Viewing life as a game or a series of games is a refreshing way of seeing the world. It makes day to day problems and challenges more interesting to solve. There is the “how to get a 6 year old to eat vegetables game”, “how to get my boss to see my value game”, the “how to eat whatever I like but not gain weight game”,the “how to solve youth unemployment game” and of course a raft of other games that we could think of.
I buy into Simon Sinek’s view on The Infinite Game where he articulates how in some circumstances the game doesn’t have defined rules or a defined start and stop point. I highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to abandon finite zero sum gain thinking.
Sometimes, however, the game we are playing does have specific rules and we have to comply and play according to the rules. As an example you can’t use a belly putter on a golf course anymore or have extra pieces in a game of chess. Those are just the rules. Some rules, however, are unwritten and expected but are maybe equally important. Some unwritten workplace rules exist such as the idea that you never embarrass your line manager in a public forum, you never speak badly against your company to a customer no matter how badly your day is going and you don’t click “Reply All” to the email asking everyone what the theme is for the annual staff retreat.
The culture in the modern day, however, is to challenge everything and reject every aspect of the status quo that makes us uncomfortable. The rules of the game may be that working hard and starting at the bottom are important rights of passage for someone starting a career. Or that a certain client will only ever deal with your boss, even though you are more than capable to assist them. I also remember once in my career being asked to attend a meeting with a department from the public sector. It was incredible because it felt like the first 30 minutes of the meeting were just spent doing introductions and protocol. The decision maker arrived about 30 minutes late and another 15 minutes were again dedicated to establishing protocol. After an hour of sitting in the room, nothing of substance had really been discussed.
I remember telling my boss afterwards that I never wanted to be in such a meeting again and he just smiled. A few months later we signed one of the biggest public sector deals we had ever done with the same department. The endless protocols was just part of the game of how to win business with the public sector. I also remember joining a company as a graduate with one of the senior managers telling all of us his secret to success was to be nice to all the secretaries. Thankfully I took his advice because having a good relationship with all the secretaries often got me appointments with senior leaders who were otherwise inaccessible.
That said there are some rules that for moral reasons we cannot engage in. These include the “sleep your way to the top”, “cheat your way to the top”, “bribe government officials” and other games. Where these rules are clear and this is the only way to play the game, the issue perhaps is the game altogether and not the rules of the game. Also every millennial disruptor will tell me there sometimes is a need to change the rules of the game altogether. I like this thinking although there sometimes are some universal truths regardless of disruption. One rule that I enjoy is the rule that you have to either be cheaper or different in order to have a winning product or service. Typically disruption doesn’t change the rules of the game, but just enables someone to compete more aggressively within the same constraints. They make their product cheaper or better or both. Same rule, better execution.
So in closing I highly support innovation, disruption, change and progress. It’s just sometimes as my friend Bongani always says “You have to kiss the ring”. Sometimes your situation requires you to act in a certain way in order to be successful. If it is temporary and does not clash with your values in way, then it may be in your interests to play the game hard. But at least remember to respect the rules of the game you are playing.
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