Finite and Infinite Games: Difference between revisions

Carse invites us to reframe activities we might see as existential struggles instead as opportunities to build a different future: all it requires is players who are skilled at the infinite game. This he does by means of a number of dualities:

 

 

:Lou Reed, ''Coney Island Baby''}}Finite games favour top-down game management, with central homunculus instilling in players a defined set of pre-formulated tactics: a coach to formulate them and a captain to see they are executed. Infinite games are bottom up: every player must continually assess her environment and work out what to do based on the information she currently has. Here a “coach” is little more than a central coordinator supplying information and resources to help the players make their own tactical decisions as the need arises.

 

In a predefined contest, [[form]] dominates substance: we should concentrate our resources at the centre, formulate rules, work out [[algorithm]]s and devise [[Playbook|playbooks]], since if we get this right, success is a matter of execution, and “failure” comes from shortcomings in execution of the plan. 

 

 

 

Thirdly, it means those at the edges of the organisation whose job is not to formulate policy but to follow it — those who must put the leadership’s plans and algorithms into practice — ''must not think'': they must, so far as possible, just ''follow instructions'': quickly, flawlessly, cheaply. ''They should act like automatons''. If you are in a finite game environment, the ''last'' thing you want your players to do is improvise, or make things up as they go along: that will upset the carefully formulated plan. Players must not just act like machines: ideally, players would ''be'' machines: cheap, reliable and fungible.

 

 

[[Infinite game]]s favour virtuoso performances in the field: in a [[wicked environment]] cheap, quick, accurate machines are no use, and the infrastructure they need to ensure they continue working may get in the way. Rather than being elaborate, internal infrastructure should be simple, robust and permissive — enabling communication, facilitating dynamic reallocation of resources, but fundamentally organising the architecture to empower quick and effective decision-making in the field. Seeing as the idea is not to win but to continue, conferring discretion upon those at the edge of the organisation who must engage with the complex adaptive system outside is not necessarily catastrophic as long as the individuals are experienced experts: they must ''not'' act like machines, and empowered — ''trusted'' to deal with unfolding situations as they perceive them. The ongoing prosperity of the organisation is an [[emergent]] property of the behaviour of these subject matter experts. This is quite the opposite model: here the greatest value is provided at the edges of the organisation. The bottom-up model: ''laissez-faire''; [[invisible hand]]; evolutionary.

It therefore follows that a centrally-guided automaton needs only ''training''; an autonomous agent playing a finite game needs ''education''.{{Quote|“To be prepared against surprise is to be ''trained''. To be prepared for surprise is to be ''educated''.”<ref>{{carseref}}17.</ref>}}

==== Players of finite games ''train.'' ====

A master tactician works out moves, devises playbooks, and solves equations for them, presenting all to the players for ingestion and later regurgitation.   

''Training'' works where all parameters are fixed and all possible outcomes at least knowable in theory — [[zero-sum game]]s, [[simple system]]s, football matches — but does not ''always'' work in the dancing landscapes of [[Complex system|complex adaptive system]]s.  

 

If you have prepared for chess, your work will be for naught if the game morphs into draughts — or, just as likely, cookery, music, electronics, or a dialogue about conceptual art. Here, instead of eliminating surprise, you equip yourself to deal with it: you need not answers but tools, [[heuristic]]s and a facility with [[:Category:Metaphor|metaphor]].

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps Carse would describe a [[power structure]] as of “society” and a “strength structure” as of “culture”. The historic, zero-sum nature of finite games contrasts with the prospective, permissive nature of infinite ones.  

===“Formal” versus “substantive”===

We have argued [[High modernism|elsewhere]], at [[Tedium|tedious]] length, that the great curse of [[Modernism|modernity]] is the primacy of [[Substance and form|form over substance]].  

In [[Finite game|finite games]] the distinction between the two can be trivial; in an infinite game it is not.

Where the universe is not bounded, where rules are unknown or changeable, where unknowns swamp knowns<ref>[[Signal-to-noise ratio|All data is from the past]]. Seeing as there is an infinite amount of data from the future, the portion of the available data we have is, effectively, nil. </ref> — where the [[Infinite game|game is ''infinite'']] — ''substance is not a function of form''. There are no equations, axioms or formulae to follow when interacting with [[Complex system|complex adaptive system]]s. It will be tempting to rely on formulae that tend to work most of the time — the [[Black-Scholes option pricing model|Black Scholes option pricing model]] works most of the time, at least [[Long-Term Capital Management|until it does not]] — but this is a lazy and, as Mr Viniar’s shareholders found, dangerous economy.  

Instead of an army of the ''trained'' carrying [[playbook]]<nowiki/>s containing the pre-baked tactics of a super-coach, we need the ''educated'': those best equipped to [[OODA loop|observe, orient, decide and act]] — if combat is required — or collaborate, if it is not. People who can do this well must necessarily be skilled, experienced and therefore ''expensive'' — but none is anything like as expensive as a super coach''.''

=== Problem cases===

Finite and Infinite Games is a theoretical tract — a work of abstract principle, not a practical guide — and while it is a useful means of framing a different approach to business and a powerful tool for disarm our intuition that business leaders are worth the compensation they are paid. But they cannot solve the intractable messiness of the real world. Bad things happen, and even a distributed network of empowered subject matter experts is fallible.

==== You cannot switch overnight ====

Multinationals have been in thrall to the cult of the chief executive for decades. The firm’s design choices, big and small — the way it structures its business, how it organises operations, who it hires to do what — all are predicated on the [[High modernism|modernist]] disposition that genius lies in formulating that central strategy, and that day-to-day management is a matter of efficiently carrying it out. We don’t hire experienced, expert improvisers to do “[[service delivery]]” — we hire school-leavers from Bucharest and give them a user manual. Those who stay on and progress do so not because of their talent for extemporising, but because they are excellent  — meaning fast — at following instructions. The organisation fashions itself over time in its own image. Should the scales fall from your eyes, you cannot command an over-managed multitude of rule-followers to suddenly “be agile” or “creative” — at least not without dispensing the management superstructure that sits over them nannying them into doing no such thing. Modernist approach is a matter of ''culture'' and culture sits deep in the ontology of the system. Culture moves very slowly. It cannot change overnight.

==== The Christians, atheists and their [[interminable game]]s====