Most Leaders Don't Even Know the Game They're In | Simon Sinek

[Applause] [Applause] so I'm embarrassed that I have a career I talk talk about things like trust and cooperation and there should be no demand for my work but the fact of the matter is is there is demand for my work which means that there's an opportunity it means that trust and cooperation are not yet standard in our organizations and yet they should be and we know that which is why we're looking for ways to bring those things to our organizations so I thought I would do something a little different today you know when you're speaking

to tens of thousands of people and you have the opportunity to share a message of course most rational people would say let's go with something I've talked about lots of times and I'm really good at but I'm not normal so I'm going to do something completely new and I hope this works out um there are two things that I think that great leaders need to have empathy and perspective and I think these things are very often forgotten leaders are so often so concerned about their status or their position in an organization they actually Forget Their

real job and the real job of of a leader is not about being in charge it's about taking care of those in our charge and I don't think people realize this and I don't think people train for this when we're Junior our only responsibility is to be good at our jobs that's all we really have to do and some people actually go get Advanced educations and so that they can be really good at their jobs accountants or whatever right and you show up and you work hard and the company will give us tons and tons

of training how to do our jobs they'll show us how to use the software they'll send us away for a few days to get trained in whatever it is that we're doing for the company and then they expect us to go be good at our jobs and that's what we do we work very hard and if you're good at your job uh they'll promote you and at some point you'll get promoted to a position where we're now responsible for the people who do the job we used to do but nobody shows us how to do

that and that's why we get managers and not leaders because the reason our managers are micromanaging us is because they actually do know how to do do the job better than us that's what got them promoted really what we have to do is go through a transition some people make it quickly some people make it slowly and unfortunately some people will never make that transition at all which is we have to go this through this transition of being responsible for the job and then turning into somebody who's now responsible for the people who are responsible

for the job and as I said before one of the great things that is lacking in most of our companies is that they are not teaching us how to lead and Leadership is a skill like any other it is a practice learnable skill and it is something that you work on it's like a muscle if you practice it all the days uh you will get good at it and you will get become a strong leader if you stop practicing you will become a weak leader like parenting everyone has the capacity to be a parent doesn't

mean everybody wants to be a parent and doesn't mean everybody should be a parent leadership is the same we all have the capacity to be a leader doesn't mean everybody should be a leader and it doesn't mean everybody wants to be a leader and the reason is because it comes at Great personal sacrifice remember you're not in charge you're responsible for those in your charge that means things like when everything goes right you have to give away all the credit and when everything goes wrong you have to take all the responsibility that sucks right it's

things like staying late to show somebody what to do it's things like when something does actually break when something goes wrong instead of yelling and screaming and taking over you say try again when the overwhelming pressures are not on them the overwhelming pressures are on us at the end of the day great leaders are not responsible for the job they're responsible for the people who are responsible for the job they're not even responsible for the results I love talking to CEOs and say what's your priority and they put their hands on their hips all proudly

and say my priority is my customer I'm like really you haven't talked to a customer in 15 years there's no CEO on the planet responsible for the customer they're just not they're responsible for the people who are responsible for the people who are responsible for the customer I'll tell you a true story a few months ago I stayed at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas it is a wonderful hotel and the the reason it's a wonderful hotel is not because of the fancy beds any hotel can go and buy a fancy bed the reason it's

a wonderful hotel is because of the people who work there if you walk past somebody at the Four Seasons and this and they say hello to you you get the feeling that they actually wanted to say hello to you it's not that somebody told them that you have to say hello to all the customers say hello to all the guests right you actually feel that they care now in their Lobby they have a coffee stand and one afternoon I went to buy a cup of coffee and there was a barista by the name of Noah

who was serving me Noah was fantastic he was friendly and fun and he was engaging with me and I had so much fun buying a cup of coffee I actually think I gave a 100% tip right he was wonderful so as is my nature I asked Noah do you like your job and without skipping a beat Noah says I love my job and so I followed up I said what is it that the Four Seasons is doing that would make you say to me I love my job and without skipping a beat Noah said throughout

