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On the Infinite Game

This week’s book learning is from The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin.

If it’s work, the instinct is to do less of it. Work is a grind while games are voluntary. When we see “work” we do as part of a game, we bring the right spirit to work.. But not all games are the same.

James Carse wrote about the idea of finite and infinite games..

Seth wraps it beautifully with a message for his younger self –

“But the one thing I wish I had known then was that whatever happens, things are going to fine in the end, that the pain is part of the journey, and that without the pain there really isn’t a journey worth going on.

No, it doesn’t all work, but you always get to dance. Win or lose, you get to play. I would tell myself not to put so much emotional baggage on every project and every interaction. The goal is to keep playing, not to win.

At the end of a project, the end of the day, and the end of the game, you can look yourself in the mirror and remind yourself that at least you go to dance.”

I found the learning on the “infinite game” very very inspiring and timely. He is spot on. Everything doesn’t work but things work out just fine. And win or lose, we get to dance..

Here’s to enjoying the “infinite game” this week, and onward..

Don’t punish everyone for one person’s mistake

The hotel I am in has a policy – they will only accept your laundry bag if you mark out the number of clothes of each kind on an extensive checklist. As filling that form would mean missing a train, I let them know that I trusted them to do the right thing.

The guy at the reception uttered those dreaded 5 words.

“Sorry sir. It’s hotel policy.”

It’s easy to trace what happened – some customer once created a massive hue and cry because of a missing dress. So, the management decided to issue a policy. In that one moment of anger, they punished hundreds of future customers who weren’t out to get them till the end of time.

Derek Sivers has a brilliant 2 minute video on this –

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It’s tempting to prevent future failures because of one bad experience. One bad break up and it’s tempting to write the opposite sex off. There are seven billion people on this planet. And, yet, so very often, we let one of them ruin our day and cloud our judgment.

As Derek puts it, you can’t prevent bad things from happening. Learn to shrug. Life is good.

Learning to enjoy playing the game

I am a very competitive person. As a kid growing up, I used to hate playing tennis or badminton without points. The game was less about playing, and more about winning.

I don’t think the competitive nature will ever go away. It’s part of what makes me who I am. I love the feel of adrenaline generated by competition. I love the energy of a fast paced 30 minute five-a-side game of football with tons of goals, the debate about a point of view, and the act of fighting back when losing. While the upside is that I have always cared about doing well, the big downside is that it easily became an amplifier of insecurities if it had no outlet.

For example, during a quiet weekend, I could easily get to thinking about what I’m doing in my life versus my peers or keep looking at Google Analytics to figure out if my blog is doing better today. You give society the keys to your happiness as winning and losing are defined by societal norms. The Facebook life matters more than the real one and your self worth is abdicated to somebody else’s opinion. The path leads to envy, fear and anger (the dark side, it is).

I have observed an evolution in my own thinking and approach to life over the past few years and I thought I would share my observations and learnings.

The first evolution was learning to compete with myself. 3 years ago, I began playing a daily game where I pit myself against the limits of my discipline and productivity. Aside from obvious benefits of an increase in productivity over the years, one of the bigger consequences of the game is that it has ensured I give enough fuel to my competitive side. I don’t care as much about how many feed burner subscribers I have as I am busy working on my writing skills and keeping an eye out for a potential idea or learning for tomorrow’s post. I don’t get points for keeping up with facebook. I get points for creating content and doing good work. It’s been a game changer.

The next evolution has been more recent and can be described in one word – process. I hit a wall with my “figure out the system to get a result” mindset a few years ago and have been changing how I approach things since. Last year’s learnings on deliberate practice have completely changed my view on how to approach work and life. And I’m plugging away on my 2013 goal to implement the concept of deliberate practice in every aspect of my life. This is toughest in work life as it requires deliberate preparation, self observation during the day, and reflection at the end. It takes work and effort. But, the beautiful thing about focusing on the process is that you are focused on making the most of the journey.

