in the front row hands are going up so let's let's let's toss the the catch box up here or you can just tell me it I can leave yeah and he'll repeat it that some of your question so the question was why is it hard for people to play with the play with an infinite mindset there's a few reasons one is the way that we think business works is we think it's finite like remember we use sports analogies all the time in business but sports is finite there are the wrong analogies we use war analogies launches and you know campaigns right they're all finite right so and we teach finite mindset in business schools and we treat people as a cost and then you add in incentive structures that don't even recognize the existence of the infinite game and what you get is normalization I think the biggest reason quite frankly goes back to the 1970s there's a guy by the name of Milton Friedman who is an economist who theorized that the responsibility of business is to maximize profit within the bounds of the law what about ethics the law is a very low standard and we see this all the time we see companies doing very uncomfortable things and when there have to be testify in front of you know government officials they always say the same thing we followed the law that means if you have a long term boyfriend or girlfriend and they catch you cheating they say you can't be mad at me we're not married I broke no laws yeah but that's a little unethical don't you think right but that's basically what we're saying and you have leaders like Jack Welch in the 1980s and 90s who popularized milton friedman's thinking where we put the desires of the shareholder ahead of the customer or the employee where you have new theories to balance the books like using mass layoffs on an annualized basis which did not exist prior to the 1980s and things like rank and yank where we promote our top 10% of performers and fire bottom 10% of performers all of these theories that were popularized in the 80's and 90's have been very very bad for business and very very bad for capitalism and we see it we see this mass rebellion around the world against capitalism there's nothing wrong with capitalism except we've broken it capitalism has Adam Smith and vision it puts the people puts the employee first it puts the customer first he couldn't imagine a time like this we broke capitalism yes we should be angry at the capitalism we have and it's time to go back to a people focus capitalism because that's what makes capitalism work better but all of the incentive structures in the education and what were used to for the past thirty years is all finite think education mindset and the rejection of Milton Friedman and Jack Welch Jack Welch wrote a book called winning no such thing yeah be a terrible thing if a present of the United States valued winning above all all these things now it be it would be happy an awful very uncommon awful but you know but you know it's it's a symptom whether whether it's the president or the CEO of a multinational corporation there's symptoms we've been marching down this path for a long time it's not an anomaly just like United Airlines was not an anomaly we have ourselves to blame right and and though the United States may be extreme in many ways I don't think they're unique and we have ourselves to that we've been embracing this thinking we've been the finite thinkers we've been the ones who are quick to judge and slow to listen it's just this is what we get fair enough there is a question that someone wrote in now they've been anonymous about it so I I will respect your privacy because I have no other choice on personal leadership how do leaders take care of their own health family and personal space wall leading teams the question of the the selflessness of leaders yet it's hard I wish I could give you a better answer there I do not subscribe you know what's his name Maslow's hierarchy of needs a lot of people use mass log you know when they build their businesses there's a problem with Maslov which is he ignores the fact that there's a paradox to being human we are at every moment of everyday living a paradox we are at every moment of every day inherently we are individuals and we're members of groups and every day we're forced to make decisions should I put myself first ahead of the group where should I put the group first ahead of myself and people debate it no no you have to take care of the group because they'll take care of you no no you have to take it yourself because if you're not healthy how can you take care of your group you're both right in you're both wrong it's not one or it's a paradox and we have to deal with those stresses every day Milgram I mean Maslov only considered us as individuals so his pride his bottom line was was food and security food and and shelter and the third line up was social connection I've never heard of anyone committing suicide because they were hungry people commit suicide because they're lonely which means social connection is probably more important than food to some degree again well yeah yeah but you have to be fed first I guess I know it's a paradox I get it so to answer the question it's unbelievably difficult and if you only put yourself first and your team sees you always putting yourself first you will not come on trust or loyalty in fact what will happen is they will put themselves first and that's gonna be your corporate culture it is difficult and sacrifices need to be made everybody has the capacity to be a leader like everybody has the capacity to be a parent doesn't mean everybody should be a parent doesn't mean everybody wants to be a parent same with leadership not everybody wants to be a leader not everybody should be a leader because you're gonna make personal sacrifices on both sides your family will be sacrificed at times to