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When you play an infinite games, with finite rules.
You race through your recourses and will

• marriage
• friendships
• global politics
• business

• decline of trust
• decline of cooperation
• decline of innovation

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1. just cause
2. trusting teams
3. worthy rival
4. existential flexibility
5. courage to lead

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a just cause is purpose or cause that is so just
you would willingly sacrifice to be a part for it

• higher pay
• late hours
• business trips
• see family less

You may not like it, but it's worth it
it feels worth it

• Apple: individuals should be able to stand up to big brother
• USA equal in all rights, including life, liberty, pursuit of happiness

just causes are a description of a future state so ideal
that for all practical purposes we will never actually achieve that vision
but we will die trying

the reason we call it vision
 is because you have to be able to see it


imagine a world that is different to the world we have now
that you believe that
 if everything you did in your organisation went perfectly,
 you would contribute to the building of that world

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

Every job you have, should be contributing to the same vision

we don't have to put pressure on ourselves to be visionary


there is a very small handful of people in our population who are visionary


eg. Steve Jobs, Richard Branson


We don't have to have a vision, we have to find a vision
If there is someone else's vision that gives us goosebumps
If there is someone else's vision that we say "that's the world I want to live in"


Martin Luther's "I have a dream"
If you want to live in that world, choose his
And devote your life and devote your career to helping build that vision in some way shape or form, even if it's only small steps

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How do I create an environment that my people will be at their natural best.

If we do not have trusting teams
what we do have is a group of people who show up to work every day
lying, hiding and faking

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

Sir, if I don't follow the rules, 
I could get in trouble or lose my job

• people feel like they have control and agency over their own jobs

everyone there is afraid to make a decision
nobody has any agency or control


and there is 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 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, where we fear making any kind of decision what so ever, that is what increases stress dramatically

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he reminded me, he revealed to me
his very existence revealed to me my weaknesses
it was much easier to take that energy
and put it against someone than to admit to myself
that I've got some work to do

the only true competitor in an infinite game, is yourself
but what you have to have is a worthy rival
- someone who is better than you in your own industry
- or in another industry, who is better at something 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 by revealing to us our weaknesses,
it gives us tools to go back and see where we need to improve


the goal is not to beat them
the goal is to simply improve and stay in the game

people who you know, are better at your job than you


They are so good
they make me insecure they are so good
those are the people to admire


have rivals: it's another tool for constant improvement

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dramatic shift in strategy
because you find a better way to advance your cause

We have to invest in this graphic user interface thing.
Steve, we can't, we've already invested millions of dollars and countless man hours in a completely different stategic direction, if we abandon that, we'll blow up our own company
Better we should blow it up, than someone else

Why would you abandon something that is working, for something that might not work?


To a person driven by a just cause, it's so easy for them to see
staying on the path they're on is the path that will lead to death
This decision is the obvious choice and the money means nothing.
Because it means survival and the ability to continue to thrive

if you are not willing to blow up your company
the market will blow it up for you

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everything before, is unbelievably difficult


all the pressures in our lives
- markets
- families
- incentive structures in our companies
are trying to force us to consider
- the finite
- the short term over the long term
- the profit before the people

profitability is important, but we have a bias towards people

it's much easier to have redundancies
rather that figure out how to protect them

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 is doing it, does not mean it's right.


The vast majority of the business philosophies and practices that we practice today, are not norms of business.
They are recent, they come from the 70's and 80's
- shareholder supremacy
- mass layoffs
- rank and yank
- definition of responsibility of business "maximise profits within the bounds of the law"

No! Our form of capitalism prioritizes
- people
- trust
- cooperation
- empathy
- maternal instinct
- longevity

long term or sustainable,
 I don't use the word long-term,
 20 years is long-term,
 30 years is long-term.
Infinite!