The final step has been a belief in the “infinite game.” This is a shift in the thinking in the past couple of months as a consequence of the process focus and it popped into my head fully formed when I was reading Seth’s “The Icarus Deception.” There are two ways to approach life – one way is to approach it as a series of finite game with winners and losers. The alternative is to approach it as an infinite game – a game played for the privilege of playing. The purpose of an infinite game is to help other players to play better. The goal of the next move is to encourage your fellow game players to make their next moves even better. And the best part about the infinite game is that you play to play.

The infinite game concept explains the coming together of these learnings. I began with the finite game after which my thinking evolved to a place in between the two where the focus was just on competing with myself. Now, I am learning to play for the joy of playing. The last two months have seen a few wins and a fair number of losses. There are signs that the curve is beginning to turn but I’ve learnt that you don’t really know if a good day is a good day, anyway. Good days, bad days, wins, and losses are just a part of the game and it helps to not get too excited or too upset about the stuff that happens.

I am slowly beginning to understand that playing the game is a privilege in itself. Yes, you can choose to sulk in the stands or paint the town red celebrating but the field is the place to be. The field is where we spend most of our lives. The field is where we get to make it meaningful, make it count.

And what’s more, it’s a happy place.

Figure out the ideal end point, figure out the next step

Forget the middle.

The rest of the path tends to reveal itself. You can’t do much more than just know you want to progress and give it your utmost. You can’t see the twists in the road a 1000 miles away in every direction. No, investing in expensive binoculars doesn’t help. The best journeys start low cost anyway.

And, while we are at it, there’s no point being too wedded to the ideal end point either. It’s surprising how often our definition of ideal changes as we progress… if we let it.

The last thing we want is to give all of what we have to get to some place only to realize we’d rather be somewhere else.

Work Hacks Wednesdays: Formal Lunches and Dinners

Social events are a wonderful bonding experience. They are also the best time to make connections with those who are normally outside your circle at work. On the flip side, they can also be a source of great embarrassment. I’ve managed to embarrass myself a few times (filed under “experience”). Here are a few lessons I’ve picked up along the way.

– Order stuff that’s simple and easy to eat. Penne pasta, steaks, salads, sandwiches and rice generally work well. Noodles, burritos and spaghetti do not work well. Burgers are risky.

– Learn how to eat comfortably with chopsticks. Most places allow for spoons but be prepared for all eventualities. I practiced having noodles with chopsticks for many months after a “ears-went-red” experience.

– If the event is really formal and you expect to be hungry, eat in advance. It might help with the conversation, too. The conversation is generally the main event.

– If you know where you are going, check the menu out in advance. Most restaurants have menu’s online and if you don’t understand the items on the cuisine, google is your friend.

– If seating is not pre-determined, try and find a seat with someone you’d like to learn from. I’ve had really educational dinners with some very senior executives simply by asking if I could sit next to them in advance of the meal. This is more applicable when you are part of a large group, of course.

– Research basic table manners in the place you are in. Obvious, but best stated. I’ve messed up in this domain a couple of times.

– If you don’t know about prevailing table etiquette, always wait and look around. This is exceptionally helpful even to solve practical problems like not knowing know which cutlery to use. Look around and let the table be your guide. This has helped me on more occasions than I can count.

– Be yourself and have fun. The caveat, of course. Don’t let the stuff above stress you out too much. The main purpose is to connect and have a lovely evening. If you mess up, laugh at yourself and move on. You are only embarrassed if you allow yourself to be. These learnings make for great stories!

Asking why

Supermarket designers have engineered supermarkets with thought and precision.

– The milk is always at the back. If it was in the front, most folks would just take the carton and walk out. This way, they feast their eyes on other potential purchases.

– Fruits and vegetables are located as soon as you enter (typically on the right). Once we see the healthy stuff, we are tempted to buy a bit of it to make ourselves feel good.

– Once we’re done buying a few of the healthy stuff, we find our will power tested as we ignore one interesting item after another to buy what’s on our list. We think we’ve won the battle but right before the cashier, we see chocolates and condiments designed for a last minute impulse purchase (“I’ve been so good buying fruits and vegetables and avoiding all the other stuff. A bit of this can’t hurt, can it?”)

