The Infinite Game: How to Lead in the 21st Century

[Applause] you good hello January 1968 the North Vietnamese Army's launched a surprise attack against the American forces in the country it was Tet which is the Lunar New Year and there was a tradition in Vietnam that lasted decades that there was never any fighting on Tet but this year in 1968 the North Vietnamese generals decided that they would break with tradition with the hope that they would overwhelm American forces and bring about a swift end to the war this was the Tet Offensive they threw 85,000 troops at over 125 targets across the country catching the Americans completely by surprise many of the commanders weren't even at their posts they were in whatever local town or village celebrating Tet here's the amazing thing the United States military repelled every single attack every single one most of the major fighting had ceased after about a week after which the United States had lost fewer than a thousand troops so a few hundred troops North Vietnam had lost thirty-five thousand of the eighty-five thousand troops 'we went on for about a month there about a hundred Marines were lost and 1,500 North Vietnamese were lost over the course of ten years in Vietnam America lost 58,000 men North Vietnam lost over three million people that's an equivalent to 27 million Americans in 1968 and if you look at the Vietnam War America won nearly every single major battle it fought so it raises a very interesting question how do you win most the battles how do you decimate your enemy and lose the war clearly we don't fully understand this concept of winning and losing it's not simply the score that we keep there's something more to it there's a wonderful man by the name of James Carr C is a theologian he used to teach at NYU who wrote this wonderful little book called finite and infinite games and in it he defines these two types of games finite games and infinite games if you have at least one competitor you have a game and there are two types of games find a games and infinite games finite games are defined as known players fixed rules and an agreed upon objective football we all agree to the rules of the game and we all agree that whoever has more goals at the end of the game is the winner we all go home an infinite game is defined by known and unknown players the rules are changeable and the objective is to perpetuate the game to keep the game in play when you pit a finite player versus a finite player the system is stable football is stable when you pit an infinite player versus an infinite player the system is also stable the Cold War was stable because we could not have a winner or a loser we just both kept playing to make sure that the game stayed in play that's what cabe kept it stable there's no such thing as winning or losing an infinite game what happens is when the player or one of the players runs out of the will or resources to continue to play they drop out of the game but the game continues with you or without you problems arise however when you pit a finite player versus an infinite player because finite players are playing to win and infinite players are playing to keep playing and they'll make very different strategic choices as a result and this is what happened to America in Vietnam America was fighting to win and the North Vietnamese were fighting for their lives and they would fight to the very last men if necessary and when a finite player finds themselves against an infinite player they will always find themselves in quagmire racing through the will and resources to stay in the game so this gets me thinking we are surrounded every day of our lives by infinite games we are all unwitting players in these infinite games there's no such thing as being number one in marriage there's no such thing as winning in your friendships there's no such thing as winning global politics and there's definitely no such thing as winning business but if we listen to the language of too many leaders they don't know the game they're in they talk about being number one being the best beating your competition based on what it agreed-upon metrics based on what agreed-upon timeframes meaning the vast majority of our businesses are on even of our of our political leaders are playing by finite rules in an infinite game which means we're racing through the will and resources to stay in the game and business we call it bankruptcy or a merger and acquisition which means we need to completely readjust how we think about leadership to actually play for the game were in and the reason is important because when we play with a finite mindset in the infinite game there's a few very predictable things that happen there's a decline of trust there's a decline of cooperation and there's a decline of innovation I had a real life experience that showed me what the difference between the two games was I spoke at an education summit for Microsoft I also spoke at an education summit for Apple at the Microsoft summit I would say that 70 to 80 percent of the executives spent about 70 to 80 percent 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 one was obsessed with beating their competition guess which one was in quagmire guess which one was wait racing through the will and resources to stay in the game 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 answer to the iPod this little piece of technology was absolutely fantastic the user interface was simple it was easy to understand it was elegant it worked flawlessly it was a brilliant little piece of technology I'm sharing a taxi with a senior executive from Apple after the Apple talk and I couldn't help myself I just had to stir the pot so I turned him and I say you know Microsoft gave me their new Zune it is so much better than your iPod touch and he looks at me and he says I have no doubt and the conversation was over because an infinite player understands that sometimes you have the better product and sometimes they have the better product and there's no such thing as winning or being the best there's only ahead and behind and the only true competitor in an infinite game is yourself the goal is to make a better product this year than you had last year to ensure that your culture is stronger this year than it was last year that your leaders are growing at a stronger pace this year than they were last year that everything about your organization your systems everything is improving improving and improving it's constant improvement there is no end to this game it's a game of constant improvement which means if we have to completely reconfigure how we think about leadership for the infinite game it begs the question well how're we supposed to lead in the infinite game there are five things that have to happen to really become a leader for the infinite game one you have to have a Just Cause two you have to have trusting teams three you have to have a worthy adversary for you have to have existential flexibility and five you have to have the courage to lead just cause it just cause there's a purpose or cause that is so just you would willingly sacrifice to be a part of it it doesn't have to be sacrifice your life but you would turn down a higher paying job because you'd rather stay here and be a part of what you're doing now it means that you willingly work late hours or go on business trips or maybe not see your family as much you don't like it but it's worth it it feels worth it that's what a Just Cause is there are many great just causes out there Apple was founded on the premise that individuals should be able to stand up to Big Brother that's why they're so appealing to creatives and young people people who like the idea of standing up to Big Brother the United States wrote in the Declaration of Independence all men are created equal endowed with these unalienable rights amongst which include life liberty and the pursuit of happiness it is an ideal just causes or a description of the future States so ideal that for all practical purposes we will never actually achieve that vision but we will die trying that is the point this is what gives our lives and our work meaning that it's not about simply achieving some sort of metric hitting some sort of goal that has no purpose but rather that every goal we hit is a marker that we're making progress towards something even bigger it's about momentum not about absolutes yes metrics are very very important they help us count speed and distance and every milestone we pass makes us feel like we're getting closer and closer which we energizes that we can do this we can do this you have to have adjust cause sometimes we use the word vision I don't like the word vision because there's no standard definition of it I talk to companies all the time I say what's your company's vision to be the biggest in our industry by 2024 what's your vision they give me a dollar sign an amount that they want to hit it's they it's nothing to do with the vision the reason we call it vision is because you have to be able to see it imagine a world that is different to the one we have now that you believe that if everything that you did in your organization went perfectly you would contribute to the building of that world I have a vision I imagine 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 I have completely devoted everything I do to help advance this vision of the world I know I won't ever get there but I'll die trying that is the point every organization that says we choose trust every organization that says we choose people before profit every organization that says there's got to be a better way in which we're doing this every organization that wants to tech tits people means we're making progress towards this world that I imagine again it what gives our lives and our work meaning we will willingly devote our lives to these just causes too many people go looking for a cause you know depending on what job they're in this is I have friends you know they have a job and I'm like do you feel like you're part of something bigger than yourself they go absolutely then they quit or