do the thank you for your people and sometimes you're gonna have to sacrifice your people to do the right things for yourself it's unbelievably difficult but if your family feels that you have their back they'll be supportive when you make those sacrifices and if your people feel that you have their back genuinely then they'll be supportive when you make those sacrifices there's another question right up front if there's questions in the back don't don't let us only ask the VIPs question you guys are important too but you do have to get the attention of the fellows with the ties and the boxes and then some others just so you know sure folk down there if you see any favorite questions you can take them who's my worthy rival you're anonymous why'd you tell me who you are and they don't tell you the worthy rival is Ted said what should a young leader do think to serve the team that got more life experience oh so what if you were younger leader and the people have more oh that one's easy tell them that you're young and they know more and you need their help and that you will commit your everything you can do to support them and see that their they can work at their natural bests now now we've got it the question upfront but you were just on your phone what were you doing there looking at my notes all right that's excellent well done then what's what's your question and my question is a bit long but what I want to know is I come from bling startup and with five people by helping them with business and investing in their I dreams and ideas and we believe that everyone has the same rights but not the same resources so what I want to know is how can we inspire people to invest in the no-go zone areas like for connections and stuff well I think that the I think the biggest thing when people don't understand something they stay away from it right we resist things that are unfamiliar and if you look at any traditionally warring peoples or people that have tension it's largely because they don't know each other right or they refuse to listen to each other we love to talk we we're not very good at listening so I I'm a big fan of exchanges go visit people you know you talk to any peace negotiators in the world you talk to it's always when when our enemies we crossed each other's borders and went to spend time in each other's countries and we discover that oh my god they're just like me they're the same challenges they have the same stresses they have the same fears and anxieties they want the same things for themselves and for their children it's all kind of the same and as soon as we can relate to someone and see them as human and see them as equal then I think it opens up much more so I think how do we get people to come visit these zones and how do we take some people from those zones and bring them out to meet others I think the more that we can and you know yes websites are handy and videos are great and spreading little movies are helpful absent the real-life human connection it's helpful but if you can get somebody to meet somebody and say oh my god they're wonderful they will tell more people and we'll trust them more than any kind of video yeah thank you you're welcome all right let's let's get a catch boxer to somebody in the back so if you got a back get this fellas attention and while that's happening I'm gonna ask you this question also from anonymous sources yeah what is your best advice about how to empower a team what's your best advice to get into shape I don't know like you eat well go to gym make sure you have good sleep nurture your personal relationships well should I start with my arms or my legs I just start I don't know right so this is the problem with these kinds of things which is which is there's no if I there's no five things you have to do that will work like what does it take to get somebody to fall in love with me well you have to remember their name try saying good morning to them before you check your phone when they want to say when they want to talk to you turn off the television and talk to them if they had a really bad day and you had a really amazing day don't talk about your day at all just listen to their bad day but if you only do these things they're not gonna fall in love with you and this is the problem with these these kinds of questions which is all one what are the five things what are the seven things and you'll do all those things and it won't work and the problem is it's the difference between consistency and intensity right you cannot go to the gym and get in shape if you go to the gym for nine hours it just won't work but if you workout every day for 20 minutes and 100% will work in other words it's lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of little things it's consistency it's brushing your teeth every day for two minutes what is brushing your teeth do for two minutes nothing unless you do it every single day twice a day can I take a night off if I'm too tired yes how many nights can I take off I don't know just don't take up too many it's exactly the same thing so it's little things that's like when you see someone you make eye contact with them and you ask them how they're doing and you actually care about the answer and when you have a meal with somebody there is never ever a cellphone on a table when you're having a meal you should ban cellphones and conference rooms you want to know why because it makes people feel like you actually care about them can I borrow your phone for one second let me show you what if I were to stand up here and give my talk while holding a phone I'm not checking it it's not buzzing it's not beeping I'm just holding this do you feel like you're the most important thing to me right now no you do not there's a subconscious reaction to the device so when we come into a meeting we