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Speaker Welch talks about The Infinite Game

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Illinois

* Click here for more context, but House Speaker Chris Welch spoke yesterday at a violence prevention announcement. I thought it was worth sharing…

What’s going on here today reminds me of a book that I have given to our caucus that I talk about regularly, because I want you all to understand the mindset that I have every day I go to work as the Speaker of the House.

The book is called The Infinite Game, written by an author named Simon Sinek. The Infinite Game is different than a finite game. A finite game, we all know it when we see it. It’s basketball, it’s baseball, it’s football. When you play a finite game, you play to win. You know you want to win that game today. You know that’s your mindset. They call it a finite mindset.

When we go to work every day, when we get to walk into that beautiful Capitol, when the mayor gets to walk into that beautiful building called City Hall, we’re playing an infinite game. Our game is going to go on, and on and on. Illinois has been here for almost 206 years. I’m the 70th Speaker of the House. There’s going to be a 71st, a 72nd and so on. It’s going to go on, and on and on.

When you play an infinite game, you’re not playing to win. We’re not trying to beat somebody. We’re playing an infinite game to be better. We’re trying to leave the city of Chicago, the state of Illinois better than we found it. And so every day that I go to work, we’re trying to find policies and practices that’s going to make this great state better.

It’s definitely something to aspire to.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Jul 11, 24 @ 12:56 pm

Comments

Good quote and good inspiration. I do not think you are plying an infinite game when you are crowing about your potential reelection in 2027, let alone your potential reelection in 2031, 2035, 2039, ect.

Comment by Three Dimensional Checkers Thursday, Jul 11, 24 @ 1:14 pm
Wow. A call for wise governance. Hats off to Speaker Welch and all who follow these words.

Comment by froganon Thursday, Jul 11, 24 @ 1:14 pm
Can someone please order and send 535 of these books to Congress? Pretty please?

Comment by 47th Ward Thursday, Jul 11, 24 @ 1:24 pm
“I’m the 70th Speaker of the House. There’s going to be a 71st, a 72nd and so on.”

A mentality that wasn’t shared by the 69th Speaker of the House.

Comment by NIU Grad Thursday, Jul 11, 24 @ 1:25 pm
First rule of a great politician - leave the branch of government in a state better than it existed when you started service. Speaker Welch gets the concept, to his credit. Hope he succeeds at this.

Comment by Ares Thursday, Jul 11, 24 @ 1:34 pm
well, you gotta win to get in. but going from there in this spirit is nice.

Comment by Amalia Thursday, Jul 11, 24 @ 1:39 pm
Close, but not quite. Simply switching to an infinite game from a finite game only accomplishes removing the clock. It does nothing to change the mindset, and I can see that in the way he speaks about the lesson he took away from the book. Glamorizing the book can only be done if one overlooks, or completely misses, that the core concept is ’survival of the fittest’. This rewrite meant for business, from the older 80s book “Finite and Infinite Games”, also carries forward many of the blatant religious motivations of that original author.

The change that is actually beneficial to the most people is moving away from a win-lose mindset, to a win-win mindset.

If one is still stuck in a win-lose mindset, the length of the game doesn’t matter at all. A win-lose mindset, brought into in an infinite game, would lead to infinite suffering. Infinite imbalance, etc. Simply saying he wants to leave the city and state ‘better off’ is meaningless without the context of what he considers better. Every tyrant in history has thought what they were doing made things ‘better’. It’s the objective part which is the important, not the subjective part.

Conversely, a win-win mindset would benefit players and participants alike both in a finite as well as infinite game. In both cases, the rules need to be changed, so why not change the rules in a manner which brings the most benefit to the most people.

Should a politician ever start talking about;
“The Hacker Ethic” by Pekka Himanen

Then there would be an actual shift in mindset taking place in our politics. But this book, not so much.

Comment by TheInvisibleMan Thursday, Jul 11, 24 @ 1:40 pm
On the other hand, the finite game produces results. The infinite game produces a lot of fixin to get ready to do things because well, it’s a game that goes on and on and on… Not surprising a politician (especially a Democrat) would adopt this viewpoint.

Comment by Captain Obvious Thursday, Jul 11, 24 @ 1:40 pm
DPI is winning at the finite game, as the state has greatly improved since Rauner left. Even under Quinn, Illinois was in much better shape relative to his successor.

Comment by Grandson of Man Thursday, Jul 11, 24 @ 2:11 pm