the day managers will walk past me and ask me how I'm doing if there's anything that I need to do my job better he said not just my manager any manager and then he said something magical he says I also work at Caesar's Palace and Caesar at Caesar's Palace the managers are trying to make sure we're doing everything right they catch us when we do things wrong he says when I go to work there I like to keep my head under the radar and just get through the day so I can get my paycheck he

says here at the Four Seasons I feel I can be myself same person entirely a different experience from the from the customer who will engage with Noah so we in leadership are always criticizing the people we're always saying we got to get the right people on the bus I've got to fill my wrong my team I got to get the right people but the reality is it's not the people it's the leadership if we create the right environment we will get people like Noah at the Four Seasons if we create the wrong environment we will

get people like Noah at Caesar's Palace it's not the people and yet we're so quick to hire and fire you can't hire and fire your children if there's if your kids are struggling we don't say you got to see at school you're up for adoption so why is it that when somebody has performance problems at work why is it that our instinct is to say say you're out we do not practice empathy what does empathy look like here's the lack of empathy this is normal in our business world you walk into someone's office someone walks

into our office and says your numbers have been down for the third quarter in a row you have to pick up your numbers otherwise I can't guarantee what the future will look like how inspired do you think that person is to come to work the next day here's what empathy looks like you walk into someone's office someone walks into your office and says your numbers are down for the third quarter in a row are you okay I'm worried about you what's going on we all have performance issues maybe someone's kid is sick maybe they having

problems in their marriage maybe one of their parents is dying we don't know what's going on in their lives and of course it will affect performance at work empathy is being concerned about the human being not just their output and we have to practice empathy and one of the groups that we are pretty bad at practicing empathy with is our young Millennials so let me show you what what empathy looks like listening to understand trying to understand someone's point of view and disposition at 100% of the talks that I give or the meetings that I

have invariably someone will raise their hand and ask about the millennial problem apparently this young generation is unleadable apparently they have confounded every single company in every single industry and so now it's at the point where companies have given up and are now just asking Millennials what do you want and so they say we want free food and bean bags and so now every company has free food and bean bags and guess what nothing has changed so what I thought we would do what I thought I would do is show you what empathy looks like

how do we practice empathy with someone we don't understand how do we practice empathy with an organization or a group that we're struggling with right so we have to understand that the breaks down to four things I've broken it down into parenting technology impatience and environment let's talk about parenting first too many Millennials have grown up subject to what has been described as a failed parenting strategy too many of them were told as they were growing up that they were special that they can have whatever they want just because they want it they got medals

for coming and last they got participation medals right and the science on this is already good we know that it devalues the feeling that somebody who works hard and comes in first place and it actually makes the person who comes in last embarrassed because they know they don't deserve it so it actually makes them feel worse it actually doesn't help there are a lot of kids who got into honors classes not because they deserved it but because their parents complained and they got AIDS not because they earned them but because the teachers didn't want to

deal with the the parents right then those kids graduate and they go to and they start a job and in an instant they find out that they're not special that you don't get anything just cuz you want it you get nothing for coming in last and your parents cannot help you get a promotion and in an instant their entire self-image is completely shattered in an instant the way they view themselves has completely changed turned on its head and so what you find is that there's an entire generation growing up with lower self-esteem than previous generations

remember they have grown up in an Instagram Facebook Snapchat World in which they are very very good at putting filters on everything they're very very good at curating how they want to be seen and we think they're full of confidence they seem to have all the answers they seem to be telling us what to do at the end of the day it's just not there it's just not true it's just not true their confidence is a lot weaker than before they don't know where they're coming from they don't know where they're going they're unsure of

themselves and they lack the courage to ask we say things like my door is always always open assuming assuming that they have the courage to walk through the door number one then we add in technology there's a chemical in our body called dopamine dopamine is responsible for the feelings we get when we find something we're looking for or we accomplish something we set out to accomplish you know that great feeling you get when you cross something off your to-do list when you win the game when you hit the target right win the client get the

