Creative organizations and communities not only play by different rules,
they actually play a different game. One of my favorite books to illustrate this
difference is James P. Carse's book, Finite and Infinite games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility.
It speaks to the new games - those which cultivate play,
improvisation and engaging the unknown...creating as you go. Here are a few nuggets from the
book:
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play...infinite
games are unscripted and unpredictable...the rules of an infinite game
have a different status than those of a finite game. They are like the
grammar of a living language, where as those of a finite game are like
the rules of a debate...when we are playful with each other we relate
as free persons and the relationship is open to surprise; everything
that happens is of consequence...
To be serious is to press for a
specific conclusion....to be playful is to allow for
possibility...because infinite players allow themselves to be surprised
by the future, they play in complete openness. It is not an
openness as in candor, but an openness as in vulnerability...
To be
prepared against surprise is to be trained...to be prepared for
surprise is to be educated...training repeats a complete past in the
future...education continues an unfinished past in the
future...
Culture is an infinite game...a culture understands its past not as destiny, but as history, a narrative that has begun but points toward the endlessly open...
Finite players play within boundaries...infinite players play with boundaries...the rules
of a finite game may not change in the course of play...the rules of an
infinite game must change in the course of play...
Infinite play is inherently paradoxical, just as finite play
is inherently contradictory...the paradox of infinite play is that the
players desire to continue the play in others...
Thanks very much for the reminder: I read that book in depth a decade or more ago, but had somewhat forgotten about it since then. (Doesn't help that most of my books are in storage 10,000 miles away from where I am at present... :-( )
Two of its themes have stayed with me all these years, though. One is that brilliant tag-line you quote above: "to be prepared against surprise is to be trained; to be prepared _for_ surprise is to be educated". The other is a simple assertion from right at the end of the book: that ultimately there is only one game, and that game is an infinite game.
Insightful... very. Thanks again!
Posted by: Tom Graves | July 17, 2010 at 06:04 AM
My pleasure. A belated thanks for your comment, Tom! (Just saw it today)
Posted by: Michelle | June 03, 2012 at 07:45 AM