Thoughts on Simon Sinek – The Finite and Infinite Games of Leadership

Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_osKgFwKoDQ

I wanted to note down some key takeaways from the video listed above:

In Game Theory, there are 2 types of games:

Finite Game	Infinite Game
Known Players Fixed Rules Agreed Upon Objective Example: Baseball	Known and Unknown Players Rules are changeable Object is to Perpetuate the Game Example: Cold War

When Finite Players play against Finite Players, or when Infinite Players play against Infinite Players, the system is stable. When a Finite Player is pitted against an Infinite Player, there’s a quagmire.

Business is an Infinite Game

• There are known and unknown players
• Rules are changeable. Nobody has agreed to rules.
• There is no “Winning”. It just perpetuates.

The Game of Business has been around for a long time, and will outlast all current companies in the game today. However, most companies today think of business as a Finite Game, by creating arbitrary players and rules. When you’re constanting creating new “goals” based on the Finite Game, you waste resources.

Infinite Game	Finite Game
Based on Values – What do we stand for?	Based on Interests
Vision – Crystal clear sense of what the finish line looks like, without knowing how far away it is	Goal-Based – Measureable
Looks at Trends	Looks at arbitrary points in time

Within the Infinite Game, there should be many Finite Games that leads us toward the Vision. It’s our way of getting closer toward the vision. Finite Games in a vacuum (Goals determined purely on Interests) will lead to inefficiency and frustration.

Arman wins the 2017 Club Championship

After six rounds of play, my son Arman takes home the 2017 Kingston Chess Club (KCC) Championship, with 5/6 points. He had only ONE loss against Sid Anjilvel, but won against stronger opponents like Frank Dixon, Sudhir Pokhrel and myself. He also beat John Lukezich who performed well this tournament, beating both Jake Van Rooy and Dave Gordon. Naturally, Arman also ended up with the biggest improvement if CXR Chess Rating points.

Complete results are here: http://www.cxrchess.com/tournaments/WC1025.html

I, on the other hand, finished with 4/6 points. In addition to losing to Arman, I also lost to Jake Van Rooy, who turns out to be the 3rd seed (and I’m the first seed, based on CXR Chess ratings). I guess I’m a little rusty. I didn’t make much attempt to book-up, but it was still a pretty good tournament for me.

I actually enjoyed my game against Van Rooy. He plays just like me, preferring the Hypermodern philosophy, where we allow the opponent to occupy the center, and then try to break down the center from the flanks with stronger pieces (like bishops and knights). But seeing as we both played the Hypermodern style, the 4th and 5th ranks were relatively unoccupied through most of the middle game.

QuickSchools in Review

I have been working with QuickSchools for close to 8 years now. The journey has definitely been interesting, as I reflect back on our accomplishments over the years. Here’s what my journey has looked like so far:

Year 1 (2009-2010)

My first day at QuickSchools, we only have a handful of early adopters to our name, and I’m tasked with onboarding these schools. We launch the product in August, and hit the conference trail hard to try and get more customers, all the while looking at the market on what to develop next.

Year 2 (2010-2011)

With the help of our customers, we improve and release new features, like the Student and Parent Portals. We continue to hit the conference trail hard in search of new customers. Around this time, we hone our target market to smaller schools, and my role as Account Manager slowly evolves to Head of Support, which incorporates an element of Product Development (mainly because I spend a lot of time speaking with customers).

Year 3 (2011-2012)

We continue to see growth year-after-year. We open our new office in Sunnyvale CA. We start work on transitioning QuickSchools from Flash to HTML5. And we begin to focus less on conferences and more on online traffic. We transition our website to Weebly, we start split testing, and spend more on online marketing campaigns. We launch our “Teacher of the Year” marketing campaign.

Chess for the New Year

After a 2 and a half year hiatus, I’m back at the chess club for a tournament – the Kingston Chess Club Championship. The last time I was at the club was back during the 2014/2015 season.

We have quite a few new faces, and a few that no longer come. And there’s still quite the range of players, from beginner/intermediate, all the way to expert. Seeing as people are still on school holiday, turn out for round one was a little low, about 10 players on 5 boards, with one person taking a bye.

I was seeded third, so being in the first half of the draw put me with a lower rated player. It’s been a while since I played, so I relished having the opportunity to dust off the cobwebs, and start off easy. And since this was the first round, I didn’t know who my opponent was before hand, so I was not able to prepare before hand. I had to rely on my basic knowledge of openings.

My first game was a good warm up. I played White, and started with the English Opening. I stayed true to the modern style, and let Black control the center, and then chipped away positionally with small advantages over time. There were moments where I had a strong initiative, but I wasn’t able to convert it to a tactical advantage. I was only able to fall back to a positional advantage once the attack sequence was complete. I also made sure to manage my time well. It was a slow game, but towards the end, the sum of all the small advantages led to a definite win.

Thank you 2016

Despite 2016 being a tough year, there were still quite a few things to be grateful for. After dinner on New Year’s Day, I took the family out to McDonald’s for some dessert. We reflected on the year. Photos on my smart phone were a good source for reflection. So as a reminder, I thought I’d post some highlights for 2016 down below (just the good stuff):

BBQ with Friends

We hosted several barbecues throughout the year. And although most of them have returned to Malaysia, we’ll hopefully host more in 2017.

 

 

Science Fair – April 1

 

Melur won second prize for the “Queen’s University Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Award”, while Arman won the Bronze Medal in the “Physical and Mathematical Sciences Division Award – Junior Age Category”.