Playing the Infinite Game

I was listening to Simon Sinek’s videos and I must say that it did strike a chord especially when I pause and review my career and my interactions with several managers. But before I go there, we need to begin with the B-schools wherein we learn the buzz words and statements that we are supposed to imbibe and use freely like “Enhancing Shareholder Value”, “Strategy”, etc. I am by no means saying these are not important but the priority in which they are important and the context is much more critical. We possibly need to learn history a bit more and understand the situations and circumstances in which all these concepts, jargons and buzzwords came up and whether they have outlived their utility or not.

Coming back to my career, I have been guilty of falling prey to these buzz words for sure but have been getting wiser as my career has progressed. Funny, I guess. However, throughout my career so far, I have had multiple rounds of discussions with my managers and peers around a simple point of focusing internally V/s externally. Always got beaten up on what the competitor is doing, lets peep into their strategy, their way of doing things, etc. These are things which are good to do but is of no use if we are not able to improve internally and look at how we can get better at doing things, not because competition seems to be winning but because there is great value in doing things better from the perspective of employees, vendors, customers and then the shareholders at large. As Simon puts in, we need to be playing the infinite game and not get into the finite game mode which is more short term and outward looking. There are clashes of egos, thought process and mindset in itself which is pretty difficult to handle and that’s where people and organizations need to transform, I say transform because change is too slow especially when we see what our attitudes have done to people and resulted in poor job satisfaction, poor personal life, minimal social well-being, etc.

We tend to go through life not for living it and experiencing the joy of it but for surviving through it. We need to invest in ourselves and focus on what we love doing and enabling others to also do the same by creating a conducive environment, a support system to make people feel themselves to be a part of and contributing in their own unique way. (Maybe I need to give myself that freedom as well ??). At this point in time, I am reminded of another brilliant character viz., Gail Wynand from the classic "Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand. By not allowing individuals to recognize and unleash their true potential, are we not becoming Gail Wynand ourselves – killing that integrity / desire to unleash their innate potential to the fullest and have a more contented/balanced life. It is time to stop and review ourselves a bit more and find out our purpose (A lot of us have forgotten what it is like to dream, the way we used to when we were kids) and things that keep us happy which in turn would snowball into our families and society at large be happy.

Credit: Simon Sinek videos on www.youtube.com

#Simon Sinek #Purpose #JoyatWork #UnleashPotential #Fountainhead