they get fired and then they say no this this this new job this is the thing I wanted to do and they quit or they get fired and they got a new job like this this is the one every job you have regardless of where you quit or get fired it doesn't matter every job you have to be contributing to the same vision and the thing about vision that's so interesting is we don't have to put pressure on ourselves to be visionary there's a very small handful of people in our population who are visionary you're Steve Jobs is you're Richard Branson's true visionaries we don't have to have a vision we have to find a vision if there was someone else's vision that that gives us goosebumps if there's someone else's vision that we say that's the world I want to live and I have a dream said Martin Luther King that one day little black children will hold hands on the playground with other white children if you want to live in that world choose his and devote your live and devote your career to helping build that vision in some way shape or form even if it's only small steps that's what makes us feel a part of something bigger than ourselves find division is the important part it's so important when we talk to organizations to ask them what do you believe what is the vision what is the Just Cause number two trusting teams I went on a business trip to Las Vegas and they put me up at the Four Seasons out there beautiful hotel the reason it's a beautiful hotel is not because of the beds any hotel can buy a fancy bed it's because of the people who work there that when you walk through the hallways and somebody says hello you get the distinct feeling that they wanted to say hello they were told to say hello we can tell the difference we're highly attuned social animals we can tell the difference in this kind of behave you can always tell when somebody's working on Commission right you can tell they happen to have a coffee a coffee bar in the in the lobby and so one afternoon I went to buy myself a cup of coffee and the barista working the day is a kid named Noah Noah was funny and charming and engaging and I stood there for far too long joking around with Noah just to buy a cup of coffee so as is my nature I asked Noah do you like your job without skipping a beat Noah said I love my job now to someone in my line of work that's significant because 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 it's a higher-order thing do you love your wife I like her a lot it's different Noah said I love my job so immediately I followed up tell me specifically I asked what the four seasons is doing that you would say to me you love your job without skipping a beat Noah said that throughout the day managers will walk past me and ask me how I'm doing ask me if there's anything that that I need to do my job better not just my manager any manager and then he said I also work at Caesar's Palace and they're the managers walk past us and catch us if we're doing anything wrong there they want to make sure we're doing everything right they want to make the numbers I like to keep my head below the radar and just get through the day and collect my paycheck he said only at the four seasons do I feel I can be myself that's a trusting team that's what a circle of safety is when we come to work and we feel we can be ourselves we feel that we can make mistakes we feel like our bosses are there to see us succeed I get this question all the time Simon how do I get the most out of my people like they're a towel that you wring it's a flawed question the question is how do I help create an environment in which my people can work at their natural best then the answers will be entirely different that's called good leadership and the leaders responsibility is to create an environment in which people can work to their natural best in which the people can trust each other develop these trusting teams trusting teams is something very specific trusting teams means that someone can come to work and raise their hand and say I made a mistake I don't feel like I have adequate training to do the job you've asked me to do I'm scared I'm having problems at home and it's affecting my work I need help without any fear of humiliation or retribution if anything they say these things with absolute confidence that people will rush in to help them if we do not have trusting teams what we do have is a group of people who show up to work every single day lying hiding faking there would never admit mistakes for fear that had put them on some short list for redundancies the next time they come up or get in trouble they're never gonna tell you that you've promoted them and they don't know how to do their job for fear that that they haven't earned it or they're not good enough whether they're gonna lose your trust they're never going to admit that they're having trouble at home and it's affecting their work for fear that if they were to take a day off it would affect them and there's certainly you're never gonna say they need help well guess what happens to an organization with the majority of people aren't admitting mistakes and aren't saying they need help eventually things start to break they start to compound we saw it happen remember the news a couple years ago United Airlines dragged a passenger a paying passenger off their aircraft with a broken nose a concussion and broken two broken teeth I feel sorry for every member of that crew because 100% of them knew that that was the wrong thing to do and did not intervene because they feared getting in trouble more than they feared doing the right thing they stood back and watched this was not an anomaly this did not happen overnight this was not a one-time occurrence I flew United Airlines the years before and some I saw something play out in front of me that was a red flag I was waiting to board the aircraft and I an Essene played out in front of me where one of the passengers attempted to board the plane before their group number was called high crimes and misdemeanors and the gate agent yelled at him step aside sir I haven't called your group yet please step aside and wait till I call your group as how she talked to a paying customer I spoke up I said why do you have to talk to us that way why can'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 which she revealed to me is that she does not feel safe in our own organization her leaders do not trust her to do the dot job for which she's been trained to do and guess who suffers customer and company the reason we fly like flying virgin or Southwest Airlines any of these other airlines is not because they have some magical formula to hire the best people it's because the people who work there feel safe they feel like they have agency they feel like they can make decisions in their own jobs and they feel like their leaders trust them to do the job for which they've been trained to do and guess who benefits customer and company that's what creating a circle of safety is that's what a trusting team is that people feel like they have control and agency of it too over their own jobs I I spoke at a large energy company I did a workshop with some senior executives a large energy company in the United States and it was an unbelievably hot room they had us in so I said I asked something seemingly very obvious but you think we could turn up the air conditioning and we came back after luncheon was the afternoon many hours since my request and it was still unbelievably hot and I said were we able to turn up the air conditioning they said yes we told the facilities people here they had to send the request to headquarters in Houston we're waiting for Houston to get back to us before they can turn down the air conditioning that's the air conditioning imagine how the rest of that organization works that everyone there is afraid to make a decision no one has any agency or control and there's one thing we know about human beings that our sense of enjoyment from our work does not come from work-life balance and how much yoga we do our sense of enjoyment at work and that the sense of stress we have is all about our sense of control that when we feel like we have control over our work we actually enjoy it more and control is taken away from us well--we're fear making any kind of decision whatsoever we actually that's what increases stress dramatically amongst human beings if you want to play in the infinite game you have to have trusting teams people are willing to help each other when things go wrong people are willing to admit mistakes but if we can't keep the organization self improving it will break number three worthy rival there's another guy who does what I do he writes books he does the speaking thing and he's exceptionally good at what he does he's incredibly well-respected I personally really admire his work and I hate him I'm not being funny I actually hate him he's never done anything mean to me he's always been very polite and charming whenever I see him it's irrational I hate him what do you want to tell you and I will regularly go on the internet and check my book rankings and then immediately check his I don't check anyone elses just his and if I'm a head I'm smug and if he's a head I fume and when people bring up his name I sort of like yeah he's great so we were invited to speak at the same event once I don't mean like him in the morning me in the afternoon mean afternoon I mean like on the stage we were gonna get interviewed together and the interviewer thought it would be fun if we introduced each other so I went first I turned to him on the stage and I said you make me incredibly insecure I said all of your strengths are all of my weaknesses and whatever your name comes up it makes me uncomfortable he looked at me he said funny I think the same about you the reason I hated him had nothing to do with him it's because he reminded me he revealed to me his very existence revealed to me my weaknesses and it was much easier to take that energy and put it against someone than it was to admit to myself that I've got I've got some work to do it was an amazingly cathartic experience