I wanted to dedicate this video to one of my favourite business books called the Infinite Game by Simon Sinek. He discusses the importance of long term thinking rather than being led by your competitors and trying to beat them.
Why trying to win is often the fastest way to fail
The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek looks at the difference between various organizations. One example is Microsoft and Apple, he analyses times where Microsoft have actually beaten Apple and the attitude of Apple’s management team when that happened.
Like ‘The Zune’ which was meant to be one of the best MP3 players out there until the iPod came out. Apple didn’t worry about beating The Zune, they realised it was just a temporary win for Microsoft because their culture of innovation would eventually beat Microsoft anyway, because they thought much further ahead; they weren’t just trying to create an MP3 player, but rather something that would revolutionize the way people listen to music.
For Microsoft, all they were trying to do is just win the MP3 player market, instead of trying to create an ideology and brand that would last well beyond the lifespan of the actual board that was responsible for Apple at the time.
What I want to explain is in a business, when you’re just trying to achieve one goal and you’re trying to dominate in just one particular area, you often don’t think beyond achieving your overall goal as a business so you end up making really short-term decisions. Once you achieve that one goal, you get a short sense of victory, and end up in a position of complacency, not moving on to the next thing. And that’s how your competitors end up beating you to your end goal.
To be really, truly, successful the mindset has to be focused on where the business is going to be in 100 years time, 200 years time. Not just trying to beat this competitor at this thing in the next two years, and actually create a culture that will last well beyond this one victory. That is why Simone Sinek, The Infinite Game, is one of the best books out there, because it really gets your mind into the long game and you start making much better decisions as a business owner.
It also relates closely to what we do as a business, not in terms of competition, but the short term and long term thinking that was mentioned. What a lot of accountants do is address financial issues with a short term solution, we provide long term advice so that you can reach the overall goal of your business. Book a strategy call by watching our webinar so that you can get that million-pound valuation you want.
