Willow Creek GLS18 -- Simon Sinek

Willow Creek GLS18 -- How do you lead an infinite game?

January 1968—North Vietnamese Army launches a surprise attack of 85,000 troops called the Tet Offensive.  There’d never been fighting on Tet before.  Americans repelled every single attack. After about a week North Vietnam had lost about 30,000 troops.  America lost 58,000 in the war and Vietnam lost 3.5 million.  How could we still lose the war?  There need to be more definitions.

If you have at least one competitor you have a game. Finite game=fixed number of players with fixed rules and results.  Infinite game=known and unknown players who keep the game going indefinitely. 

Problems arise when you pit a finite player against an infinite player. The finite player will always waste resources when those situations arise. Americans were fighting to win and Vietnamese were fighting for their lives.

We’re surrounded by infinite games—they are all around us. They are a part of our existence. Most of us only know how to lead in finite games, not infinite ones. 

The infinite player understands the only true player is yourself. How do you get stronger and better than last year?  If leading an infinite game is so different, how do you lead an infinite game?  There are five elements…

Just cause—a true cause so just we’d be willing to sacrifice to advance it. Might mean working at night, taking business trips away from family, etc.   Tests of a “just cause”=resilient (can resist change); inclusive (serves as invitation to anyone to contribute); service-oriented (primary benefit must go to other than the contributor)

Trusting teams—Leaders are responsible for creating an environment wher people can be their best selves and trust enough to ask for help…  If you don’t have trusting teams people are lying, faking, and hiding.

Worthy rival—On the stage with a rival speaking at the same event. I said to him, “You make me very insecure because your strengths are my weaknesses.” And he said, “I feel the same about you.”  So he became my worthy rival—not a competitor but like a pacer in a race to push me.  Individual rivals can push us to be better than ourselves through tactical improvements.

Existential flexibility—Have to be willing to take risks and be flexible

Courage to lead—Takes remarkable courage to believe in something bigger than myself and compete against no one but myself.

It raises one simple question: what does it mean to live an infinite life?  Every one of us has a choice to live by finite rules (driven to be richest, most powerful) or for the infinite (for a cause you believe in and when you pass others will say they were better because you were here.)