Most Leaders Don't Even Know the Game They're In | Simon Sinek at Live2Lead 2016

so I'm ashamed to have a career. I talk about things like trust and cooperation and there shouldn't be demand for my work, but the fact of the matter is that there is demand for my work, which means there is an opportunity, it means that trust and cooperation are not yet standard in our organizations and yet

they

should be and we

know

that, so we're looking for ways to bring those things to our organizations, so I thought I'd do something a little different today, you

know

, when we're talking 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 many times and am very good at, but I'm not normal. so I'm going to do something completely new and hope this works. There are two things that I think great

leaders

need to have empathy and perspective and I think these things are often forgotten. Leaders are often very concerned about their status. their position in the organization,

they

actually forget their real job and the real job of a leader is not to be in charge but to take care of those who are in charge of us and I don't think people realize this and I don't think people be trained for it.

This, when we're young, our only responsibility is to be good at our jobs, that's all we really have to do and some people are actually going to get advanced education so they can be really good at their jobs, accountants or whatever, and you appear and you work hard and the company will give us tons and tons of training on how to do our job, they will show us how to use the software and they will send us away for a few days to train us on whatever it is we do. you are doing for the company and then they expect us to be good at our job and that is what we do, we work very hard and if you are good at your job you will be promoted and at some point you will be promoted to a position where now we are responsible for people who do the job we used to do but no one shows us how to do it and that's why we hire managers and not

leaders

because the reason our managers micromanage us is because they really know how to do the job better than us that's what actually promoted them what we have to do is go through a transition some people do it quickly some people do it slowly and unfortunately some people will never make that transition so we have to do this through this transition of being responsible for the work and then handing it over to someone who is now responsible for the people responsible for the work and, as I said before, one of the big things that is missing 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 skill that can be practiced with balloons and it is something you work on, it is like a muscle, if you practice it every day you will be good at it and you will become a strong leader if you stop practicing you will become a weak leader like being a parent everyone has the ability to be a parent does not mean that everyone wants to be a parent and does not mean that everyone should not be a parent leadership is the same that we all have the ability to be a leader does not mean that everyone should be a leader and does not mean that everyone wants to be leaders and the reason is that it involves a great personal sacrifice remember that you are not in charge, you are responsible for those in your charge that means things like when everything goes well you have to give all the credit and when everything goes wrong you have to take responsibility. all the responsibility that sucks well it's things like staying up late to show someone what to do it's things like when something really breaks, when something goes wrong instead of yelling and screaming and taking control you say try again when things happen.

Overwhelming pressures are not on them, overwhelming pressures are on us, at the end of the day, great leaders are not responsible for the work. They are responsible for the people responsible for the work, they are not

even

responsible for the results. I love talking to CEOs and telling them what their priority is and they put their hands on their hips, all proud and say my priority is my customer. In reality, you will

even

talk to a client in 15 years. There is no CEO on the planet responsible for the customer. They are simply not responsible for the people responsible for the people responsible for the client.

I'll tell you. a true story A few months ago I stayed at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas. It's a wonderful hotel and the reason it's a wonderful hotel is not because of the fancy beds. Any hotel can buy a fancy bed. The reason why it is a wonderful hotel. It's because of the people who work there, if you walk past someone at the Four Seasons and they say hello, you get the feeling that they really wanted to say hello, it's not like someone told them you have to say hello. to all the customers say hello to all the guests right they really feel like you 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 named Noah who was serving me Noah was fantastic it was Friendly and fun, he interacted with me and I had a lot of fun buying a cup of coffee.

In fact, I think I tipped him 100 percent, right, he was wonderful, so, as is my nature, I asked Noah if you like him. your job and without wasting a second Noah says I love my job and then I continued. I told him what the four seasons do that would make you tell me I love my job and without missing a beat Noah said all day long. Managers walk past me and ask how I'm doing if there's anything I need to do my job better. He said not just my manager, any manager and then said something magical.

He says he also worked at Caesars Palace and Caesars 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 make my paycheck. payment, it says here at the Four Seasons. I feel like I may be the same person and a completely different experience than the customer that Noah will be dealing with, so we in leadership are always criticizing the people we always say we have to get the right people on buzz I have.

I have to fill my wrong team I have to get the right people but the reality is it's not the people but the leadership if we create the right environment we will get people like Noah in all four seasons if we create In the wrong environment we will have people like Noah at Caesar's Palace, it's not the people and yet we are so quick to hire and fire that you can't hire and fire your children, if your children have difficulties, we don't say that you have To see in school, you are up for adoption, so, Why when someone has performance problems at work?

