But what about will? Sinek shared five must-have components of will if we are to succeed in the infinite game:ġ. We have to have the capital we need to run a business. Money, intellectual property, people, technology, etc. The infinite game continues indefinitely until someone loses the will or resources to keep playing. The “game” of leadership and business is an infinite game where the rules change frequently, competitors come and go, and there is no end point to the game. In the VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world in which we live, the most successful leaders and organization are learning to play the infinite game, not the finite one. Simon Sinek introduced this concept in his keynote address at our recent Blanchard Summit. Competitors drop out of the infinite game when they lose the will or resources to stop playing.

There are no clear winners or losers in the infinite game. Opponents change frequently, as does the game itself. The playing field is undefined and progress is hard to measure. Rules often don’t exist, and if they do, they are fuzzy and open to interpretation. Infinite games have no winners or losers. The rules of the game are known to both sides, the boundaries of the playing field are well-defined, the scoreboard keeps track of the game’s activity, and at the end of a prescribed period of time, a winner is declared. Their goal was to outlast the enemy, not defeat them.įinite games have winners and losers. North Vietnam was playing the infinite game. In the Vietnam War, the United States won every single battle but lost the war. The North lost over 100,000 soldiers during the January to August time-frame. In the ensuing months there were several “Mini Tet” offensives launched, and each one ended the same way-defeat. In every single battle, the American-led forces and the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam defeated their enemies, leading to heavy casualties for the North. In January 1968, the North Vietnamese People’s Army of Vietnam and the Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive, one of the largest military campaigns in the Vietnam War.

Game just cause