put our phone on the table it sends a subconscious message to everybody in the room that you're just not that important to me right now and putting it upside down is not more polite because we have this anxiety the whole time that things are coming in and you see people they look they just look that's a very interesting point tad never ever ever should there be a device on any kind of meal table because you're telling the other person there are other things in the world that I would rather be doing than be right here thank you right we do we do have a question in the back and I just want to say I have this but look it's notes about it's the questions on it it's helping really work with you better who let's let's hear the question and give us your name - hey you know so I'm not an animist who was the rivals over there Oh who's my worthy rival he just you asked too many questions already there is like so many questions here from anonymous it's hard to spell unis in there yeah it's fair hey it was it was Adam grant thank you but that was my question okay thanks coming to Stockholm by the way and how many wise can you have wives how many wives can you have you did you do you do make a lot of marital references so I think it's a fair miss consent I don't I don't know the laws in Sweden but you'd be winning if you had one you can have one why you could have one and only one for the rest of your life the dibs you know why and a just cause is a why comes from the past we are the some it is basically an origins story we as individuals are the sum total of how we were raised the lessons we learn the experiences we had when we were children made us who we are and our who we are is fully formed by our mid to late teens that's it and the rest of our lives simply office offer us an opportunity to live in balance with who we truly are that's it and same with the company your why was formed at the founding of the company you can destroy the why at a company absolutely and the company will probably go sideways and disappear and then either have a new leader comes in they have to is sort of a rebirth or Renaissance but as individuals we all only have one and it cannot be changed tragedy doesn't change it tragedy sometimes illuminates it and there's nothing you can do to change who you are like I said the questions are you living in balance with your wife if you're a bastard nobody likes you odds are you're probably not living in balance with your wife but you're not gonna change who you are and you'll probably be a happier person if you live in in balance with your y2 but you only have one Simon that makes me want to turn to Marie who asks and she kind of guts the Lea thinks it's a question you've never heard before what is though that's not the one what is what is your wife what is your wife I've highlighted the wrong what there it is my why's to inspire people to do the things that inspire them so together each of us can change our world for the better it is the foundation of everything I do it is Who I am my Just Cause so that's where I come from where am I going so what does that mean I have this why where am I going with it might just cause us to create a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired feel safe at work and return home fulfilled at the end of the day and I'm committed tirelessly to help build that world and I believe leaders are the best people the best bet we have to build that world so I've committed myself to find to guide and to engage with the leaders who I believe are more likely to build that world which is why I do conferences like this because I need you I need you I need you to build your companies in a way that is consistent with the with the the mindset of the infinite game I need you to build your companies where we create circles of safety that people feel safe to be themselves at work and I need you to build companies that start with why like I need you because I want to live in that other world and I cannot do it alone I need you that's why I'm here he's official here yeah my one regret is I didn't save that for last so I spoke at the Nordic business forum in Helsinki four years ago this nice gentleman was there and he said how do I think we progressed in the past four years since then I think mixed bag you know some stuff is clearly gone a little sideways you know the the the finite mindset is still the majority mindset in how we lead our nations and how we definitely lead our companies and we're seeing it we saw with brexit I mean we see it in various forms it's all finite mindedness right and and it is a result of 30 or 40 years of finite minded leaders creating systems and promoting finite minuses until these things build and break and I think we're in a period right now of a lot of cracks and breaking that that are not because of today they've been building up over thirty and forty years and so we have to suffer through this period of upheaval but to balance that off we have conferences like this we're having conversations about purpose we're having conversations where we talk about putting people before profit we're having conversations about mindfulness and you're not considered crazy to say that out loud on a stage you're not considered a nutjob if you say I want to build a company that stands for something more than the products we make so the point is I think the momentum to change the way the things are is on our side you know this this message is spreading and these events are getting bigger and bigger and bigger and the books that are promoting these ideas are selling more and more and more in other words there's demand we want these things we know the system that we're in is broken but unfortunately we are the ones that have to do the work to fix it and and right now the dam is leaking and we can't point to the dam say