– And, finally, the super market is designed for shoppers who are low on will power. Hungry and sleep deprived folk are the owner’s dream.

The interesting thing here is that once you know why the supermarket is designed this way, you are unlikely to fall for these tricks. In fact, you are likely to “see” things differently the next time you enter and notice many more such tricks. Suddenly, shopping becomes a fascinating learning experience.

The good news is that it works this way for most things in the life. Once we start asking “why”, life is never quite the same again..

The trick to great communication is..

1) Having something of value to say (requires us to either read smart books or hang out with smart people and learn how to think, notice and “see.”)

2) Saying it in as crisp and as concise a way as possible (requires years and years of deliberate practice – I struggle with this and regularly err on saying too much when not required – and intense preparation in the early years)

3) Listening carefully to your audience so you can tailor what you prepared (requires a willingness to listen, learn and adapt)

None of this is impossible. None of this is easy either. Great communication is best developed as a habit borne out of these 3 elements. It’s not borne out of what communication coaches have us believe – pauses, eye contact, etc. Style can be developed and is a phenomenal add on. Steve Job’s style can only be appreciated when he releases devices as revolutionary as an iPhone or an iPad. Content first.

And, like all good things in life, there’s no trick. Just a habitual embrace of the pain that goes into deliberate practice..

On Art and Artists

This week’s book learning is from The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin. (I enjoyed reading ‘The Icarus Deception.’ It’s one of those books that is hard to summarize as it’s a collection of really cool ideas. So, I thought I’d pick out a couple of ideas that touched a chord for the book learning series. I hope you like it.)

“Art is an attitude, culturally driven and available to everyone who chooses to adopt it. Art isn’t something sold in a gallery or performed on a stage. Art is the unique work of a human being, work that touches another. Most painters, it turns out, aren’t artists after all – they are safety seeking copycats.
Art isn’t something that’s made by artists. Artists are people who make art.”

Failure is an integral part of making art. And, if your art fails, you just have one way forward – make better art!

Seth asserts that we are all artists, capable of making “art.” Artists aren’t special people. Evidence of this fact is that great artists are fairly normal rest of the time. Steve Jobs wore the same style and color of shirt every day so he wouldn’t have to think about fashion, for example.

Creating art is a process that brings risk, pain and effort (think: deliberate practice). So, we can only invest that in a few areas in our life. Let’s choose and then make great art..

2 questions to reflect on –

– What areas in your life are you making art? (i.e. creating something that touches other human beings)
– Are you investing enough time, effort and pain to be the best artist in your field?

This book made me reflect on my own “art” projects. And, it inspired the change of tag-line of the Bookbytess project from a book byte blog to a community art project! A different and more inspiring way of looking at what we do.

Here’s to working like artists this week!

5 Things to Do Today..

1. Tell your family you love them.

2. Play.

3. Have one meaningful conversation.

4. Eat well.

5. Do something you enjoy in the evening.

Oh, and one last thing – Don’t worry about work. There’s lots of great work waiting to be done tomorrow.

Have a great weekend!

The More the Glamour, the More the Pain

I’ve experienced this a few times. Every time something looks glamorous, it is either immediately followed by, or accompanied by pain – the pain of learning, growth and success (however small).

It’s a very simple equation – the more the glamor, the more the pain.

Envy the life of a football star? It’s easy to forget the kind of ridicule it accompanies the moment he faces a bad run of form.

Envy the life of a Hollywood actress? It’s easy to forget the pain of rejection and ridicule when your love life fails or when you gain a couple of pounds of weight..again.

How many of these folk actually have happy marriages and lives?

Next time we feel envy, let’s remember that the high flying businessman hates the flying. He’d much rather spend time at home getting to know his children that little bit more. If he’s doing it with a smile while maintaining happy relationships with his family, there is much to be admired about his character.

Perhaps Peter Parker had it wrong. With great power comes a great deal of pain. The only way to prepare yourself is to forge the sort of character that learns to embrace the pain that accompanies it.

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