that day I have never since checked his rankings and I actually love him now and I've stayed at his house and we talk to each other all the time he's become a dear friend I'm not gonna tell you there's a whole moral to the story that has nothing to do with who it is it's fiction maybe it's a whole fiction it's actually not so I said the only true competitor in an infinite game is yourself but what you have to have as a worthy rival someone who is better than you in your own industry perhaps or in another industry who's better at something that you do and instead of hating them and trying to beat them and trying to outdo them we learn from them we admire them we respect them because they by revealing to us our weaknesses it gives us tools to go back and then see where we need to improve and we wish them the best of luck it's not about them it's about us because the goal is not to beat them the goal is to simply improve and stay in the game as long as possible and if they drop out before us so be it the game will continue with them or without them a worthy rival Apple in the early days had IBM big blue IBM represented the Navy and Apple were the Pirates and then IBM dropped out of game then it was Microsoft hi I'm a Mac I'm a PC they represented the Navy and Apple rep that represented the the Pirates and then they dropped out of the game and now it's Google and Facebook that Apple is pitting themselves against in terms of privacy and other things like that a worthy rival reveals to us our weaknesses so that may we may go back in and prove if we're obsessed with beating our competition it's like running in a race and tripping near the competitor you will win the race but you're still a slow runner and the problem is there's gonna be another race and another race and another race and another race and it never ends sure you win a couple but you're still a slow runner the point is to get better yourself have a worthy rival know who they are they can be companies they can even be individuals at work I completely am against the idea of creating internal competition I heard this from companies all the time we like to drive performance by pinning our people against each other well that means they're gonna undermine each other I want my people to share information not hoard it I want my people to help other divisions not complain about them but rivalry is good you can absolutely have rivals in your own company people who you are better your job than you people who are better leaders than you that you look at them say I want to be like that girl I don't be like that guy they're so good they make me insecure they're so good those are the people to admire have rivals absolutely again it's another tool for constant improvement which is what we need in the infinite game number four is the capacity for existential flexibility so there's something really funny when you think about what is existential if you compare finite games and infinite games in in a finite game it's the game that ends so the football game ends but the players continue to exist until there's another game they just wait to play another game right the game ends in the infinite game it's the players that disappear the game is constant but the players cease to exist companies go bankrupt the Roman Empire doesn't exist anymore the players disappear so this concept of existential flexibility is literally existential can you stay in the game because you're the one that's gonna disappear the capacity for existential flexibility is quite simply a dramatic shift in strategy because you find a better way to advance your cause so in the early days of Apple Apple had already come up come had come off the success of the Apple one in the Apple two it's the late 70s early 80s and their next big computer was whatever they were developing and coincidentally jobs and a few of his senior executives went to visit Xerox PARC which was the Innovation Center for Xerox and Xerox showed them a new technology that they had invented called the graphic user interface where you could you didn't have to learn a computer language to use a computer which is how it used to be but now you could use this thing called a mouse and you could move a cursor on a desktop and click on folders and move them around and things to use the computer and job so this technology and thought this was amazing if he's trying to empower individuals to stand up to Big Brother this means that way more people would have access to the technology than the people who learn a computer language and as they left Xerox PARC he said to his guys we have to invest in this graphic user interface thing and one of the executives the voice of reason said Steve we can't we've already invested millions of dollars and countless man-hours in a completely distant different strategic direction if we abandon that we'll blow up her own company to which jobs actually said better we should blowed up than someone else that decision became the Macintosh a technology so profound that the entire software of Windows is designed to look like a Macintosh the reason we all have computers at home and at work is because of that decision to the outside world it looks like you're crazy to do that that you would risk the loss of money or the potential failure why would you abandon something that's working for something that might not work but to the person who makes the decision because they are driven by just cause it is so easy them for them to see that staying on the path they're on is the path that will lead to death that this decision is the obvious choice and the money means nothing because it means survival and can ability to continue to thrive existential flexibility so George Eastman was also a visionary he was a young guy working in a bank in Rochester New York and he decided he wanted to be an entrepreneur he was 22 years 12 21 years old son like that and so everybody was land prospecting back in those days with like the dot-com and so he want to become a land prospector and he was already too he was going to go on a trip to prospect land and a colleague of his from the banks that you should take a camera to take pictures of the land that you want to prospect for reference the problem was in those days the main way you could take a picture was you had to hire photographers you couldn't take pictures of your own holiday you can take pictures of your own family only professional photographers could do that so Eastman ended up not going on the trip but he actually stick tup the hobby of photography and the problems are so complicated he'd have take all of these chemicals in these camera the size of a microwave oven and tents to load the film and the guy was like well I kind of be a little simpler this is ridiculous I just want to take pictures for fun it's not my business and so he figures out a way to coat the plates the the the film plate so we didn't have to do would deal with all the toxic chemicals out in the field turns out other photographers wanted his plates and they started buying them so he proves upon the technology and invents something called film where now you could take a hundred pictures on a flexible piece of film built into the camera he flies to England to present his technology at what's their equivalent of a technology show was a big photography show here where they people come from miles around to see whatever his latest and greatest latest and greatest like what's the big thing in Vegas oh he just see yes thank you it was like CES and it was a huge hit everybody thought this film thing was absolutely unbelievable it was incredible and nobody will bought one it was a complete commercial disaster because the quality of the photographs wasn't good enough they were too grainy and for professionals they needed high quality film now for any of us for any of us who are entrepreneurs who came up with the technology the obvious choice would be to go back improve the technology the demand is like begging for your product we just have to in fix the technology and we're good to go that's not what George Eastman did because he was obsessed with democratizing photography and even if he got it right how many professional photographers are there he wanted to make it easier for the rest of us just like he made it easy for himself so he made an existencial flex he completely abandoned the professional market and he said you know there's an entire market that doesn't care about the quality of the photograph the general population and they marketed the camera and the flexible film to the general population it is because of George Eastman that we take our own pictures of our own families and our own holidays George Eastman went on to build Kodak a word he made up by the way cuz he thought K was a strong sounding letter and he went on to be one of the richest men in the world up there with the Carnegie's and the Rockefellers years later a company that continued to be obsessed with the democratizing of technology that had continued to make it easier and easier and easier for us to take pictures in 1975 Kodak invented the digital camera and when the young man who invented it showed it to the executives first they complained about the quality of the picture then they said nobody wants to look at pictures on a screen and then they decided to suppress the technology for fear that it would cannibalize film sales and they built an entire company based and they made the paper they made the chemicals they made the machines they made the film all based on this one thing and they couldn't imagine having to reconfigure their company for something different they gave themselves ten years they knew somebody else would figure out the digital thing and they gave themselves ten years and over the course of those ten years you know what they did nothing and yes new technology started to emerge and code action at Kodak actually made billions of dollars licensing their patents for the digital camera and then when those patents ran out three years later they went bankrupt because they didn't have the capacity for existential flexibility if