The Infinite Game

Sinek provides an example of “ethical fading” by citing a five-year period—2006-2011—during which thousands of employees at Wells Fargo opened fake bank accounts to push customers to pay more fees and service charges. This ethical catastrophe resulted in the firing of 5,300 employees. Sinek believes ethical fading begins as small lapses in judgment that, when unsupervised, grow into larger systemic problems. Finite-minded organizations are particularly susceptible to ethical fading. Sometimes, high-performing employees who commit ethical lapses are rewarded because they generate revenue for their company. This practice rewards harmful behavior, reinforcing it as acceptable.

Sinek describes a Princeton University experiment devised by two psychology professors, who based their study on the biblical story of The Good Samaritan—an experiment that illustrates ethical fading. An actor was placed on campus in an alleyway, pretending he had been hurt in some way. The student subjects of the study were divided into three groups: Each group faced high, moderate, or low pressure to rush across campus to an invented event. Two thirds of the students who faced low pressure stopped to help the actor, less than half of the students who faced moderate pressure helped, and only a 10th of students who faced high pressure helped.