To Infinity and beyond — with Simon Sinek

Simon Sinek keynoting at the Globoforce WorkHuman conference in Austin was one of the highlights of the annual turbo charged Inspirational event. He made his appearance on day three — a day when typically conferences can begin to lag despite the octane fuelled speakers that went before.

In what can classically be called Sinek-style, he strode onto the main stage exactly on time and began recounting a historic anecdote without preamble. On this occasion, he parabled the Vietnam war. This war, he explained, saw the Americans win all the battles but lose the war. How could that be? For Sinek the answer was the pitching of two incompatible forces. The Americans, notwithstanding the growing opposition from home, were fighting a finite battle, the Vietnamese an infinite one.

So what was the difference? Sinek described a finite game as an operation where the players are known, where the rules are understood and moreover agreed, and there is a fixed objective — ie to win the game. Sinek said: “Just like baseball.”

However in an infinite game, there are both known and unknown players, the rules can and will change, and the objective is to keep the game going.

“Where a finite player is pitched against a finite player then the outcome can be judged,” said Sinek. “Likewise infinite verses infinite. The trouble comes when a finite player gets into an infinite game. Then the finite player will eventually run out of the will or resources to compete and ultimately concede the…