The Infinite Game

Simon Sinek’s success as a writer comes from his previous works in the self-help, organizational leadership, and business genres. His first book, Start With Why (2009), jumpstarted his career as an authority on effective, responsible business practices tailored for the challenges of the 21st century. In The Infinite Game, he continues his work by detailing how mindset can shape leadership and vision. Sinek bases much of his theoretical foundation for The Infinite Game on Dr. James P. Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games. Whereas Carse’s theory dives into the social, cultural, and existential implications of finite and infinite mindsets, The Infinite Game briefly references them. It devotes rhetorical energy to the conflation of historical events with leaders playing finite and infinite games in business. This method of analysis is meant to stress the importance of the infinite mindset but has also opened the book up to criticism, as some have complained the book provides insufficient evidence to back up its claims.

Some critics find Sinek’s advice impractical and oversimplified in comparison to the complex nature of business. Moreover, Sinek’s use of non-business examples to explain the infinite mindset appears unsubstantiated because of the perceived incoherence between history and organizations.