The latest installment of the Simon Sinek enterprise, The Infinite Game, has a lot of what I found compelling from Sinek’s past works. It explains a big idea in simple terms but this one didn’t seem to deliver. I found the read clunky and disorganized. I am a huge Sinek fan which is probably why I was so distressed. While he presents some valuable ideas in this book, I did not find the depth I was expecting.

That said, the overall premise of The Infinite Game is sound. Sinek starts with the idea that humans view the world in win-lose terms. Stated another way, we believe our games are finite. We know the players, play by agreed-upon rules, have commonly understood goals, and somebody always wins and losses at the end. We yearn for this consistency and often get frustrated with interactions fraught with disorganization and surprise. The win-lose dichotomy clouds our perception of the world, and we view our interactions through this prism.

Infinite games, however, are not the exception; they are common, and viewing the world under this paradigm is more useful than we realize. Known and unknown players play these games, without exact or agreed-upon rules, and they have no practical end. The primary objective of the infinite game is to continue to play. You can win at chess but how do you win in a friendship? Drug dealers aren’t trying to beat police to win; they just want to continue their business. This long-view method of perceiving the world changes incentive structures, understanding risk, and how we manage our resources.

To play the infinite game, you must start by adopting an infinite mindset. Sinek’s prescription is to advance a just cause, build a trusting team, study rivals, show existential flexibility, and lead. A just cause is the feeling of being part of something bigger than yourself supplying a purpose so appealing people will sacrifice for it. Trust is aligned with psychological safety to embolden risk-taking. A worthy rival is a healthy competitor giving your organization a focus. Existential flexibility is the ability to change a process or path to align better with your cause. Finally, leading with an infinite mindset is focusing on a long-term view and taking care of the team.

The key point I took from this book was the need to focus on the long-term vision over a short-term goal-oriented approach. The short-term mindset incentivizes near-term wins without regard to long-term effects. This is akin to an Army unit focusing on individual weapons qualification statistics over the amorphous vision of being lethal when engaged with the enemy. Weapons’ qualification percentages are easily measurable and comparable; they’re also eminently necessary to winning a battle. Succeeding in battle, however, requires many more skills that are much harder to define than just shooting straight. Theoretically, an organization could be successful in battle with poor weapons qualification skills. At least one deep thinker wrote the acme of skill was winning without firing a shot. Thus, too much focus on short-term measures can lead to some great shooters at the expense of honing other necessary skills not easily measured.

In the end, Sinek’s big idea is worthy of reflection, but I recommend watching his talk on the web before picking up this one.

Lieutenant Colonel Christopher L’Heureux is an Armor Officer who likes to write, think, and sip whisk(e)y.