Sprinklr was Built for the Infinite Game

I recently listened to Simon Sinek talk about his book, The Infinite Game, in a conversation with Brené Brown as part of her Dare to Lead series on Spotify and it has completely changed the way I look at my life and the organizations I’ve both worked for and sold to over the years.?

Sinek’s book is based on the work of Dr. James Carse, who was the first to define these two types of games: finite and infinite games. A finite game is defined by known players, fixed rules and an agreed upon objective; like we see in football and baseball. There is always a beginning, a middle and an end - and if there is a winner, then there has to be a loser. Companies playing a finite game in business are also defined as having competitors.?

Conversely, infinite games are defined as having known and unknown players, which means new players can join whenever they want. The rules are changeable, which means you can play however you want, and the objective is to perpetuate the game - to stay in the game as long as possible. Companies playing an infinite game have worthy rivals - companies they respect for the work they do, but they are competing against themselves.?

Sinek goes on in his conversation with Brown to talk about how we are all players in an infinite game every day of our lives. “No one is ever declared the winner of careers. Nobody wins healthcare. You can come in first for the finite time you’re in high school or college, but nobody wins education…And there is definitely no such thing as winning business. But if we listen to the leaders of so many of our organizations, it becomes abundantly clear that they don’t know the game they’re playing in. They talk about being number one, being the best or beating their competition. But based on what agreed upon objectives, timeframes or metrics? And the problem is -? when we play in an infinite game with a finite mindset; when we play to win in a game that has no finish line, there are some predictable and consistent outcomes. The big ones include the decline of trust, cooperation and innovation,” says Sinek.

Brené Brown has had conversations with some of the most inspiring authors and speakers in the world and during this particular podcast with Sinek, she references a conversation she previously had with another well-known author, Jim Collins, who wrote Beyond Entrepreneurship (BE) and (BE) 2.0. In Collins’ sequel, he quotes historian Edward T. O’Donnell who says, “History is the study of surprises…We’re living history, surprise after surprise after surprise. And just when we think we’ve had all the big surprises for a while, along comes another one. If the first two decades of the 21st century have taught us anything, it is that uncertainty is chronic; instability is permanent; disruption is common; and we can neither predict nor govern events. There will be no ‘new normal.’ There will only be a continuous series of ‘not normal’ episodes, defying prediction and unforeseen by most of us until they happen.”

The finite minded tend to favor shorter timelines and they really don’t like surprises. Those playing with an infinite mindset embrace surprise - they find opportunity in surprise. Sinek talks about how this became instantly apparent in business during Covid, with the finite-minded focused on survival and the infinite-minded focused on adaptability.

The reality is that playing an infinite game is much harder than playing a finite game. “Finite is easier. The rewards are immediate. Infinite is more difficult. We consider effects that we cannot imagine. We are contributing to something that we may never see realized. An infinite mindset is recognizing that you are part of a continuum and the decisions you make have an impact on that continuum,” says Sinek.

As an account executive who works with some of the largest enterprise companies in the world, I see leaders make decisions every day. Some of these decisions are based on a finite list of requirements, objectives and timelines and are often connected to near-term or more immediate goals. I also see decision-making that reflects long-range consideration. This kind of decision-making considers the short-term impact, but the ultimate driver is how that decision will impact a company’s ability to further its cause or mission. These executives often have requirements, but are more open to incorporating new ideas, new strategies and will even abandon a previous decision or investment if they believe this action gives them the best chance of staying in the game.?

Brown and Sinek share some great anecdotes about executive leadership decisions in the podcast that include Blockbuster and Netflix, Microsoft and Apple and others.

This brings me to Sprinklr. I came to work for Sprinklr a little over a year ago and when I evaluated this company as a potential employer, I was struck by some unusual aspects of how the company both created and runs its business.

First, I’ve never heard of a company whose mission is to make people happier. Not the happiest, but happier. Because if you talk to most business leaders, they want to be the best at something, create the best product, be the biggest, be the leader. When have you heard a silicon valley CEO say that their mission is to create “better” technology? Making customers happier is an infinite journey that never ends.??

Then I started to learn more about Sprinklr’s architecture - the way this company built their CXM platform. Sprinklr didn’t release new capabilities immediately after making an acquisition to achieve the instant gratification associated with announcing new features. They took the long-range and more strategic road of breaking down the acquired technology, working with the talent from that acquired company and rebuilding it natively for the Sprinklr platform. They employed this strategy so that all of their acquired capabilities would always speak the same language and unify people working with them across all the customer-facing functions of a business.?

For Sprinklr, this was a differentiator from the disparate point solutions they identified in the market that were keeping brands internally siloed and ultimately disconnected from their life source - their customers. With this single architecture approach, an infinite number of CX use cases are possible, allowing the brands who use them the advantage of having as much creativity and individuality as they can imagine when it comes to redefining what a great experience can be for their customers. I think that Ragy Thomas, Sprinklr’s CEO and founder embraces the mindset that Steve Jobs talked about when he said, “You have to start with the customer experience and work back towards the technology, not the other way around.” Thomas and the other founders of Sprinklr built a platform that made this way of thinking and operating possible for the brands that leverage it to make their customers happier.

For any company, the difference between long-term success and failure can be the difference between fulfilling demand and creating it. It’s the difference between jumping in the race amongst companies with a similar offering or defining a new game. Defining a new game - a new space, is what Sprinklr has done in CXM.?

Finally, I was completely blown away by their achievements in AI. Sprinklr didn’t set out to achieve more accurate sentiment models than some of the biggest and established technology providers in the world; many of whom are highly valued and respected Sprinklr partners and customers. Sprinklr was competing with Sprinklr and now has proprietary AI technology that delivers highly accurate, actionable, real-time insights to all of its customer brands. The goal and focus was? never about AI models. It was and continues to be about intelligently automating what can and should be automated so that valuable human talent can do their best, strategic work to make customers happier.?

Sprinklr wasn’t just built as a more effective alternative to point solutions. Sprinklr wasn’t just built to increase revenue, reduce cost or mitigate risk for a quarter or any finite length of time. Sprinklr was built for brands that know that the way the world communicates has changed and will keep changing. Sprinklr was built for brands that understand that their future success is inexplicably married to their ability to harness the unprecedented amount of experience data being shared across digital channels by their current and future customers. Brands that want to define customer expectation instead of chasing it. Brands that refuse to let point solution technology force them into swim lanes of innovation. Sprinklr was built for brands that are playing the infinite game - brands that want to stay in the game as long as possible.?

If you haven’t heard Brené Brown’s podcast on Spotify, I encourage you to take a listen. If you haven’t read Simon Sinek’s books, I promise they won’t disappoint. To my current customer brands at Sprinklr…let’s keep playing the infinite game together. To my future customer brands - it’s never too late to start.

#sprinklr #brenebrown #simonsinek #ragythomas https://bit.ly/3sFYoRa