you're not willing to blow up your company the market will blow it up for you that's exactly what happened there was a limited runway they had the cause they chose to abandon the cause in order to do something finite in order to do something to protect the certainty of the future versus doing something that they know is the right thing to do for the long-term that's the capacity of existential flexibility which leads to the final point the courage to lead I always joke that it's a little embarrassing that I have to have courage on the list but the reason it's there is because everything that I have told you today is unbelievably difficult all of the pressures in our lives whether it's from the markets or from our families or from the incentive structures in our companies are trying to force us to consider the finite they're trying to force us to consider the short term over the long term consider profit before people and by the way when I talk about putting people before profits I don't mean like 1% profit 99% people like it can be like 5149 it means there's a bias it means that when there's a decision that we know that one of them is going to be sacrificed we lean towards people doesn't mean we're anti profit remember to stay in the game you need resources and the will to stay in the game profitability is important but you have a bias for people that's hard that's hard it's much easier to have redundancies rather than figure out a way to protect them if you look at all the companies we admire all of the ones that I would consider infinite leaders either they've never had the done dancies or they only use them very very sparingly in extreme times and they're very very embarrassed that they did and it was a complete shock to their system that they're still reeling from and they admitted that takes courage do you know how much courage it takes to make an existential flex with cause in mind why are you making this change because I have a vision of a future that's completely unrealizable and that's why I'm gonna change the direction of my company walt disney did it the guy in basically invented animation like we have it today he was the first one to put sound to an animation he was the first one to make a feature-length animated film Snow White where you could be physically transported but the problem was once you were done with the film it was over he wanted to physically keep people in the movie in in in the fantasy and after all that success no one would let him make the parks and so he sold all of his interests in Walt Disney Animation and he quit to start an entirely new company and he had to self fund it because he says he couldn't put up his dreams as collateral with the bank they're not interested in his dream as collateral and that became Disneyland which to this day makes I think more money than any other division in Disney and continues to grow and grow and grow it is infinite Disney Land contends to improve that was truly what his vision was that takes courage to put it all on the line it takes courage to say I don't know what I'm doing and the leader has to set the example that's scary because we think we have to have all the answers we have to be tough all the time to MIT admit fail ability it's hard to admit that there are other people out there that are better than us we've all been in new business pitches and somebody says what about your competition and we come up with some nonsense about how we're actually better than them when deep down and we saw it inside we know there's so much better than us I used I remember this back in the early days when I had a marketing consultancy before all that why stuff and all this the career I'm on now and I remember used to go into new business pitches and I was I remember being so brutally honest you know I would say I'm really good at this I'm ok at this you should not hire me for this and they kept wanted me to hire me for everything just because I was honest because every other pitch that they had the day before they were up that other company was brilliant at everything then even though they knew that I sucked at these things they just knew I'd be honest when things broke there's something to be said for honesty we trust on his people it's anthropological its biological there's no escaping it it goes back to too early early early mankind when somebody says there's danger it has to actually be there when somebody says there's no danger you're fine we have to actually believe them that's why we take recommendations from close friends and not strangers like if some stranger walks up to you on the street says you should see this movie but if your friend says you should see this movie you like rush out and buy a ticket you don't even read the reviews trust there's something to be said for honesty it's hard being honest all the time it's really hard do I look fat in these jeans I like the other genes better nobody said honesty has to be mean the courage to lead fundamentally means you're willing to be open-minded to consider that maybe just maybe the way you think the world works may be wrong and the way we've been building our business based on all the social conventions and what everybody tells us are the right things to do maybe is wrong and just because everyone's doing it doesn't mean it's right remember the vast majority of the business philosophies and practices that we practice today are not norms of business they're recent they come from the 70s and 80s the concept of Sharyl to supremacy where we prioritize the interest of an external shareholder over the interests of our employers or customers was a theory proposed the late 1970s popularized in the 80s and 90s by bastards like Jack Welch who ran GE the concept of using mass layoffs to meet an arbitrary financial projection at the end of the year did not exist prior to the 1980s it was popularized by bastards like Jack Welch and General Electric rank and yank the idea of ranking your employees based on performance promoting the top 10% and firing the bottom 10% did not exist prior to mr. Welch and this man named Milton Friedman an economist that gained this guy a Nobel Prize they gave Milton Freeman Nobel Prize he is credited with basically offering us what is considered the accepted definition of the responsibility of business he said the responsibility of business is to maximize profits within the bounds of the law what happened to ethics because ethics is a much higher standard than the law the makers of the Titanic in the early 20th century built a ship that was four times larger than any other ship of the day and the regulations that govern lifeboats were based on the size of the ship and they didn't yet have a lifeboats for all provision it said if your ship is this size you need this many lifeboats if your ship as the side you need this many lifeboats and their ship was four times larger than the largest so they knew that eventually the regulation would catch up that eventually you'd have a lifeboats for all provision in the law but until it did man literally to save money that was their reason to save money they left empty berths on the Titanic where the lifeboats will go when the law catches up but until then we'll just put nothing so they only had 25 percent of the required lifeboats for the number of passengers that were on board the Titanic we all know what happened in 1912 it hit an iceberg you want to guess how many people died you right 75 percent they broke no laws think about the number of CEOs that get dragged out in front of the court of public opinion after they've done something disgustingly unethical and what do they all say we were then down to the law we broke no law this is the standard for business and so people who are anti-capitalist now what they've completely failed to understand is that the capitalism we have is not actually capitalism as Adam Smith envisioned it we have a bastardized capitalism capitalism for bastards if you like and the capitalism we practice today is not actually the purest form of capitalism it actually undermines capitalism where we have increasing levels of stress we have declining levels of Technology in declining levels of trust declining levels of cooperation we have unstable economies is because of this false view of capitalism that we have as Adam Smith envisioned it it was about trust it was about cooperation it was about human beings he believed that you prioritize people over profit he actually wrote in The Wealth of Nations that I don't need to speak any further about it it's obvious and then didn't write anything else about it that's why we have to challenge the system that's why we need an infinite mindset that's why we have to have the courage to stand up to Milton Friedman and say you're wrong I don't care about your prize well he's the he must be right it's to stand up to bastards like Jack Welch and people who've immortalized him and to say no our form of capitalism prioritizes people trust cooperation empathy maternal instinct longevity not not the same as long-term or sustainable I don't use the word long-term 20 years of long term 30 years long term infinite which all raises a very interesting question what does it mean to live in infinite life clearly our lives are finite but life is infinite we are the players in them an infinite game we're born we die we come we go the game goes on with us or without us the game doesn't care and like the game of business like the game of Education like the game of global politics we do not get to pick the game but we do get to pick how we play that is the only choice we have and if we choose to live our lives the finite mindset we're playing to win we're playing for somebody else to lose we're playing to advance our careers faster than everybody else to make more money than everybody else we're comparing the scores constantly we're slicing and dicing to show that we're the best we're number one we get to make up the numbers in the timeframes but it's really important to us that everybody thinks we're number one you don't build trust that way cooperation it's hard to come by