we don't get to pick the game
but we do get to pick how we play
that is the only game we have

if we choose to live our lives in a finite mindset
we're playing to win
we're playing for someone else to lose
we're playing 
- to advance our careers faster than anybody else
- to make more money than anybody else
we're comparing the scores constantly
we're slicing and dicing to show them to we're the best, we're number one
we get to make up the numbers and timeframes but it's really important to us that everybody thinks we're number one


you don't build trust that way, cooperation is 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 we can choose to live our lives with an infinite mindset
which means we give 
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,
 in which people feel safe and we trust each other
 and we're willing to take risks and 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 that say we're crazy, idealistic:
"yeah, we are, I'll take my risk"


because that is fundamentally what the infinite mindset it
it's a code
 for the idealists
 to operate in a world
 that is telling us we should be realistic
it's a code
 for people who believe that
 an unrealisable vision
 that is 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

---

---

• stories about heart-count vs head-count
• never worked in any company that would have used that
• is it rare to have the courage to lead?
• is there momentum?

The first criteria to be a leader is
 you have to want to be one
-- George Flinn

we don't want leaders who don't want to be leaders

the education to become a leader
 is a lifestyle,
 it's like the choice to become healthy


at the early days it's usually a lot of heavy lifting at a steep learning curve
- I have to change the way I eat
- 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 get into 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 the choice to live a life that way
Even though there might have been a finite goal in the short term


Leadership is the same
it is a lifestyle
it is a muscle that 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 will atrophy

If you work with someone 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.

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their mere existence, keeps you honest about what your cause is

best thing that ever happened to the west was the soviet union
because it reminded us what we stood for

If you're a challenger brand
the most important thing is that
what you're standing up to is the ideology, not the company
because if you eventually get big
you haven't won
they just dropped out

the goal is not to beat them
the goal is to spread your gospel
and not theirs
it's a rival gospel

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You cannot do existential flexibility without a just cause
and I would argue even trusting teams
 because otherwise everyone is gonna panic
 and think you're crazy

just cause and trusting teams are really bigger than the others

If there is one thing you can do it's
 articulate what it's all for

The why comes from the past
it's who you are
it's why the organisation was founded
it's who you are as a human being
it's the thing that drives you
it is immutable
it will never change, no matter what happens in your life
it comes from looking backwards

a just cause comes from looking forwards
it is an unrealised future
that if your why were to be brought to life
 in the most magical of ways
the world that would exist, would be this world


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 clear
 that other people go
 "I can see it!"
 "That sounds amazing!"
 "Sign me up"

• If everything we did went perfectly, what would the world look like?
• What will we commit our organisation to help build?
• What will we commit our life to help build?

The path to building trusting teams, is the path to good leadership 

Commit yourself to being the leader you wish you had

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The admiration I have for the military
 is the exact same love and admiration
 I have for artists.


Both undertook their paths,
 knowing they would not get rich.
 and felt like it was a calling
 and were willing to sacrifice to advance this thing
 and be a part of something


To me it's the same love

You and I have colleagues and coworkers
They have brothers and sisters


they may fight,
 but you try and attack my brother or sister,
 you gotta go through me


they love each others
- empathy
- love
- devotion

That's like asking me 
 "how do I fall in love in weeks?"
 instead of this whole
- getting to know them
- being vulnerable
It's a slow, ploddy process


Sometimes you get lucky,
 and you have a meeting of the minds,
 and you have shared values
 and it goes a little quiker


there is no way to speed up


it takes more than a week, but if you've been doing something for 7 years and you don't love it, maybe it's wrong

The way you build trust inside an organisation
 is the exact same way you fall in love


You devote yourself to the care of another human being
 sometimes at the sacrifice of your own interests

Listening is really easy
you make the other person feel heard

How to make a friend
How to fall in love


now go do all these things at work

When somebody walks into your office and goes
"ugh, fuck my day"


you go "What's happening?"
and you listen, so they feel heard
don't give them advice
don't fix anything
just listen


when they tell you how awful it is, say
"that sucks, tell me more"

The military doesn't do it in 13 weeks.
They create the foundation for it in 13 weeks
but it takes time for those relationships to truly form