well it's broken I know but we're up there fixing it but we're gonna get wet we're gonna get wet for a while you've got a you've got one back there alright let's let's catch box it up hi Simon eyes are next I'd like to ask based off your previous question that arose what was or were defining moments that allowed you to find your meaning or why and become the thought leader that you are now the simple answer is pain I fell out of love with my own work many many years ago and it was traumatic because superficially my life was good I own my own business made a decent living did amazing work had amazing clients but I didn't want to wake up and go to work every day I hated it but I kept it a secret because I was embarrassed and so all of my energy went into pretending that I was happier more successful and more in control than I felt that is not a good way to live a life what made it more complicated as people gave me stupid advice do what you love thank you I'm doing the same thing and I don't love it anymore nothing's changed follow your bliss got it like what the hell am I supposed to do with that you know and so it wasn't until a dear friend of mine came to me and said I'm worried about you something's wrong something's different and I came clean I told her exactly what I was going through and it was that supportive environment that made me feel safe to come clean and a weight was lifted off my shoulders and all of the energy that I was using to lie hide and faked every day could be used to invest in finding a solution and the solution that I found was this thing called the why I knew what I did and I knew how I did it but I didn't know the why and it was based on the biology of human decision-making it was not my opinion this was how people work I had to find that out and became obsessed about it it's all I talked about it's all I wanted to talk about and I shared with my friends my friends started making crazy life changes they invited me into their home's to share with their friends so I literally started by standing in somebody's living room talking to a room of people sitting on the floor of a living room that's how it started and people just kept in asking me and I would help people find their yy4 $100 on the side true story my work is also made about semi-autobiographical it's all my own struggles all of it all the books that I write are about me and the things that I'm struggling with and the solutions that I find to those struggles and when I find a solution I share with my friends and when my friends say wow this is really powerful then I think about writing it down and sharing it with others so and the reason my work resonates with other people is because my journey is not unique I we all struggle to wake up in the morning without we want to have purpose and I wrote leaders eat last because we want to be trusted and trusting like we want to feel safe we want to feel that somebody's got our back we all want that that's not unique that's human and the reason I'm writing the infinite game is because I got tired of people telling me that I'm naive and I don't understand how business works and I'm stupid I mean I started to believe them and then it occurred to me what if they're all wrong [Laughter] [Applause] so I mean a lot of you a lot of this your talk is focusing on building companies and treating your companies but we've got a question about someone who sort of sounds like you're in the middle of the company and I don't think they want a you know five-step list but what do you do if you're playing the if you play the infinite game and it seems like the company wants to play it too but you've got senior leadership that can't quite get on board are there any well very common very common that's more common than not middle management is the most difficult position right because remember infinite is is context or finite right so you frontline staff it is largely a finite game like when there's somebody working as a gate agent at an airline you want them to get the flight out on time and then it's over yeah it's a finite game beginning middle end right but you want them to at least be aware of the infinite because that way they'll treat the customers nicely because they know that they want them to come back again it's not just about fine it that's why you can tell a sales person who's obsessed with a finite game and has no concept of the infinite game it's sell sell sell sell sell they don't care if they're nice to you or not as long as they get the sale that's stupid but as you make your way through the ranks when you get to the most senior position you have to now be obsessed with the infinite game but you have to be aware of the finite game because you're gonna make decisions decisions that will affect the rank and file so they're the the weight shifts the worst position is right here in the middle because you have to balance both and you have to be conversant in both and most things break not at the top and not on the bottom most things break because of the middle and so when you have when you're an infinite minded player and your boss is a finite player do not hate them do not blame them have empathy for them remember we don't know where they worked before we don't know what conditions and that they worked in before we don't know how they were beaten down remember that they've made it through the ranks they've made it to their position following the finite rules of the game and so when you tell them you have to change why would they change like what got me here worked just fine now they're ignoring the fact that that's theirs they're highly stressful they with trust they may not sleep well like all of those things that cause personal stress or usually because we're playing by the wrong rules for the game we're in that's why you would be stressed it is