innovation forget about it you'll be rich and then when you die you don't get to take any of it with you and we won't miss you we'll forget your name and your business will probably close right after you or if it doesn't it'll go like this slowly if it's large it can afford to stay in business for a while but that doesn't mean it's permanent or we can choose to live our lives with an infinite mindset it means we give our businesses a cause worth coming to work for we give our families a cause worth helping each other out for we commit ourselves to being the leaders we wish we had we commit ourselves to building circles of safety which people feel safe and we trust each other and we're willing to take risks to be vulnerable to set the tone because if we take care of each other this can outlast me we're willing to have rivals and be honest about our weaknesses and admit that there are other people who are much better at what we do than us and we should learn from them we're willing to make that massive shift if we find a better way to advance our cause and we will have the courage to say to all the people who say that we're crazy idealistic yeah yeah we are yeah I'll take my risk I'll take my risk because fundamentally that's what the infinite mindset is it's a code for the idealists to operate in a world that is telling us we should be a real realistic it's a code for people who believe that an unrealizable vision that's worth devoting our lives to advance is better than a short-term goal the choice to live an infinite life means that we leave a legacy it means that when we pass others will pick up the torch and continue without us I had a chance to sit next to Richard Branson at dinner once and I asked him when you die how should we judge you how should we judge your success I asked him I said what did you do at virgin that we will look back and say you were successful and he said do not judge me by anything I did at virgin if you want to judge my life you judge me by the quality of my children that's an infinite mindset that is someone who's lived their life with the expectation that other people will carry a torch and all of the foundations he laid were not for profit they were not for fame they were to keep the torch burning the choice is ours thanks [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] so let's do questions can we bring the house lights up please house lights house lights all the way up in the back - yeah it's so nice to see you so we have microphones there there ms2 up top as well I can't see them but I know that it there and there so go to the mics and then other people can hear your questions and if you have babysitter's you can go I won't be I won't be offended hi Simon I'm Lauren lovely to meet you hello one of my favorite stories that you tell is the one about Bob Chapman mm-hm and how bob has he believes in heart count mm-hmm rather than head count and how he introduced the furlough program and when I first heard that I was so moved because I've never worked in any company and I've worked in you know many and I can't think of a single company that would have employed that mm-hm so is it that it's very rare that people have the courage to leave but it really is based on who they are as a human and their desire or can that be something that gets that become that builds momentum and the people see that it's the right thing to do because otherwise how do you connect to see change I ask the corporate world she's referring to a gentleman by the name of Bob Chapman who I wrote about quite extensively in the book leaders eat last and as you said in Bob's company they do not have a headcount they have a heart count in it in hard times it's very hard to reduce a heart count it's a way of viewing human beings and they view that they have the belief that every single person in their company is someone's son and someone's daughter and they keep that in mind every time they make a decision that I'm responsible for someone's son and someone's daughter and yes it is who Bobby is I mean he is that is who he is he uses humanity and idealism he he's a kind of remarkable human being and the question was we want more of Bob chapman's so my friend George Flinn who was a retired Marine general said the first criteria to be a leader is you have to want to be one right so if you enlist in the United States Marine Corps you cannot drop out you can you can't change your mind at any stage and say I'd like to leave please when you're at boot camp and you hate your life you signed a contract they will not let you out nothing if you want to be an officer in the United States Marine Corps of the ten weeks of training you can drop out for the first six weeks you can just leave no questions asked they'll let you out of the contract because their attitude is we don't want leaders who don't want to be leaders and so the choice to be a leader is a decision that comes first but then the education to become a leader is a lifestyle it's like the choice to become healthy right and at the early days it's usually a lot of heavy lifting and a steep learning curve I have to change the way I eat and I have to go to the gym I hate that and then you get into shape and you feel good and you look good and your doctor is very happy with you and the worst part is once you're in shape you have to keep going to the gym and eating healthy for the rest of your life it's not something you do achieve your goal and then stop it's a it's the choice to live a life that way even though they might have been a finite goal in a short term leadership is the same it is a lifestyle it is an it is a muscle that it requires constant exercise and though you may study all of the theory about leadership and you may have been good at it at one time if you don't keep it up the muscle atrophy and the problem is too many people in leadership positions would rather be in authority than maintain the lifestyle of leadership they think that once they get rank it in Taoism would certain powers and it doesn't it doesn't the good news is is there's a movement we're here talking about leadership we're changing the vernacular of what leadership means we're using terminology like servant leadership ship more you hear people demanding that their companies have purpose they we talk about things like trust and cooperation in ways we didn't use to talk about them before I could not have had a career in the 80s and 90s no demand at all but now I get to stand on stages and call Jack Welch a bastard and people applaud the movement is going in the right direction so I'm optimistic it took us 30 to 40 years to get where we are today it's gonna take us 30 to 40 years to get to somewhere more optimistic but this is why you're here everybody here hasn't has raised their hand and said count me in cuz it's not it's not one of us that's all of us we have to change the way we show up as leaders we have to change the way we build our companies we have to change the way we show up as employees I don't care if you work for a company with 10,000 people if you work with somebody to the left and you work with somebody to the right you can be a leader leadership is the responsibility for those around us to see those around us rise and I think we're in good shape we're moving in the right direction thank you for being a part of it [Applause] hi thank you for hours amazing a quick question on your third point which is about the adversaries were worthy adversaries worthy rival yeah and picking your rival so in a more specific way if you're a challenger brand for example uh-huh do you pick another challenger brand who you consider worthy or is it about the big incumbent that is not necessarily worthy but a bigger rival so very often with challenger brands there is some sort of ideology that got them all angry in the first place right before fired up and even though you're not competing against whatever the incumbency is of the model they their mere existence keeps you honest about what your cause is so one of the best things that ever happened to the West was the Soviet Union because it reminded us what we stood for because they existed and when they went away things have kind of got a little squirrelly because we have to like remember without anybody to balance it off right Apple was really great when there was a big thing and even people are questioning what does Apple stand for anymore it's hard to discern now right so if you're a challenger brand the most important thing is that we are standing up against is the ideology not the company because if you eventually get big you haven't won you haven't won they just dropped out to suit America didn't win the West didn't win the Cold War the Soviet Union dropped out because they ran under the will and resources to stay in the game the Cold War is alive and well I can give you a whole thing about that if you want Cold War 2.0 I got a whole theory and so if you're a challenger brand then you you have to know what you stand for and sometimes the easiest way to know what you stand for is to have something that is different than what you stand for as you're worthy rival but you have to keep a strong ego because the goal is not to beat them the goal is to spread your gospel and not theirs it's a rival gospel yes hi Simon is Kirstie here I caught one of your Instagram rambles in October and I think he must have been finishing this book in you were questioning everything that you were doing I caught it really early in the morning here in Bodrum actually and you talked about the why you were talking about vision and mission now that you've stated the five areas there you have brought to life as a group of leaders managers people who are noting there is a movement happening with how we work and how we show up what would be one one area was a simple thing that we could take away from tonight that we could all start to do so the those things that I told you about you know you cannot do existential flexibility without a just cause and I would argue even trusting teams because otherwise everybody's gonna panic and think you're crazy worthy