The core theme is that while traditional metrics are important for guidance, a "purpose-led" or "infinite mindset" approach emphasizes long-term momentum and the "how" of achieving goals, particularly by valuing trust alongside performance, which traditional metrics often overlook.
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The traditional metrics will reflect purpose over time
So having purpose and being purpose led is not the absence of metrics
But it's prioritizing the purpose before the metrics
And purpose led organizations over time will demonstrate better metrics
So the companies that are purpose driven tend to be more profitable
Have better tenure of their employees
More loyalty over time, more loyalty from their customers
And the traditional metrics tend to reflect that
It's in a short term that the metrics are not very useful, right
It's because sometimes we make purposeful sacrifices to do the right thing
If you're a purpose driven or an infinite minded
So I had a meeting at the Pentagon once
And you know when you have a meeting and you wait in the foyer
And then someone comes to get you and then you walk to the meeting, right. You walk to the hall
And you have this hallway talk
Because it's too uncomfortable to talk about nothing
And it's too premature to start the meeting
So we just like say: 'How's the weather?'
'Did you have trouble finding it?'
'Did you have trouble getting here?'
And we sort of have this nonsense hallway talk
And then we walk in to the conference room
It ends immediately and we start the meeting, right
So I was at the Pentagon and this big general came to get me from the foyer
And we're walking down the hall to his office for the meeting
And so we're making hallway talk
And he says: 'Hey Simon, I had everyone in my office read your book.'
And I said: 'My publisher thanks you.'
And he said: 'Tell them not to bother, I had them read my copy.'
Total book sales: 1
Total impact: huge
Compared going to an event where they give out 500 free copies of my book
Total book sales 500 but people use them as coasters and doorstops
Total impact: 0
And so in the short term it looks better being at the event from 500 than selling one
But if I wait over the course of time that will yield better book sales
Because those people will tell their friends to read it and their friends will go buy a book
Who'll tell a friend
So the point is that if I wait overtime book sales absolutely help me recognize
Is the movement growing?
But not in any particular month I don't care about
People say: ''How many books do you wanna sell per year?'
'How many speeches do you want to do per year?'
I don't care
It makes no difference to me whether it's this year, next year
What I want is momentum
The way I measure success with the metrics
Is the momentum going like this?
And the exact dates and the exact numbers
It's like I want to lose a certain amount of weight by a certain date
But what happens if you don't lose the weight by that date?
Well you're still way healthier than you were even though you missed the goal
So the goals are good because they help drive us and motivate us
But if you hit it or make it, it doesn't matter in the infinite game
It's a guidance, not an absolute
Finite views metrics as absolute
Infinite views metrics as a measure of speed and distance
They're guides
We're going faster, we're going slower
So yes, metrics are hugely important
You can't run a marathon without metrics
You need to know how fast and how far, right
You need metrics
But the question is how we view them
So traditional metrics are perfectly fine
But Simon what do I do with my sales target tomorrow?
No there's nothing wrong with the sales targeting
Where's that wonderful pad of paper?
I want to know the sales target
That was a nice story, thank you very much Simon
But now the sales target, this is what you have to do
I will just talk about it, that's fine. We will use our imagination
There's nothing wrong with sales targeting
Like I said having goals gives us something specific
If I said to you: 'You will get a bonus at the end of the year if you accomplish more.'
You're gonna say: 'How much more?'
And I'm gonna say: 'More'
It's actually unnerving, right
Give me a number, give me a date and I can work towards that
There's nothing wrong with that
So there's nothing wrong with targets
Just like I said, if you say I want to lose a certain amount of weight by a certain date
Like that's actually very helpful then I want to lose weight, right
Like I want to lose five kilos by X date
You can do that, right
The question is how we get there
I don't have a problem with the metrics
So this is a traditional model, right
I need everybody in the company to hit this number, I need your team to hit this number by the end of the year
And it's usually annual because that's when we pay taxes, right
Because if we pay taxes every 18 months, the targets would all be 18 months, right
So here's one team: Team one
Performances like this, morale is like this
Like when we're doing well everybody's happy, when we're doing badly everybody's bad and sad
People are quitting, people are getting fired
There's layoffs you know, one quarter because we missed the numbers
And at the end of the year we have a hard promotion and we hit the number on the date
And that leader and that team is given a bonus, right
Which sends a message to the rest of the company
If this is how you do business, you'll do very well here
Then there's another team, that's really well led
Morale is really good all the time
No one quits, no one's getting laid off, no one gets fired, everything's great, same target
You know they love each other
You ask the people, they all love their jobs, right
And at the end of 12 months they miss the target
We give that team and that leader nothing
So basically what we're saying is
If you run your business this way you won't do well at this company
I don't have a problem with the target because clearly this team is going to hit the target in 14 months
But they missed the arbitrary date and they missed the arbitrary projection
And so we have to consider not just if they make it, but how they make it
And this team should be respected more than this team
Because this is good steady growth, this is what keeps companies healthy
This is dangerous
It looks good on paper but it's destroying the people and it's destroying the culture
And it just can't last
So I don't have any problem with targets and that's not a problem
But the problem is are they absolute?
And are we considering the manner in which we achieve our goals?
Other questions, who?
So, it's kinda funny because I had exactly the same question as as the lady over there
And I love your answer
But still I really want to walk away today with which metric should we then be adding
As of tomorrow next to the metrics that we have right now?