Why is our instinct to say you're out? We do not practice empathy. What does empathy look like? Here is 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 are down for the third quarter in a row, you have to get your numbers back on track, otherwise I can't guarantee what the future will be like. How inspired do you think that person is to come to work the next day? This is what empathy looks like when you walk into someone's office. Someone walks into your office and tells you that your numbers are down for the third quarter in a row.

Are you okay? I'm worried about what is happening? We all have performance problems. Maybe someone's child is sick. Maybe he has problems in his marriage. Maybe one of your parents is dying. We don't know what is going on in their lives and of course it will affect performance at work. empathy is caring about the human being, not just their production, and we have to practice empathy, and one of the groups that we are pretty bad at practicing empathy with are our young Millennials, so let me show you what empathy looks like: listen to understand, try to understand someone's point of view and disposition and one hundred percent of the talks I give in the meetings I have invariably someone raises their hand and asks about the Millennial problem, apparently this young generation is unbeatable at They seem to have confused every single company into all one industry and now we are at a point where companies have given up and now they just ask Millennials what they want and then they say we want free food and bean bags and 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 we practice empathy with someone we don't understand, how we practice empathy with an organization or a group that we are fighting with. with right, so we have to understand that it is divided into 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. Many of them, growing up, were told that they were special, that they could have whatever they wanted just because they wanted it. They got medals for coming last, they got correct participation medals and science and this is already good, we know it devalues. the feeling that someone who works hard and comes first and actually makes the person who comes last embarrassed because they know they don't deserve it, then it actually makes them feel worse, it doesn't really 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 A's, not because they earned it but because the teachers didn't want to deal with the parents at that time those kids graduate without Goodis and start working and in In an instant they discover that they are not special, that you don't get anything just because you want it, you don't get anything for coming last and your parents can't help you get a promotion and in an instant their entire self-image. is completely broken at a time when the way they see themselves has completely changed and what you discover is that there is an entire generation growing up with lower self-esteem than previous generations.

They remember that they grew up in a world of Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat. where they are very, very good at putting filters on everything, they are very, very good at selecting how they want to be seen and we think that they are 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 much weaker than before they don't know where they come from they don't know where they're going They're not sure of themselves and they lack the courage to ask.

We say things like my door is always open. We assume they have the courage to walk through door number one. Then we added the technology. There is a chemical in our body called dopamine. Dopamine is responsible. for the feelings we have when we find something we're looking for or achieve something we set out to achieve, you know that great feeling you get when you cross something off your to-do list, when you win the

game

, when you reach the goal. just when the customer receives the promotion whatever that euphoria is find your clues that euphoria comes from a chemical in our body called dopamine right now other substances other things that release dopamine include alcohol nicotine bets go that's what makes us feel good when we engage with those things and it is the root of many addictions, in fact, almost every alcoholic on the planet discovered alcohol when they were teenagers, you see, when we are very, very young, the only approval we need is approval from our parents and then as we move forward.

During adolescence we now crave the approval of our peers. It is very frustrating for our parents. It is very important for us. It allows us to acculturate outside of our immediate families into the larger tribe. It is very, very important. It is a time of great stress and anxiety. We're supposed to learn to trust our friends. Some people, by chance, discover alcohol and the numbing effects of dopamine to help them deal with stress and that becomes innate and then for the rest of their lives, when they suffer any kind of extreme stress, they don't do it.

They don't turn to a person, they turn to the bottle right now. We also know that dopamine is released by cell phones and social media, so Bing bass, but the intermittent beeping we get from our phones, it feels so good that it releases dopamine, we like receiving it. yeah, we all hate all emails, but we love Bing, right, we've all been in this position, you know, you feel a little depressed, you feel a little regretful, maybe you feel a little sad, so what do we do? we send ten text messages to ten friends hello hello hello hello and we wait for them to respond because it feels good now we have a young generation with basically unlimited access to social media and cell phones we have age restrictions on alcohol we have age restrictions on smoking and we have age restrictions for gambling we do not have age restrictions for this other device producingdopamine called social media or cell phones is the equivalent of throwing open the liquor cabinet and telling our young teenagers I know this is a stressful time try it vodka will get you through these tough times, that's basically what What we are doing and what is happening is that it is becoming a programmed thing where our young generation is not learning the skills and coping mechanisms to turn to another human being when they're struggling or stressed, they're turning to social media or to their cell phones, their self-esteem is sometimes compromised and how many likes they have.