rivalry like Just Cause and trusting teams really are bigger than the others existential flexibility is a capacity you know so I think if if there's one thing you can do it's it's really it's articulating what that's all for which begs the next question what's the difference between Just Cause and why right because I said start with why now I'm saying start with Just Cause are they the same did you change the words in it no the Y comes from the past the Y comes in the past it's who you are it's why the organization was founded it's it's who you are as a human being it's it's it's it's the thing that drives you it is immutable it'll never change no matter what happens in your life it comes from looking backwards a Just Cause comes from looking forwards it is an unrealized future that if your y2 were to be brought to life in the most magical of ways the world that would exist would be this world it is it is the dream it is the fantasy we call it vision because we can see it so you have to be able to articulate what this world looks like in terms so clearer than other people go I can see it that sounds amazing sign me up so so challenge yourself and then there's multiple ways to do it if everything we did went perfectly what would the world look like what will we commit our organization to help build or your life for without however you want to look at it and then and then the path to building trusting teams is the path of good leadership that's what it is so commit yourself to being the leader you wish you had yes hi no you work here okay you you you you can ask the question - hi Simon Yousef nice to meet you sir firstly thank you for opening my mind and thoughts in changing me interest rate of leadership and a student of the infinite game thank you thank you keep - keep going thank you second infinitely infinitely yes a question to yet - hopefully simple ones how can an infinite a student of infinite theory work influence or transform a finite organization and - I'm really interested in understanding the military concept and I've listened to you a number of times describe that and I've seen it in programs in shows the military how can it how it shapes minds to a point where that individual will put the most precious thing their life on the line for the partner how can we create that in our organizations no in the timeframe of years but in the timeframe of weeks and months like military yeah so let's answer those questions in Reverse so one of the things that I I have deep admiration for the military and the admiration I have for the military is the exact same love and admiration I have for artists is because they both undertook their their their paths knowing that they weren't going to get rich and felt like it was a calling and we're willing to sacrifice to advance this thing whatever it is and be a part of something so to me it the same it's the same love and the thing that I noticed immediately when I started hanging out with folks in uniform is you and I have colleagues and co-workers they have brothers and sisters they literally refer to the people they work with as brothers and sisters and the relationship is one of brother and sister which is they may fight but they you you try and attack my brother or sister you got to go through me they love each other love is the word they we use that the Marine Corps calls them the intangibles right that what makes the Marine Corps strong are the intangibles what they mean is empathy love devotion these these these mushy words and you're asking me a question like how do we do it in weeks and months it's it's it's a these are human beings we're talking about right so that's like asking me can I give you advice so that you can fall in love in a matter of weeks instead of having to do this whole like being vulnerable I got no app for that it's a slow bloody process sometimes you get lucky and you have a meeting of the minds and you have shared values and it goes a little quicker but even though we get really excited we jump in the relationship three months where they were like what was I thinking right there is no way to speed up it takes more than a week but if you've been doing something for seven years and you don't love it maybe it's wrong right I just don't know where it happens so what I do know is that the way you build trust inside an organization is the exact same way you fall in love right which is you devote yourself to the care of another human being sometimes at the sacrifice of your own interests it means when the person you love comes home from work and they said I had a terrible day and you had an amazing day you don't say a word about your amazing day at all and you sit there and listen with love and empathy to their horrible day as opposed to waiting for your turn to speak you know it means that you wake up in the morning you say good morning to them before you check your phone it's the little things it means you learn to listen and make them and listening is really easy means you you make the other person feel heard so if you can go learn all of those things on how to make a friend and how to fall in love now go do all of those things at work then when somebody walks into office goes oh [ __ ] my day you go what's happening and you listen so they feel heard don't get them advice don't fix anything just listen right when they tell you how awful it is say that sucks tell me more right it's the same thing it's the exact same thing and I promise you I promise you you will build those relationships well you will fall in love with the people you work with and you will call them brothers and you will call them sisters and they were the same they will say the same of you so it's that's how you do that and by the way the military doesn't do it in 13 weeks what they do is they create a foundation for it in 13 weeks but it takes time for those relationships to truly form and the first question was how do we how does it open mindset play in a finite game and in a company that's driven by finite by finite leaders that one's the hardest one of all right because we cannot change the mindset of people two three four levels above us like there's nothing we can do but if we adopt the infinite mindset it's like preparing yourself right it's like getting ready for the eventual change that where everybody else is it's like when the internet showed up it's like most companies panicked but there was a small group of like oh we saw this coming a long time ago right Netflix one my favorite examples right so Netflix you remember we used to they made used to mail us the DVDs and that's just because streaming technology wasn't good enough yet but they knew was coming of course it was going to improve so they had this subscription model blockbuster which was the number one video rental place in the world their CEO went to the board and said you know we we should probably do this subscription thing and the board said no because they made 12 percent of their revenues from late fees and look what happened they're bankrupt and as soon as the streaming got better Netflix was there so what I would urge you to do is maintain your infinite mindset but hone it yet good at it practice leadership don't worry about changing people's minds you can't change be the leader for the people around you and you may leave the company because you choose to because they want you out because there's too many people who love you I've seen that happen by the way I've seen wonderful leaders get pushed out because they have too much loyalty and too much love towards them and the senior leaders threatened I've seen it happen right but be that person because it's gonna change you here it's changing I used to do these things I used to get 30 people show up we just filled central hall right like this is the movement so just keep at it because the revolution is coming go on this side yeah but you don't work here you're just polite and well he was there before me and you have to forgive me if I static so I just realized how many people are here and I am running and own a theater school for kids and for the last couple of years with our old my older kids they've been going through a lot it's all with exams exception things like that so I've been subliminally professing your ideals and similar ones with like Bob Chatham and Jim synagogue etc Branson and they found it very very helpful but when I try and talk to them about what their teachers and their head teachers that their schools are doing for them it seems very much that schools those that haven't already seem to be going the direction of adopting the finite mind set of results impact yep and I spoke to one of their head teachers and said oh well they were very quick to say look how many of our students got 6 a start see grades and I said to him well how many more students were happy well they were studying yeah cuz there's no point having results if the kids are dead by the end of the week and he looked me like I was crazy yeah and so I just thought if you had any thoughts on this stuff in the education system and any advice for yeah apparent nutcases like me who are trying to run you don't I just been told we're idealists as if it's a bad thing yeah yeah yep so you know one of the problems in schools is that we run our schools much like we run businesses which is we've become more obsessed with the metric than we have with the education with the child you know we we don't teach curriculum we teach children you know and the education doesn't end when they when they leave school and the problem is is that teachers don't feel taken care of the the leadership in school is it's a corporate leadership model and it's not where the the Headmaster's have not obsessed with the care of the teachers because if you get that right the teachers will take care of the students don't worry about it I say it all the time you know CEOs are not responsible for the results so why you keep talking about how you were responsible for the customers the results you're not you're responsible for the people who responsible for the people who responsible for the