I like the question of what metrics are we adding, that's very interesting
So performance metrics as we've already agreed are perfectly valid over time
So what metrics are missing, right?
So I had the opportunity to meet with somebody from the SEAL Teams
And few would debate that the SEALs are one of the highest performing organizations on the planet
Right?
And I asked them: 'How do you choose?'
This is like SEAL Team, six kind stuff, right
Like they take people from the SEALs and they put them in SEAL Team six
How do you choose?
And he says we look at two - this is the head of training
This is the head of training, who told me this
We look at two metrics, the two axes
We look at performance and we look at trust
And the way we define those terms is this is performance on the battlefield
And this is how you are off the battlefield
So this is how good you are at your job
Do you make the metrics? Do you make the numbers? Do you hit the revenue targets?
But this is the kind of person you are
When it's not the meeting, right
So I may trust going to a meeting with you, but I may not want to hang out with you when I'm stuck in an airport
The way they put it is I trust you with my life, but I don't trust you with my money or my wife
That's how they put it
Clearly nobody wants this person on their team, a low performer of low trusts, clearly
Clearly everybody wants this person, the high performer of high trust, on their team
This is what they learned
This person over here, the high performer of low trust, is a toxic team member
Which eventually becomes a toxic leader if we keep promoting them
That's a toxic team member and they would rather have a medium performer of high trust
Sometimes even a low performer of high trust, it's a relative scale, over this person
We have a million metrics at work for performance
And we have negligible to know metrics for trust
So it's not that we don't care about these things
It's we don't know how to recognize these things
We don't know who these people are
And sometimes we do and we say: 'Why do you let that person to be in a team?'
And we go: 'Ah, their numbers are so good .'
In other words we allow these people to stay
Even though they're pulling down the performance of everybody else
Now that doesn't mean we should immediately fire them, right
Just Iike I don't believe you should immediately fire a low performer
You should coach them and help them get their performance up
If somebody is of low trust we should coach them
But if they prove to be uncoachable, the cause is bigger than any of us
And so it's time to find someplace where you'll be happier
Because clearly if we're not happy I can guarantee you're not happy
So here's the joke, it is unbelievably easy to find these people
Just go to any team and ask who's the asshole and they'll all point to the same person
So to answer your question, the thing that we're missing is peer review
We don't have peer reviews
Our bosses tell us how well we're doing
So we're all working for one person's approval
If you have a great boss, great
If you're unlucky and you don't, then you're screwed
Because it's one person's approval that determines my entire career, right
So peer review i think should be not the only, but one of
Because I think both are important, right
And it should never be used - it should be used as an evaluation tool
In other words 360 reviews
So we took 360 reviews and the one of the ways that we did it, we made our own
And I'll tell you how we do it
Which is we take a team, which is defined by a group people who work together
Not to do with the hierarchy
So it's not just marketing and sales
Like if you're an engineer and I'm a marketer and I talk to you every single day
We're on the same team, right
So the team is defined as a group of people who work together on a regular basis, right
We take a team and every single team member has to take a piece of paper and write
What are my top three weaknesses or places I need the most help?
With three specific examples
Three specific examples of my biggest weaknesses are things I need to improve
And then three specific examples of my biggest strengths or the places that I believe I've grown the most
All of those pieces of paper are collated and shared amongst the whole team
And then we all get together in a room
And one by one each person gets to start and they pull out their paper
And the first thing they do is read out their top three weaknesses with their examples
And then everyone in the room is allowed to add more
And the only thing they're allowed to say is thank you
No excuses, no explanations
Just thank you
And the reason is because we tell them, there's a little speech we give at the beginning
That what we're asking each other to do is really really uncomfortable
It is really uncomfortable to tell people I work with, sometimes people more senior than me
Where they're hurting me, where they suck, right
And they would rather not tell you
But they're gonna tell you, because they want to see you grow and become a better version of yourself
So when they give you this information, say thank you
If you have an emotional reaction: anger
It's probably because what they're telling you is true
That's what we tell, that's what we say
And we also say if they're telling you something that's just wrong
No emotional reaction, you're just thinking: 'Yeah, no'
Then ignore it, say thank you for the feedback and move on
It's not all gospel, it's feedback, right
Then when we're done with the top three weaknesses, we do the exact same thing with the top three strengths
You read your own and then anyone at the table can add to it
And what you start to discover is that you are actually having a positive influence in people's lives
That you didn't even realize
So it ends on an amazing high
Then we have to have the ability to coach to those weaknesses and strengths
So it's not over, now over the course of the year we now have data
That shows us where you can grow in your weaknesses
Grow your strengths, because we want you to get even better
And mitigate your weaknesses and we're gonna coach each other or have outside coaches to help
But we have data now
And then at the end of the year what we want to see
Or actually I don't like annual reviews, I like quarterly reviews
That's a whole separate thing
Because I want to see growth
Because when you do an annual review really you're only getting reviewed on the past three months
Because nobody can remember what happened six months ago
You know you've been amazing for nine months and the past three months you sucked
And that's what your review says you know
So quarterly you can show growth, but then what we want to do is we want to see that people are growing
Not just performing, we want to see them growing
So that's one thing you can do
Start implementing some sort of peer review and if you identify these people, coach them
And if they prove to be uncoachable
Do you have the courage to ask these people to go help another company?
Is that a little bit of an answer?
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