You understand that they obsessively check how many likes someone likes, how many likes, and in fact, they will get depressed if they don't get any. You see them hanging out with their friends and instead of connecting with their friends, they just sit and talk on the phone, leave me. show you something that is really powerful Can I borrow your phone? Please, there's one right in the middle. Let me borrow it for a second. I'm asking you to give me someone else's phone number. You don't have to turn it on. I just need. Thank you, let me show you the subconscious power of this device.

What would happen if I held my phone while I gave this presentation? I'm not checking it, it doesn't hum, it doesn't beep, I'm just holding it, can you feel it? like you're the most important thing to me right now no you're not and this is an artificial environment. Now think about how often this phone is turned off while we talk to other people. Hello boss, can I talk to you? Are you sure what's on your phone? mind instead of being sure of what's on your mind we go out to dinner or lunch with our family and friends we have meetings and we put the phone on the table which sends a subconscious message to everyone else in the room that this is not it's so important to me you're not that important to me and by the way putting your phone face down isn't more polite this is my favorite where the phone rings in the middle of a dinner in the middle of a lunch in the middle of a we get together and someone says I'm not going to respond oh my gosh, that's so magnanimous right, thank you, keep it, keep it, keep it away because what it does is it actually damages our ability to relate to each other now when you look at young children today. they are on them all the time, I don't blame them, it's addiction, we yell at them and we yell at them, but we like to shout and scream, and as an alcoholic it doesn't help that it's a chemical addiction, so you take on an insecure attitude. generation who now, through no fault of their own, struggle to cope with stress, they don't know how to confront it and deal with stress and, as I've been told, many of them will admit that they struggle to form deep and meaningful relationships, they will admit that many of their friendships they're superficial, right, their friends they know would cancel them if they got a better plan, they wouldn't really know who to talk to if they got depressed and maybe they'd turn to an online support group, which is not a real thing, it's not a right human and we have seen the impact of this, we are starting to see an increase in depression in this generation, we are starting to see an increase in suicide in this generation, we are starting to see an increase in accidental death due to drug overdoses of this generation, colleges are currently dealing with an epidemic they have never faced before, which is the number of kids applying for leaves due to depression right now.

These are all extreme examples, the less extreme and the more likely. The example is that someone will go through life without ever finding joy or satisfaction and everything is fine. How is your job? Okay, how are your friends? You know they're good, but there's no joint because you just can't because the joy the satisfaction comes from this. It comes from human interaction. We are social animals and we need it and we have to learn to trust our friends and that skill is desperately lacking so add the next impatience. This generation is often accused of being entitled and whether they have worked with any of them. before, it sure seems that way, but I would say we miss reading the tea leaves, they have no right, they are 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 to Amazon, it shows up the next day you want to watch a movie you don't check movie times you just log in and download it when you want to watch it stream it properly you want to watch a TV show that doesn't wait week after week, just finish watching the end of week, in fact, if you want to contact someone, don't leave a message on their machine and wait hours for them to receive the message and call you back, just send them a text message. and they will call and answer you literally instantly.

If you want to date, you don't even have to say, Hey, just swipe right, you're on a date, never learn the skill set of what they are. you're doing the right thing, you can go on four dates a night, in other words, everything comes instantly. They have falsely applied the instant gratification model to life and career fulfillment. They wanted everything instantly. The problem is that life relationships. Races are not destinations. Look, I found the job. I love it that's not how it works it's not it's not a treasure hunt I'm looking for the job no it doesn't work that way it's a journey it's a it's a cut like it's the same with love it's like I've found love no, you worked hard every day to stay in love it's a journey it's like you're at the bottom of a mountain you know exactly what you want you can see the top what you don't see is the mountain I spoke to some recent college graduates who are at their jobs basic level on a regular basis and I ask them things like how they're doing and they say yes, I think I'm going to quit.

I ask them why. It's like I'm not making an impact. It's like you know you've been here eight months and this is the problem. They see it as a destiny. I'm not making an impact. I hear it all the time, but they don't do it. I don't even know what that means impact, yes we all want to make an impact, what kind of impact do you want to make, when, how do you want to contribute to the world, what is the vision, this is what Y is, it has become generic and abstract , but the problem is that they are wandering around, they are looking for the right thing, they will go from job to job in the hope that the next one works out, they go from relationship to relationship in the hope that the next one will be the love that they have been looking for, they don't know how to ask for help and it makes them feel even worse because they can't find what they're looking for, maybe it's me, so yes I'm an insecure generation that has no coping mechanisms. who wants everything to be resolved and resolved now.