promotion whatever it is that Elation find your keys that Elation comes from a chemical on our body called dopamine right now other substances other things that release dopamine include alcohol nicotine gambling they that's what makes us feel good when we engage with those things and it's the root of a lot of addiction in fact almost every alcoholic on the planet discovered alcohol when they were teenagers you see when we're very very young the only approval we need is approval from our parents and then as we go through adolescence we now crave the approval of our

peers very frustrating for our parents very important for us it allows us to acculturate outside of our immediate families into the larger tribe very very important right it's a time of high stress and high anxiety and we're supposed to learn to rely on our friends some people quite by accident discover alcohol and the numbing effects of dopamine to help them cope with the stress and that becomes hardwired and then for the rest of their lives when they suffer some kind of extreme stress they don't turn to a person they turn to the bottle right now

we also know that dopamine is released with cell phones and social media so that Bing baz Buzz Flash and beep that we get from our phones that feels so so good it releases dopamine we like getting it yes we all hate all the emails but we love the Bing right um we've all been in this position you know you're feeling a little bit down you're feeling a little bit sorry maybe feeling a little bit sad and so what do we do we send out 10 texts to 10 friends hi hi hi hi hi and we

hope that they write back cuz it feels good right so now we have a Young Generation with basically unfettered access to social media and cell phones we have age restrict on alcohol we have age restrictions on smoking and we have age restrictions on gambling we have no age restrictions on this other dopamine producing device called social media or cell phones it's the equivalent of throwing open the liquor cabinet and telling our young adolescents I know this is a stressful time try the Vodka it'll get you through these hard times that's basically what we're doing and

so what's happening is it's becoming hardwired where our Young Generation isn't learning the coping skills and coping NE mechanisms to turn to another human being when they're struggling or stressed they're turning to social media or their cell phones their self-worth sometimes becomes wrapped up in how many likes they get they obsessively check how many likes how many likes how many likes and actually will get depressed if they don't get any you see them going out with their friends and instead of connecting with their friends they will simply sit and talk on the phone let me

show you something that it's really powerful can I borrow your phone please there's one right there in between you just let me borrow that for a sec I'm asking you to give me somebody else's phone you don't have to turn it on I just need it thank you so let me show you the subconscious power of this device what if I were to hold my phone while I'm giving this presentation I'm not checking it it's not buzzing it's not beeping I'm simply holding it do you feel like you're the most important thing to me right

now no you do not and this is an artificial environment now think about how often this phone is out while we're talking to other people hey boss can I talk to you sure what's on your mind as opposed to sure what's on your mind we go out for dinner or lunch with our family and our friends we have meetings and we put the phone on the table which sends a subconscious message to everybody else in the room that this is not that important to me you're not that important to me and by the way putting

your phone upside down is not more polite this is this is my favorite one where the phone rings in the middle of a dinner in the middle of a lunch in the middle of a meeting and somebody goes I'm not going to answer it oh my God just so [Music] magnanimous right thank you right put it away keep it away because what it does is it actually hurts our ability to relate to each other now you look at young kids these days they're on them all the time I don't blame them it is addiction we

yell and scream at them but we it's like yelling and screaming at an alcoholic it doesn't help the fact that it's a chemical addiction right so you take an insecure generation that now through no fault of their own struggles to cope with stress they don't know how to cope with and deal with stress and as they have told me many of them will admit that they struggle to form deep meaningful relationships they will admit that many of their friendships are superficial right that their friends they know would cancel on them if they get a better

plan that they wouldn't really know who to talk to uh if they get depressed and maybe they'll turn to an online support group which is not a real thing it's not human right and we've seen the impact of this we're starting to see Rises of depression in this generation we're starting to see Rise of suicide in this generation we're starting to see Rise of accidental deaths due to drug overdose from this generation universities are currently dealing with an epidemic that they've never dealt with before which is the number of kids requesting leaves of absence due