results there's not a headmaster on the planet responsible for the children or the or the curriculum they're responsible for the people who responsible for the curriculum and the children and if you get that hierarchy right it works just fine so if you have more forward-thinking parent you're gonna go find a school that does that if you if there's if you don't have a choice and you're in a school that has an old model then the way you will raise your children and the way the kind of pressures you will put on your children will be slightly different there's nothing wrong with teaching our kids that they have to still do well at school you know reality still exists I'm not against reality I'm just an idealist operating within it but but I think I definitely think that we need school reform and I think we need to teach the fundamentals of leadership to anybody who aspires to be a headmaster it gets promoted to that position big change is a charity that's doing is doing it thanks for a great talk my name's drew in over the industry I kind of lead a project I'd like to call it a project over business where we lead thousands of people who have aligned to have values who see the vision there's a serious energy and great but like any growing business or project it gets hungry and and needs investment whether it's from the banks or whether it's from the share our investors my vision is infinite and I align to what you say like Malcolm X you are you're the next Malcolm X kind of theory but on the other side the shareholders when's my exit plan when's this when's that they have a finite game and because they hold the money strings they think they can control the show trying to play a finite game against my infinite game how do you handle it because every time they ask me the exit what's your exit plan I kind of say well it'd be the coffin and heart attack probably but they don't take that seriously what how do you handle that infinite versus infinite finite players in this same project trying to control the strings did you get a say in you do you own the company yes you took their money yes I got no problem I got no problem with you looking for investors but you took the number more than the investor you you took the one who offered you more money than you did from the person who aligned to your values you took the person who is investing in the exit rather than is investing in you and your vision yeah Berkshire Hathaway does not sell the stocks it buys find money from someone who believes in you and your vision and will give you the might of the of their wealth of experience and the people who work there to advise you rather than force you into the exit make sense Thanks [Applause] I feel I feel like I need to apologize after that answer hi Simon hey thanks for the talk and thanks say my question as well and the first four pencils that you spoke about it seems like it's really under penned by cottage which you spoke a lot about yeah and college - a lot of people individually within teams business is a scary thing yeah what would you see Foster's cottage is that an internal thing as a neat or is that something that you actually seek from from the people around you yeah so in my experience courage is an external thing I've had the opportunity to meet people who have risked their lives to save the lives of others and they didn't have to they weren't they would not have been faulted if they didn't they were not ordered to they may have violated orders in fact to do so and I've had the chance to ask them why did you do it and almost unanimously they say because they would have done it for me and it's this sense that someone has my back that gives me the courage to do something for them you know if you're a world famous tightrope walker and you wanted to try a brand new death-defying act for the first time you're gonna do it with a net it's not your ability that gave you the courage even though you're really good at it it's the net it's this external thing that gave you the courage and you build it so so I think that the the to live us to live with a servant's heart to be that that leader that empathetic leader what that engenders is that people start to believe that you have their backs that you would do something for them that you would sacrifice your interests to to protect them and miraculously they'll do it back and the only thing that makes you a leader is you're the one who went first you're the one who took the risk first right that's the only thing that makes you the leader leaders not because you have the rank we call you leader cuz you literally will lead you led us you went first towards the danger to take the risk you set the tone and people may have been cynical at the start and you did it again and they may have been cynical again and you did it again and they realized wait this is for real and weird human things happen and they start to offer you the same kind of love and trust back I believe it's external and I believe it's based on the quality of human relationships which means it doesn't happen overnight like in the military they do not build the trust in combat it's not when they step off the plane with their rifles and ions do they all trust each other it's in peacetime where their training and training and training and training and learning to love each other the Israelis one of the most successful militaries in military history the unit that you train with when you're 18 years old is your unit for the rest of your life so when you're in your mid 40s and you get called back for reserve it's the same people you trained with when you were 18 years old because they're so understand that the bonds that you form when you're a kid that they want those bonds throughout your entire military career they understand where the trust comes from so I believe that that that we talk about human beings we forget we're social animals you know there's an entire section in the book shop called Self Help there is no section in the book shop called help others and yet at the end of the day by ourselves we're crap like we're just not that good by ourselves we're not that strong we're not that clever but you give a team together we can lift anything and solve any problem not a single person on earth solved any problem by themselves it never happened and even if it was their big brain there was somebody who believed in them who gave them a break or it funded them whatever it was they did not do it alone and I think it's our ability to foster relationships that underpins the courage we need to do all those difficult things hi hi Simon yeah my name is Mark so it's a two-part kind of question the first one is when you go into organizations and you talk to leaders and tell them about bringing meaning and purpose for the employees and they tell you oh yeah we've got a well-being day yeah organized once a year we've got that covered yeah like what would you have to tell them the second thing is as the leader yourself I guess of the organization where do you fail as a leader where do you recognize that you fail as a leader let's ignore the second part of the question and talk about the first one oh by the way it's half past eight I technically it's a 75 minute thing so if you need to leave want to leave now is the good time you want to fend me but I'll keep going if you want to stay [Applause] okay so the first thing when people when people say to me well we have a wellness thing we got that covered my response is about consistency versus intensity right so if you if you stop brushing your teeth and only go to the dentist twice a year will your teeth fall out yes they will right you cannot go to the gym for nine hours and get into shape but if you work at every single day for twenty minutes you absolutely get into shape I just don't know when and the reason companies like intensity is because it's easy to measure we had the event we hired the speakers we gave them or certificate check they're all leaders right but it's the daily little things it's the not tons and tons of just innocuous things that is what builds up they like brushing your teeth what does brushing your teeth for two minutes do it does nothing unless you do it every single day twice a day and it's consistency that we forget about yes you need intensity you still got to go to the dentist but it's this balance of intensity and consistency and too many companies think they can solve a problem with intensity and and I challenge them to consider the consistency stuff so I use the gym analogies and the brushing of teeth analogies and and they get the point where do I fail as a leader do we we don't have enough time like any person I can I can succumb to fatigue and then all the things I talk about sometimes I forget for me especially when I'm writing a book I'm my worst because I'm like teams I'm like working with people I work better when I work with people and writing a book is a very lonely process and I actually get lonely so all these negative thoughts Russian that you then come out and I'm very lucky that I have a couple of team members who either tell me but more importantly they they put up a little barrier so that that it like I won't hurt myself or hurt others I I'm sometimes too too quick with decisions like I'm very proud that I can make big decisions but sometimes it's too quick sometimes I need to listen for just a minute more you know to find out what something is I'm it's a work in progress it's a work in progress I'm constantly learning on my listening ability it's really funny I took this listening course and this is what I learned I learned that I am a tackle early good listener with people who I will never see again for the rest of my life but the people who I love who are in my life terrible so when people say you're a bad list and I'm like I write the book of terrible terrible so I had to learn to take the skills that I know but actually apply them to people that I love so I'm getting better I'm getting a lot better you're welcome I just wanna finish I think we're speaking on the same stage in Greece and I also love Adam grant I didn't