From Heraclitus’ timeless statement of "no man ever steps in the same river twice" to the ancient Chinese I Ching (Book of Changes), change and its ever-present nature have been among the pillars of both Western and Oriental philosophies for thousands of years.
Centuries later, people are still learning and re-learning the value of such wisdom. In the field of organisational behaviour, “growth mindset” and “infinite mindset” are among two of the most ground-breaking recent concepts that are built upon the wisdom of changes.
Dr. Carol Dweck helped popularise the “growth mindset” in her 2006 book, Mindset: The new psychology of success.
Similarly, Simon Sinek helped popularise the “infinite mindset” in his 2019 book, The Infinite Game.
I have had separate discussions about growth mindset and infinite mindset and how they can create a huge leap forward for you and your organisation. So, it’s only natural that you may wonder if there is any difference between a growth mindset and an infinite one. And which mindset should you have anyway, or is there a “better” one?
Unsurprisingly the two concepts share a lot of common ground. Both acknowledge and embrace the uncertain and ever-changing nature of the world we are living in. As such, both come to the same conclusion that you simply cannot stand still whilst everything around you is moving.
Arguably, the infinite game is an evolution of the growth mindset concept. While the latter is instrumental in achieving great successes, the former explores what will happen when the growth mindset concept is applied to the way we define “successes.”
Simply put, a growth mindset helps you get there. An infinite mindset helps you realise there is no “there.”
On the one hand, a growth mindset is what drives you to teach yourself rocket science or to call your crashed test flight a “successful failure”.
On the other hand, an infinite mindset is what propels your private space launch enterprise to something far greater than a race to be the first billionaire in space – or near space! It is all about pushing the boundaries of mankind’s ambition and capability in space exploration for generations to come.
So the short answer for the question of which one you should opt for - a growth mindset or an infinite mindset – is you strive for both, an infinitely growth mindset.
In a sense, both complement and complete each other. An organisation whose members possess fixed mindsets will find it impossible to play an infinite game. Likewise, leaders with a finite mindset will likely fail to unlock the full potential of their growth-minded employees.
On a final note, the infinite game mindset does not apply exclusively to the business world, because that would be a very finite perspective, wouldn’t it?
Education organisations with an infinite mindset, for example, would set the vision far beyond making their students ace a standardised test or outranking neighbouring schools. Instead, they focus on helping the students get better every day and the advancement of education for the public benefit.
At the end of the day, just like every other great idea out there, it takes a lot of grit to put these concepts into reality. Fortunately, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to do so. As the first step is always the hardest, I would suggest you take a deep dive into my article for a quick overview of what you need to do.