to depression right now those are all extreme examples the less extreme and more likely example is that someone will go through life just never really finding Joy or fulfillment and everything's just fine how's your job it's fine how are your friends you know they're fine but no joy because you just cannot because Joy fulfillment comes from this it comes from human interaction we are social animals and we need it and we have to learn to rely on our friends and that skill is desperately lacking so you add in the next one impatience this generation is

often accused of being entitled and if you've worked with any of them before sure seems that way but I would argue that we're misreading the tea leaves they're not entitled they're impatient again let's practice empathy how did they grow up they grew up in a world of instant gratification you want to buy something you go on Amazon it shows up the next day you want to watch a movie you don't check movie times you just log on and download it whenever you want to watch it stream it right you want to watch a TV show

you don't wait week to week to week just binge watch for the weekend in fact if you want to get hold of somebody you don't leave a message on their machine and wait 4 hours for them to get the message and call you back you just text them and they'll call you they'll get back to you literally instantaneously Heck if you want to go on a date you don't even have to be like hey you just swipe right you got a date never learn the skill instead of like what are you doing right you can

have four dates in a night in other words everything comes instantaneously they have falsely applied the instant gratification model to life fulfillment and career fulfillment they want it all instantaneously the problem is life relationships career are not destinations like look I found the job I love that's not how it works it's not a it's not a scavenger hunt I'm looking for the job that will no it doesn't work that way it's a journey it's a it's a like it's the same with love it's like I found love no you didn't you work hard every single

day to stay in love it's a journey it's as if they're standing at the foot of a mountain they know exactly what they want they can see the summit what they don't see is the mountain I talked to some recent College grads uh who are in their in their entry-level jobs on a regular basis and I'll ask them things like how's it going and they'll say yeah I think I'm going to quit I'm like why they're like I'm not making an impact I'm like you know you've been here eight months right and this is the

problem they see it as destination I'm not making an impact I hear it all the time but they don't even know what that means impact yes we all want to make an impact what kind of impact what do you want to do what how do you want to contribute to the world this is what vision is this is what why is it's become generic and Abstract but the problem is they're wafting around they're looking for the the right they'll go from job to job to job hoping that the next one sticks they go from relationship

to relationship hoping that the next one is the love that I've been looking for they don't know how to ask for help and there makes them feel even worse because they can't find the thing that they're looking for maybe it's me so you have an insecure generation that doesn't have coping mechanisms that wants everything resolved and resolved now I have a thought let me just send a text as opposed to let me wait an hour when I'm done with lunch with you and then I'll send my text for example and then we get to the

fourth and most egregious of the four observations environment we're now taking this wonderful smart idealistic ambitious hardworking good group of people that were dealt a bad hand and we're putting them in corporate environments that do not care about them as human beings right we have for some reason our work world has changed over the past 20 and 30 years we are suffering the side effect of business theories left over from the 80s and 90s and they are bad for people and they are bad for business let me give you an example the concept of shareholder

Supremacy was a theory proposed in the late 1970s it it was popularized in the 80s and 90s it is now standard form today you talk to any public company and you ask them their priority and they say maximize shareholder value really that's like a coach prioritizing the needs of the fans over the needs of the players how you going to build a winning team with that model but that's normal today we don't even perceive it as broken or damaged or wrong or outdated remember the 80s and 90s were boom years with relative peace and a

