The cost of leadership,” explains Lieutenant General George Flynn of the United States Marine Corps, “is self-interest.
It can’t be a good thing when the captain of the ship, who is supposed to be on deck navigating toward the horizon, is now in the ship tinkering with the engine trying to make it go faster.
And no matter how much money we make, no matter how much power we accumulate, no matter how many promotions we’re given, none of us will ever be declared the winner of life.
Once you know your WHY, you have a choice to live it every day. Living it means consistently taking actions that are in alignment with the things you say. If you say one thing and do another too frequently, you will lose the trust of others. Our actions either add to or take away from the trust and loyalty others feel toward us. When the things we say and the things we do are aligned with what we believe, we are fully living our WHY. Will you choose to take a stand?
In any game, there are always two currencies required to play – will and resources.
Unlike resources, which are ultimately limited, we can generate an endless supply of will. For this reason, organizations that choose to operate with a bias for will are ultimately more resilient than those who prioritize resources.
The best way to drive performance in an organization is to create an environment in which information can flow freely, mistakes can be highlighted and help can be offered and received.
Think of a Just Cause like an iceberg. All we ever see is the tip of that iceberg, the things we have already accomplished. In an organization, it is often the founders and early contributors who have the clearest vision of the unknown future, of what, to everyone else, remains unseen.
When we are closed to ideas, what we hear is criticism. When we are open to criticism, what we get is advice.
Just because we become accustomed, just because it becomes normal, doesn’t mean it’s acceptable.
What is a work-life imbalance? It’s: I feel safe at home, I don’t feel safe at work. That’s the imbalance. And no amount of yoga or vacation time is going to fix that.
Better” suggests a journey of constant improvement and makes us feel like we are being invited to contribute our talents and energies to make progress in that journey. “Better,” in the Infinite Game, is better than “best.
There is a huge difference between aspiring to be our best selves and claiming to be perfect. One is a journey of fulfillment, the other is a lie we tell ourselves and others. Good leaders know that their people will only truly thrive, not when they are pushed to be perfect, but when they are encouraged to be their natural best.
It’s a strange quirk of human nature. The order in which a person presents information more often than not reveals their actual priorities and the focus of their strategies.
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business.
Your vision is only actionable if you say it out loud. If you keep it to yourself, it will remain a figment of your imagination.
Don’t complain, contribute.
This is one of the hardest lessons to learn when we get promoted to a position of leadership – that we are no longer responsible for doing the job, we are now responsible for the people who do the job. There isn’t a CEO on the planet who is responsible for the customer. CEOs are responsible for the people who are responsible for the customer. Get that right and everybody wins – employees and customers.
Traditional competition forces us to take on an attitude of winning. A worthy rival inspires us to take an attitude of improvement. The former focuses our attention on the outcome, the latter focuses our attention on process.
Chapman and others like him didn’t set out to change their employees – they set out to change the conditions in which their employees operate. To create cultures that inspire people to give all they have to give simply because they love where they work.
Ethical fading is a condition in a culture that allows people to act in unethical ways in order to advance their own interests, often at the expense of others, while falsely believing that they have not compromised their own moral principles. Ethical fading often starts with small, seemingly innocuous transgressions that, when left unchecked, continue to grow and compound.