I haven't thought about letting me send a text instead of letting me wait an hour when I'm done having lunch with you and then I'll send my text, for example, and then we get to In the fourth and most egregious environment of the four observations, now We are taking this wonderful group of wonderful, smart, idealistic, ambitious, hard-working, good people who were dealt a bad hand and we are putting them in corporate environments that don't care about them as humans. Right beings, for some reason our working world has changed in the last twenty and thirty years, we are suffering the side effect of the business theories that are 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 and became popularized in the 1980s and 1990s.

It is now a standard form. Today, you talk to any public company and ask them what their priority is and they tell you to really maximize shareholder value. that's like a coach prioritizing the needs of the fans over the needs of the players how is a winning team going to be built with that model but that is normal nowadays we even perceive it as broken or damaged or incorrect or outdated remember that the years The 80s and 90s were boom years with relative peace and a kinder cold war. No one practiced hiding under their desks at school anymore.

We are no longer in those times. They are no longer boom years. They are no longer times of peace and those models cannot work. here's another mass layoff today Using someone's livelihood to balance the books is so normal in America today that we don't even understand how broken and how damaging it is not only to humans but to businesses as well. You know, companies talk about how they want to build trust in cooperation. They announce a round of layoffs. Do you know the quickest way to destroy trust and cooperation in a business? Literally in one day they fire people and everyone freaks out.

Can you imagine sending someone home to say honey, I can't support our family anymore? because the company missed its arbitrary projections this year and forgot about the people who lost their jobs, think about the people who kept their jobs because every decision a company makes is a piece of communication and the company cuts, the company ends to communicate it to everyone else. This is not a meritocracy, we don't care how hard you work or how long you've worked here if we don't hit our numbers and you land on the wrong side of the spreadsheet. Sorry, we cannot guarantee employment in other words.

We come to work every day in fear and we ask our younger generation to work in environments where how could we stand up and admit I made a mistake? We are constantly told that we have to be vulnerable. Leaders are vulnerable. What does it mean? That even means it doesn't mean you go around crying. I'm vulnerable, right? I know what vulnerability means. Do you create an environment where someone feels safe enough to raise their hand and say, I don't know what I'm doing to you? They have given me a job and they have not trained me to do it.

I need help. I made a mistake. I ruined something. I'm afraid. I'm worried. No one would ever admit all of these things within a company because it poses a risk. goal in your head in case there is another round and that's why we keep it to ourselves and how can a company perform well if no one is willing to admit that they made a scary mistake or that they don't know what they are doing and that's why we have literally created cultures where every day everyone comes to work and hides lies, conceals and falsifies, and we ask our younger generation to work, be successful, find themselves and develop their confidence , overcome your technology addiction and build strong relationships. at work we are asking to do this and these lis environments that we have created we keep telling you you are the future leaders we are the leaders now we are in control what we are doing this is what empathy means if there is an entire generation struggling maybe it's not them , it's like you know the only thing I know that the common factor in all my failed relationships is the same, well we just can't get the right act or you know what the right act is from our people maybe you're right it's not a generation it's not them they're not 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 like someone cares about them as a human being, by the way, that's what we all want, in In other words, it's not even generational, it's all of us, this is the practice of empathy, if we are struggling to communicate with someone, we are struggling to help someone be at their natural best.

I'm tired of people telling me how can I get the best out of my people really that's what you want they're like a towel just wring them out how can I get the most out of them I know how I can help my people be at their natural best no We're asking these questions, we're not practicing empathy, we have to start practicing empathy and relating to what they may be going through and that will profoundly change the decisions we make, profoundly change the way we see. the world someone is driving to work you are driving to work and someone wants to cut into your lane what do you do to stop your car?

Would you let them in? Most of us stop our cars and leave like that. Wait your turn. Now let's practice. empathy I don't know maybe they've been out of work for six months maybe they had trouble getting the kids to school this morning and now they're late for a really important interview and they just have to get to this interview and they're going to cut off our lane. or maybe they're just bastards, 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 be a car late to work, right, we don't always have to be right. we should always be in charge we don't 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 the perspective where it's not about winning or losing in

game

theory , there are two types of games, there are finite games andThere are infinite games, and this is how you are going to change your perspective, now a finite game.