Kinder gentler Cold War nobody was practicing hiding under their desks in school anymore we are no longer in those times these are no longer boom years these are no longer peaceful times and those models cannot work today here's another one Mass layoffs using someone's livelihood to balance the books right it's so normal in America today that we don't even understand how broken and how damaging it is not only to human beings but to business you know companies about how they want to build trust and cooperation then they announce a round of layoffs do you know

the quickest way to destroy trust and Destroy cooperation in a business literally in one day lay people off and everyone gets scared right can you imagine sending someone home to say honey I can no longer provide for our family because the company missed its arbitrary projections this year and forget about the people who lost their job think about the people who kept their jobs because every single decision a company makes is a piece of communication And the Company the company has just communicated to everybody else this is not a meritocracy we don't care how hard

you work or how long you've worked here if we miss our numbers and you happen to fall on the wrong side of the spreadsheet I'm sorry we cannot guarantee employment in other words we come to work every day afraid and we're asking our youngest generation to work in environments where how would any of us ever stand up and admit I made a mistake we're constantly being told you have to be vulnerable leaders are vulnerable what does that even mean it doesn't mean you walk around crying I'm vulnerable right no what vulnerability means is you create

an environment in which someone feels safe enough to raise their hand and said I don't know what I'm doing you've given me a job and I haven't been trained to do it I need help I made a mistake I screwed something up I'm scared I'm worried all of these things no one would ever admit inside a company because it puts a Target on your head in case there's another round and so we keep it to ourselves and how can a company ever do well if nobody's ever willing to admit they made a mistake that's scared

or they don't know what they're doing and so we've literally created cultures in which every single day everybody comes to work and lie hide lies hides and fakes and we're asking our youngest generation to work and succeed and find themselves and build their confidence and overcome their addiction to technology and build stronger relationships at work we're asking to do this and these are the environments we've created we keep saying to them you're the Future Leaders we're the leaders now we're in control what are we doing this is what empathy means it means if there's an

entire generation struggling maybe it's not them it's like you know the only thing that I uh that um the common factor in all my failed relationships me same thing well we just can't get the right you know the right performance out of our people maybe it's you right it's not a generation it's not them they're not difficult or hard to understand they're human beings like the rest of us trying to find their way trying to work in a place where they feel that someone cares about them as a human being by the way that's what

we all want in other words it's not even generational it's all of us this is the practice of empathy that if we're struggling to communicate to someone if we're struggling to help someone be at their natural best I'm tired of people saying to me how do I get the best out of my people really that's what you want they're like a towel you just ring them how can I get the most out of them no how do I help my people be at their natural best right we're not asking these questions we are not practicing

empathy we have to start by practicing empathy and relate to what they may be going through and it will profoundly change the decisions we make it will profoundly change the way we see the world someone's driving to work you're driving to work and someone wants to cut into your lane what do you do do you pull your car up do you let them in most of us pull our cars up and go like this you wait your turn now let's practice empathy I don't know maybe they've been out of work for 6 months maybe they

had trouble getting the kids out to school this morning and now they're running late for a really important interview and they just have to get to this interview and they're going to cut into our lane or maybe they're just a bastard I don't know but that's the point we don't know we don't know and the practice of empathy will say I'll let them in and I'll arrive to work one car length late right we don't always have to be right we don't always have to be in charge we don't always have to be the one

who succeeds it's not about winning or losing and that's where I go to the second point after empathy comes perspective where it's not about winning or losing in Game Theory there are two kinds of games there are finite games and there are infinite games and this is how you're going to change your perspective right a finite game is defined as known players fixed rules and it agreed upon objective baseball for example we know the rules rules we all agree to the rules and whoever has more runs at the end of nine innings is the winner

and the game is over no one ever says we can just play two more Innings I know we can come back doesn't work that way the game is over right that's a finite game then you have an infinite game infinite games are defined as known and unknown players the rules are changeable and the objective is to keep the game in Play to perpetuate the game when you pit a finite player versus a finite player the system is stable baseball is stable right when you pit an infin an infinite player versus an infinite player the system

is also stable like the cold war for example because there cannot be a winner and a loser there are no winners and losers in an infinite game right it doesn't exist and because there are no winners or losers what ends up happening in the infinite contest is players drop out when they run out of the will or the resources to play but there's no winners or losers problems arise when you pit a finite player versus an infinite player cuz a finite player is playing to win and an infinite player is to playing to keep the