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maintain your infinite mindset
 but hone it
 get good at it
practice leadership


don't worry about changing people's mind


be the leader for the people around you

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one of the problems with our schools:
 we run our schools like we run our businesses


we become more obsessed with the metric than with the education or the child

the problem is that teachers don't feel taken care of
the leadership in school is a corporate leadership model
the headmasters are not obsessed with the care of the teachers


if you get that right, the teachers will take care of the students, don't worry about it


if you get that hierarchy right, it works just fine

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• What is your exit plan
• When is this, when is that

Do you own the company?
You took their money?
I got no problem with you looking for investors
But you took the number, more than the investor


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 the one
 who is investing in you and your vision


Berkshire Hatahway, 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 their wealth of experience
 and the people who work there
 to advise you
rather than force you into the exit

Berkshire Hatahway, 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 their wealth of experience
 and the people who work there
 to advise you
rather than force you into the exit

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it's not the ability that gave you the courage
it's the net

To live with a servant's heart
to be that empathetic leader
people start to believe
 that you have their backs
 that you would do something for them
 that you would sacrifice your interests to protect them
and miraculously they will do it back

The only thing that makes you a leader
 is that you're the one that went first
You're the one that took the risk first

There is an entire section in the bookshop called self-help
There is no section in the bookshop called help-others

By ourselves, we're crap
We're just not that good by ourselves
We're not that strong, we're not that clever


But you get a team together
we can lift anything and solve any problem

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if you stop brushing your teeth
and only go to the dentist once a year


What does brushing your teeth for 2 minutes do?
It does nothing.
Unless you do it every single day

you cannot go to the gym for 9 hours and get into shape


but if you work out every single day for 20 minutes
 you'll absolutely get into shape


I just don't know when

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I am a spectacularly good listener
 with people I will never see again for the rest of my life


But the people who are in my life, terrible!


So I had to learn to take the skills that I know,
 but apply them to the people that I love

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You mean how in the west we're trying to win and China has a thousand year plan?

They make plans for literally hundreds of years,
 and we make plans for the next election cycle.

We have this thing in the west
 where we like things we can easily understand
 and don't like things we can't easily understand


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

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happiness comes when
 you win the game
 you get an A on our exam
 your number comes up in the lottery
and then it goes away

joy is something more underlying

The things that you will do,
 you will not necessarily enjoy.
but the question is,
 do you have a sense that they are a part of something bigger?
That's where the value and the joy comes from

you don't get 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

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 in your friendship has to be amazing


it's an unfair standard to put on a human being
it's an unfair standard to put on an organisation

Don't seek happiness
 happiness will happen here and there
Seek joy
 and that comes from
- relationships
 - belonging
 - cause

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fundamentally, scale breaks things

organisations can be like a family
 and then they hit about 25 people
 and it starts to get really complicated
 now you need structure and hierarchy
 plus you're not all friends anymore

you can still all know everybody's name
you can still refer to people
you'll max out at about 150
and then it get's really complicated

scale just breaks things for human beings
we're just not made for it

the way you do it is with effective hierarchy
you should have an effective training program to teach leaders
and you should be considering somebody's leadership abilities, not just their results, when you're promoting people


there should be an opportunity to learn leadership, practice leadership, you should be teaching it

What happens to your company
 if tomorrow you get hit by a school bus?
Will it fold?
Or will it keep going?

It will absolutely keep going
 because the cause is crystal clear
 and everybody we hired believed in the cause


And even if they were the best qualified person,
 because we suspected that they did not share
 - our values,
 - our beliefs
 - and our cause
 we did not hire them


There was someone who was toxic in the organisation
 and we coached them and coached them and coached them
 and they proved to be un-coachable
And even though they were the highest performing in the organisation.
That salesperson sells more than anybody else
We made the difficult decision to ask them to leave
To go and find joy somewhere else
They are a good person
They are just a bad fit

Those are hard decision
 and those are the kinds of decisions
 that others see you making
that you actually do believe in your cause more than your growth plan

The infinite game, still includes finite games

Are you promoting your best performers
 or are you promoting your best leaders?


And you better be teaching them how to lead, once you promote them.