It is defined as known players, fixed rules and an agreed upon goal, baseball, for example, we know the rules, we all agree with the rules and whoever has the most runs at the end of nine innings is the winner and the game is over, no one says if I can play two more innings I know we can go back It doesn't work that way The game ends True it's a finite game So you have an infinite game Infinite games are defined as known and unknown players The rules can be changed and the goal is to keep the game going in play to perpetuate the game when you pit a finite player against a finite player the system is stable baseball is stable just when you pit a baby an infinite player against an infinite player this system is also stable like the Cold War for example, because There can't be a winner and a loser, there are no winners or losers in an infinite game, right, it doesn't exist because there are no winners or losers, what ends up happening in the infinite contest is that the players quit when the game runs out. will or the resources to play, but there are no winners or losers, problems arise when you pit a finite player against an infinite player because if a finite player plays to win and an infinite player the player must play to keep the game going well this is what It happened to us in Vietnam we were playing to win and the Vietnamese were fighting for their lives we were the ones who got caught in the quagmire this is the Soviet Union in Afghanistan they were trying to defeat the mujahideen and the mujahideen would fight for as long as it took. quagmire.

Now let's look at business. The game of business has pre-existed or existed long before every company that exists on this planet today and will outlive each and every company. As those on this planet live today, you cannot win the game of business and the reason is that we have not accepted the rules. I'm so amused by this, you realize how many companies don't really know the game. They are right listen to the language the companies use we are trying to beat our competition we are trying to be number one did you know we are number one? look at the list according to what criteria income profits market share square feet number of employees according to the time period one quarter a year five years ten years 20 years 50 years 100 years I have not accepted those standards, how can you declare yourself a winner?

How can you declare yourself number one where no one else? In the game you have accepted the rules it is arbitrary there is no profit because there is no end in other words companies are playing finite games listen to your language they are trying to beat the competition what does that mean? It is leaders and companies that need to understand the game they are in and organize their resources and decision making around the infinite competition that outlasts their competition and frustrates all the companies we have referred to as the exceptions Southwest Airlines Apple Harley-Davidson computers are the exception, no, they are playing the infinite contest, they frustrate their competition, that is what happens because they play to win Jim Senegal, the founder of Costco, which is the only real company that gives Walmart a run for its money, says public companies are looking to be successful during the quarter says we're looking at the next 50 years, you can hear it, it'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 in the days of Steve Ballmer.

I'd say about 70% of executives spend about 70% of their presentations talking about how to beat Apple at the Apple Summit. One hundred percent of the executives spent one hundred percent of the time. His presentations talked about how to help teachers teach and how to help students learn. One was obsessed with their competition, the other was obsessed with where they were going, so at the end of my presentation at Microsoft they gave me a gift, they gave me the new Zune, which was the competitor to the iPod touch when it was good and I have to tell you that 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. fancy pieces of technology I had seen at this time didn't work with iTunes, which is a completely different problem.

I couldn't use it, but that's another thing. I'm sitting in the back of a taxi with a senior Apple executive. from employee number twelve and I decide to stir the pot and I converted it. I mean, you know, I spoke at a Microsoft summit and they gave me their new Zune and I have to tell you, it's way better than your iPod touch. and he turned to me and said: I have no doubts about the conversation because the infinite player is not playing to be number one every day with every product he is playing to survive the competition, if he had told Microsoft, oh , I have the The new iPod touch is much better than your new Zune.

There was a can. We see it. What are you doing?. How we have to see it because one is obsessed with one's competition. The other is obsessed with why they do what they do. The other one 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 other times you're a little bit ahead. . behind and sometimes your product is better and sometimes it's not, but if you wake up every morning and compete against yourself, how can I make our products better than yesterday?

How do I take care of our clients better than yesterday? Are we advancing our cause more efficiently and productively than yesterday? How do we find new solutions to advance our calling? Our cause. Our purpose. Our belief. Why every day what you will find is that over time you will probably be ahead more often? Those who play the infinite game understand that it's not about the battle, it's about the war and they don't play to win every day and frustrate their competition until the competition abandons the game every bankruptcy and almost every merger and acquisition is basically a company saying that we no longer have the will or resources to continue playing and that we have no option to leave the game or merge our resources with another player so that we can stay in the game, that's what it is and you can think. about the number of bankruptcies, mergers and acquisitions is kind of proof that most companies don't even know what 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 that you are really playing thank you very much