game going right this is what happened to us in Vietnam we were playing to win and the Vietnamese were fighting for their lives we were the ones who got stuck in Quagmire this is the Soviet Union in Afghanistan they were trying to beat the mujahadin and the mujahadin would fight for as long as is necessary Quagmire now let's look at business the game of business has pre-existed or has existed long before every single company that exists on this planet today and it will Outlast every single company that lives that exists on this planet today there's

no winning the game of business and the reason is is because we haven't agreed to the rules I get such a kick out of this you realize how many companies actually don't know the game they're in right listen to the language that the companies use we're trying to beat our competition we're trying to be number one one did you know that we were ranked number one look at the listing based on what criteria revenues profits market share square footage number of employees based on what time frame a quarter a year 5 years 10 years 20

years 50 years 100 years I haven't agreed to those standards how can you declare yourself the winner how can you declare yourself number one where no one else in the game has agreed to the rules it's arbitrary there is no winning because there's no end in other words companies are playing finite games listen to their language they're trying to beat their competition what does that even mean it's the leaders and the companies that understand the game that they're in and organize their resources and their decision-making around the infinite contest that Outlast and frustrate their competition

all the companies that we refer to as the exceptions Southwest Airlines Apple Computers Harley-Davidson they're the exception no they're playing the infinite content they frustrate their competition is what happens that's what happens cuz they're not playing to win Jim senagal the founder of Costco which is the the only real company that gives Walmart a run for its money he says public companies are looking to succeed for the quarter he says we're looking for the next 50 years you can hear him he's playing the infinite contest I spoke at a Leadership Summit for Microsoft I also

spoke at a Leadership Summit for Apple now at the Microsoft Summit I would say 70% of the executives and this was under the Steve Balmer days I I would say about 70% of the executives spent about 70% of their presentations talking about how to beat Apple at the Apple Summit 100% of the executives spent 100% of their presentations talking about how to help teachers teach and how to help students learn one was obsessed with their competition the other one was obsessed with where they're going so at the end of my presentation at Microsoft they gave

me a gift they gave me the new Zoom which was the competitor to the iPod Touch when it was a thing right and I have to tell you this piece of technology was spectacular it was beautiful the user interface was incredible the design was amazing it was intuitive it was one of the most beautiful elegant pieces of Technology I'd ever seen right now they it didn't work with iTunes which is entirely different problem I couldn't use it but that's something else I'm sitting in the back of a taxi with a senior Apple executive sort of

employee number 12 kind of guy and I decide to stir the pot and I turn to him I say you know I spoke at a Microsoft Summit and they gave me their new zoom and I have to tell you it is so much better than your iPod Touch and he turned to me and said I have no doubt conversation over because the infinite player isn't playing to be number one every day with every product they're playing to Outlast the competition if I had said to Microsoft oh I've got the new iPod Touch it's so much

better than your new Zoom they would say can we see it what does it do how we have to see it because one is obsessed with their competition the other is obsessed with why they do what they do the other is obsessed with where they're going and the reason Apple frustrates their competition is because secretly they're not even competing against them they're competing against themselves and they understand that sometimes you're a little bit ahead and sometimes you're a little bit behind and sometimes your product is better and sometimes you're not but if you wake up

every single morning and compete against yourself how do I make our products better than they were yesterday how do I take care of our customers better than we did yesterday how do we advance our cause more efficiently more productively than we did yesterday how do we find new solutions to advance our calling our cause our purpose our belief our why every single day what you'll find is over time you will probably be ahead more often those who play the infinite game understand it's not about the Battle it's about the war and they don't play to

win every day and they frustrate their competition ition until their competition drops out of the game every single bankruptcy almost every merger and acquisition is basically a company saying we no longer have the will or the resources to continue to play and we have no choice to either drop out of the game or or merge our Resources with another player so that we can stay in the game that's what that is and if you think about the number of bankruptcies and mergers and Acquisitions it's kind of proof that most companies don't even know the game

they're in you want to be a great leader start with empathy you want to be a great leader change your perspective and play the game you're actually playing thank you very much [Applause]