I recently finished Simon Sinek’s most recent book, The Infinite Game, and that was the inspiration for my leadership message this week.  Finite games are those in which there are clear rules, players and a distinct end point.  On the other side, infinite games have rules that can change, players may come and go and there is no clear end point and hence, no winners or losers.  Despite the fact that business is an infinite game, many companies play as if it is a finite game.  They use terms like “we’re number one” and “we beat the competition”, but these statements are simply a product of the subjective metrics they have chosen over a time period they also determined. To one company number one might be most revenue, to another it might mean highest employee satisfaction and to another it might mean on best time delivery.

“When we lead with a finite mindset in an infinite game, it leads to all kinds of problems, the most common of which include the decline of trust, cooperation and innovation.  Leading with an infinite mindset in an infinite game, in contrast, really does move us in a better direction.”

Leading with an infinite mindset requires us to forgo short term solutions and think about what it means to make decisions that build businesses that can be healthy and strong enough to sustain many future generations to come.  It’s about playing for others instead of yourself, it’s about inspiring team members to continue contributing with their effort instead of extracting as much work as possible out of them  And it’s about leaving the organization in a better place than where it was when you joined it.  

Building trusting teams was one of Simon’s five practices for being an infinite minded leader and he suggests; “It’s not about the people doing the job, it’s the leaders of the people doing the job that makes a difference.”  It’s crucial for leaders within organizations to understand the impact they have on the rest of the team.  It’s easy to point the finger at others when things start going wrong, it’s much harder to look in the mirror and realize we may be to blame for the the problems in our organizations. I’m proud of our team at Footers because most of our leaders understand that this is a better way to lead and with our mantra of “make it better everyday” we know that there is no destination we are trying to get to, but rather it’s a continuous journey of progress and improvement in this infinite game we are playing.

*Each week I share a leadership message with our team and we are honored to share it with you via MIBE Tribe.  MIBE (the acronym for Make It Better Everyday) Tribe delivers education on heart leadership and intentional culture building for the hospitality industry.