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. For example, he frequently defines the American Revolution, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War as infinite games without providing historical scholarship to back up these claims. He then translates the outcomes of these military conflicts into the challenges of business and organizational leadership. The logic of these claims disregards historical nuance in favor of establishing a pattern, which only works when Sinek is explicitly discussing business. Critics have claimed that when he uses assumptions or leaps in logic to establish patterns outside of business, his argument is less persuasive.

However, Sinek does cite some of his sources at the end of The Infinite Game—including personal interviews and various articles. That being said, he fails to provide sources of opposition or potential counterarguments. This lack of alternate perspectives makes the book one-sided. While Sinek’s breadth of research is better than some self-help books, it is still one-sided, reinforcing the cursory quality of his argument. The methodology of The Infinite Game leaves it open to criticism, but again, this is partially due to the complex nature of business and long-term success, which is dependent on more than one person—or self-help book.