know I was speaking of stage in Greece but awesome who's next yes we're go on the top back there Simon thank you thank you very much for the inspiring talk thank you and you framed in a very Western way philosophies that or you know waste of life lifestyles or actions that for me ring true in a in an Asian context whether it's yoga in southern mhm southeastern Asia or the the Chinese mentality of a million yo in a liar how do you feel about the current environment worldly and you mean how in the West we're trying to win the China as a thousand your plan is the competition between the US and China on Asia Asia is way ahead of us Asia's playing an infinite game the Chinese are playing into a game of course they're playing if in a game they're just waiting us out they make plans for literally hundreds of years we make plans for the next election cycle yeah I think a lot of the stuff I talked about is heavily Eastern and the idea of infinite Ness an infinite life it's heavily Eastern for sure you know I think we have this funny thing in the West where we like things we can easily understand and we we don't like to use things we don't understand you know well I you know do you you know love is a tricky thing to understand but I know it exists I don't have a metric for it I can't measure it but I know it's there I love my children I love my spouse you know show me the metric the kids a you know pretty crap at school and kind of a bit of a pain in the ass and he beats up his sister and you still love him I do it's hard to say it's hard to put into metrics it's hard to put into rational things and I think Eastern philosophies embrace things we don't understand better than we do and it's about striking that right balance I think we do the same thing with medicine right like we cut the body up in two systems and you're an expert and whatever your system is and you know you go see an endocrinologist it's clearly glandular you know I like Eastern philosophies as well they're like you stick a needle in here and it helps your knee well why you know it just does yeah I think that's I think this is a definitely a blending for sure and China is ahead hi thanks for your wonderful speech I had a question on the I guess the general question about achieving happiness on a day to day basis given the infinite game idea if you're at a workplace and like someone said before you have an infinite mindset we're in a finite structure on a day to day basis you might get a bit demoralized when you have to work when you actually have a vision to do something else but you want to do like tedious tasks that you're not interested in I personally I'm just a student I'm a 20 year old student and I'm doing engineering and I came in to study I guess as with the idea that I want to build products that you know have an impact on people that change people's perspective of things and apps to help people well our day to day basis a month of my the university which is getting exams done getting results done so how do I don't how do I stop myself for getting demoralizing a day-to-day basis while this change for the you know future so I make this distinction between joy and happiness happiness comes when you win the game when you get an A in your exam happiness comes when your number comes up in the lottery and then it goes away you know that feeling joy is something more underlying and you the u.s. how do I have happiness on a day to day basis you don't the things that you will do you will not necessarily enjoy but the question is do you have a sense that they're a part of something bigger that's where the that's where the the value and the joy comes from you don't have to like every day but you do get to love every day you don't like your children every day but you love your children every day right and I think we have this we've created this unrealistic expectation that every day at work has to be amazing like every day of your relationship has to be amazing and every day and your friendship has to be amazing it's it's just not it's an unfair standard to put on a human being that's an unfair standard to put on an organization and sometimes it's us sometimes the organization is trying so hard but we have a narrative in our head that we can't let go of that it's us that's creating the unhappiness every day we make ourselves victims and everything you see you'll find there all the evidence well we can choose to change our narrative you know I have a friend who moved to from a liberal City to a very conservative state city in the United States and she was very worried and I said to her it's the most wonderful opportunity in the world she says but I'm gonna hate all these people I said or you can learn to listen understand what their motivations are and understand what what they care about and I bet you'll discover that your values are the same as theirs right some of its narrative some of its perspective don't seek happiness the happiness will happen here and there it seek joy and that comes from relationships and belonging and cause oh I have to stop I'll do one more one more hi hi first of all so I I'm kind of exercising my courage here to you sir sorry exercising my courage to come and talk to you thank you so first question is I am a serial entrepreneur in the technology and games industry and I also have been building a YouTube channel with a cause to encourage more young girls to become entrepreneurs okay and to also start their own companies cool in the games and technology industry so I would love to ask you if you would be fine for me to interview you at some point that's the first question I had to ask sorry I love it do it good so second question is about scaling so right now my company has 70 people everyone based in London and we have been doing pretty well coming from you know zero to ten but obviously as we scale the the leadership team and everyone in the organization needs to be multipliers of everything than myself and my co-founders have been you know in stealing the organization so are there some some ways for us to make sure that we have multipliers in scale mm-hmm so fundamentally scale breaks things you know that right so organizations can be like a family and then they had about 25 people and it starts to get really complicated and a lot of organizations struggle to get past that number because now you need structure and hierarchy and things that just make normal businesses work right plus you're not all friends anymore you didn't all grow up together the first group of employees like we were we actually were friends right so you're up to 70 you said you know you can still all know everybody's name you still can refer to people you when you'll max out about 150 then it gets really complicated and scale just breaks things for human beings we're just not made for it right so the way you do it is with effective hierarchy you you should have an effective training program to teach leaders and should be considering somebody's leadership abilities not just there are results when you're promoting people and there should be an opportunity to learn leadership practice leadership you should be teaching it because you have to create the environment in which you have people who can keep the organization organization going without you we call it the the School Bus theory which is what happens to your company if tomorrow you get hit by school bus well it's fold will keep going right hopefully keep going okay hopefully would keep going hopefully so we're relying on hope hope is not a good business plan right how about it'll absolutely keep going cuz the cause is crystal clear and everybody we hired believed in the cause and even if they were the best qualified person because we suspect that they didn't share our values I believe no course we didn't hire them right there was somebody who's toxic in the organization and we coach them coaching them coach and they proved to be uncoachable and even though they were the highest performing organization in the world that sales person sells more than anybody else we made the difficult decision to ask them to leave to go and find joy hat somewhere else they're a good person they're just bad fit right but those are hard decisions and those are the kinds of decisions that other people see you making that you actually do believe in your cause more than your growth planning because the problem with growth plans is they're arbitrary you made it up how big you want to be in two years five years ten years is literally a work of fiction right and then we got all bogged down if it works or Danka we're not going on pace now yes that stuff's important good to have goals it's good to have things to reach for yes but they're there they're there to push us but they're not they're not there to determine that where we've succeeded or we failed right it's something to give us the strifer because we're still visually driven annuals we're still like dopamine to drive us we still like short-term things to help us it's not a the infinite game it still includes finite games yeah so I think - in order for you to scale you have to ensure that the people who you're putting in leadership positions aren't just good at their jobs they're good leaders there's plenty of data on this that top sales people don't necessarily may great sales managers there's there's no correlation great sales managers are good at getting the sales people to be at their natural best and they're okay not making any sales themselves there's no correlation so you are you promoting your top performers you're promoting your best leaders and you better be teaching them how to lead once you promote them thanks very much everybody [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Simon Sinek

Views: 1,091,262

Rating: 4.90452 out of 5

Keywords: simon sinek, sinek simon, sinek, leader, leadership, infinite, infinite game, the infinite game, mindset, how to, how to lead, management, inspiration, motivation, courage to lead, business, leadership expert, game theory

Id: 3vX2iVIJMFQ

Length: 91min 20sec (5480 seconds)

Published: Mon May 13 2019