Author Archives: Doug Buist

The Infinite Game: Finding a just cause for the Liberal Democrats

By Doug Buist | Thu 23rd January 2020 - 2:17 pm

Sustained success is attained not through obsessing with winning in the short term, but focusing on a higher purpose. That is the idea put forward by Simon Sinek in his recent book The Infinite Game, which looks at how institutions from tech companies like Apple to the founding of the United States itself were built on a just cause, a future vision for which we are willing to make sacrifices.

This is the critical challenge I believe the Liberal Democrats need to engage with now as we search for our way forward in the new political landscape. It may be useful to understand why we didn’t win another six seats or the impact of certain policy or strategy decisions. We can debate our concerns about a drift right or left, economic competence, the merits of a rejoin versus EFTA campaign, or who the next leader should be. Ultimately, though, this lacks a longer term perspective; we need to play the infinite game.

How do we stay in the game? What is our just cause?

Here are three headline thoughts I would like to put on the table that I believe we need to address.

One. We should start by workshopping out our vision for a fair, free and open society and the values model that will underpin it.

It requires us to go beyond the tactics of winning elections and Brexit to look into our liberal, social democrat and progressive souls to shape what that better country and world looks like, the change we want to see – to define our just cause.

Two. We should now devote as much energy to changing the electoral system as we have to stopping Brexit.