stressful so have empathy care about them worry about them concern yourself with them go to them help them offer them and they will start to see that maybe maybe maybe there's a different way of thinking about it but you can only lead a horse to order you know if somebody just refuses to come then just back off you know you they have to want to make the ship themselves they have to want to make the ship themselves then single this is my friend George Flinn oi says the single the first thing to become a leader is you have to want to be a leader like if you don't want to be one that there's nothing I can do so you know there's a funny there's a funny joke how many how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb one but the light bulb has to really want to change same thing somebody has to want to change but we have to have empathy empathy for them so practice being an infinite person that circle of trust that you build you don't you don't have to be the senior person to build it you can build it for somebody who's more senior than you make them feel safe I think we've got time for one more question so let's make it a great one the pressures on and look at these hands they're waving can we can we get a catch box over there that's what I meant I meant there sorry I was I to keep you email yeah hi my name is Marcus are you happy me yes are you happy with what you're doing right now I've I being fulfilled do they think that your work will change the world a quick yes and we go right over it's a lot of questions yeah I'm good all right let's get let's let's get that catch box over there there's like eight people that want this question asked I hope it's a marriage proposal and I have coached 100 leaders last year to find their way and I have been assigned to coach 90 next year and not many but a few have shown resistance I'm finding they're why as leaders and I would just like to ask you what you give for advice to me how would do you meet people when they're scared I have a rule when I help people find their way they have to ask me I won't do it until they ask now say it to somebody like I'll help you I'll do it the answer is yes but I'm not gonna do it until you ask I'm not gonna take accountability I'm not gonna force my views upon you they have to want to go willingly and so if a long long time ago before I I was in the early days of me preaching the why and sort of word was starting to spread I was doing sort of consulting for small businesses to help them find their why and I obey the law of diffusion of innovations I don't know if you know the law of diffusion real quick so real simple right all populations sift across the standard deviation the old bell curve right you have high performers you can have low performance right and you're gonna have that average you're gonna have a mean right what the law of diffusion says is the first two and a half percent are our innovators the next 12 to 13 percent are our early adopters the next 34% of early majority late majority and the last 60 percent of your laggards we want to have an impact in the mass market we want to change the world but the law of diffusion tells us is that you cannot have mass market success or mass market acceptance of an idea until you achieve between 15 and 18 percent market penetration this is the tipping point social phenomenon so what I learned at a very early point in my career I became obsessed with this this is religion to me and so I only wanted to do business with these people because these people yes they're nice people but they want proof that somebody else has tried to be they very low risk tolerance right they want guarantees what what proof what guarantee will I have that it's gonna work none these people are willing to sacrifice time and energy to be a part of something imperfect so I got a call from a guy true story he heard my name from a small company that I had helped this was the exact conversation convinced me why I should hire you he told me he lives here my answer don't I needed the money I had none but I knew that I had to only work with these people so if you have to force somebody or convince somebody what are you wasting your breath for a walk away go find somebody who's banging down your door and begging to find their why those the people you want to help why would you invest energy with somebody where the impact is gonna be minimal at best and you have any idea how much work you're gonna have to do after they get it go help the people who are gonna like thank you and like celebrate you and vintage is gonna run off and do great things it's it's a game of you know you're it's it's betting you only have X many hours in the day and you only have X many days in the year on the X many years in your life it runs out so make your choices really carefully walk away run away absolutely címon we're out of time but I wonder if you've got just one last thought for everybody one last take away the one thing you want us to remember when we go home tonight and I'm good will be acceptable yeah I'll give you the same advice I'll offer the same thing that I offer it goes back to the early days ask for help life is too difficult to do alone building a business is too difficult to do alone if you think you can do to learn you're absolutely nuts ask for help we do not build trust when we offer help we build trust when we ask for it ladies and gentlemen simon Sinek Wow you

Channel: Nordic Business Forum

Views: 139,706

Rating: 4.910768 out of 5

Keywords: simon sinek, nbforum, nordic business forum, infinite game, the infinite game, start with why, how to lead, simon sinek ted talk, simon sinek the, simon sinek the infinite game, find your why, leaders eat last, game theory

Id: HRIfTfVOMG4

Length: 62min 39sec (3759 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 07 2019