Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

While the subtitle of this book (How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action) suggests that the content is for leaders of large organizations, I believe the book's details can apply to all kinds of leaders and businesses. The main mantra of the book is:

People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.

The book includes stories of many different companies. Some were successful, and others were not. The successful ones were led by individuals who strongly believed in something (they had a Why), which was the business's guiding principle. The unsuccessful companies may have started out doing well, but when they lost their focus on their Why, or if the person who had that vision left the organization, the business started to falter.

I agree with the author’s point that having a strong Why for your business can help that business be successful. I highlighted all the successful companies and individuals in the book and want to study them further. Here’s an alphabetical list of who I intend to examine:

• Apple & Steve Jobs
• Bridgeport Financial
• Ernest Shackleton
• Harley Davidson
• Henry Ford
• Ron Bruder — Education for Employment Foundation
• Southwest Airlines
• Thomas Edison
• The Wright Brothers

One key concept from the book that hit home with me was that when you have a strong Why you will naturally attract individuals to your business who share that Why. A strong Why will allow you to market based on these beliefs instead of using manipulative tactics like price, features, and benefits.

That’s what a WHY does. When it is clearly understood, it attracts people who believe the same thing.

Another central point Why is so important relates to hiring (or being hired). It’s essential to have everyone in an organization believe in the same Why to have the best performing team. This requires a leader who knows their Why and knows how to share the details of their Why with others.

While reading the books, I made some other highlights that I think were important concepts:

• “There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.”
• “WHAT companies do are external factors, but WHY they do it is something deeper.”
• “Why the product exists must first be considered and why someone wants it must match.”
• “If a customer feels inspired to buy a product, rather than manipulated, they will be able to verbalize the reasons why they think what they bought is better.”
• “Knowing your WHY is not the only way to be successful, but it is the only way to maintain a lasting success and have a greater blend of innovation and flexibility.”
• “No matter where we go, we trust those with whom we are able to perceive common values or beliefs.”

This book has helped me personally. I’m in the process of trying to start a business, teaching others how to use productivity software (so far just Microsoft Excel, but I have plans to branch out to other applications). My training content is specifically geared towards those who may be intimidated by software and computers in general.

I need to spend more time thinking about my Why, but my initial Why is that I believe anyone can learn to use productivity software; they need to get past any fear of using the software and computers. I think the biggest fear people have when learning new things is the fear of the unknown. I want to show people it’s not hard to learn to use software and computers if they take a little time to learn the basics. I want to help them convert the unknown to a known.

If you’ve thought about starting or are running your own business, do you know your Why? Is your Why evident in everything you do related to that business? If not, I would urge you to take some time to read Start With Why and to get clear on your Why.

THIS IS THE GREATEST BOOK EVER PUBLISHED IN THE LAST 10 YEARS!!!

If I could give this book 10 stars, I would! This book beats many other books. This book is so exciting to read that I read it three times! The beginning of the book said it extremely well -- This book is about an unique kind of leadership that has the natural recurring pattern of inspiring, influencing and affecting people. It is about a very small group of leaders that achieve disproportionate amount of influences in their industries/areas compare to other leaders. The most prominent example is, of course, Steve Jobs who displayed a recurring pattern of changing one industry after another.

(Of all the books that study Steve Jobs, this is probably the best one although it is not a book on Jobs' biography. However, this book offers the best angle to understand his motivation and influence.)

The core of this book is about the kind of WHYs that a special kind of leaders has that enable them to have the natural recurring pattern of inspiring, influencing and changing people and industries. The prime examples of this kind of leaders quoted in this book are Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Wright Brothers.

This book is revolutionary. All the top business schools should reevaluate their curriculum based on this book! All the top business consultants should reconsider their theories and recommendations based on this book! All the writers on leadership should read this book and revise their theories! All political leaders in the world should read this book! All board of directors of corporations should read this book and learn how to select the next CEOs! ...

This book can be considered the MASTER book to be read before reading books like "From Good to Great", "Stall Points", "The Innovator's Dilemma" and the follow-on books, "Crossing the Chasm" ...

The central theme of this book is WHY -- the essence, the core, the purpose of a person's life, of leadership, and the starting point of a corporation. Without the clarity of this WHY, the life of a person, the leadership, and the products and services offered by a corporation are all fuzzy and treated as commodities. This is so very true. Look around us: Though we (persons, organizations and corporations) are special in some ways, yet we are almost all commodities -- except the very few that display the recurring pattern of major changes and influences such as Jobs, Apple and Google. These are the ones that have the clarity of WHY and the discipline of diligently and strictly enforcing their HOWs (principles, methods, criteria) in producing the WHATs (behaviors, products and services).

There are three views of WHY + HOW + WHAT presented in this book:

1. Looking from the top -- the WHY in the center, the HOW in the middle and the WHAT in the outer layer form a GOLDEN CIRCLE.
2. Looking from the side -- the WHY at the top layer, the HOW in the middle layer and the WHAT in the bottom layer form a cone.
3. Viewing in three dimensions -- with the external world attached to the base of WHAT, the whole thing is a megaphone for the leader or corporation to sound out its WHY.

These views are wonderful ways for us to look at leadership, to understand the life cycle of a corporation, and summarily see why companies thrived and why they died. These views can even be applied to our personal lives.

Of course, this book has some blemishes. But these defects do not distract from its greatness.

1. The grammar is terrible. The whole book should be reviewed by a competent editor.
2. The WHYs are not strictly examined and evaluated. This book treats all WHYs from leaders, entrepreneurs and corporations as equal when in fact they are not. Probably most of the WHYs are the rewording of WHATs in disguise. Maybe a lot of WHYs are re-branded HOWs. Perhaps only a small number of WHYs can have the recurring pattern of inspiration and influence. I hope the future editions of this book can elucidate this point.
3. The HOWs gets much less treatment than the WHYs and WHATs in the book. It would be great if this topic is covered in more detail.
4. Maybe 60% of this book is about corporations and not on leadership as claimed in the beginning of the book. I hope the author can focus more on the recurring pattern of inspiration and influence of leadership.
5. Not everything stated in this book is correct. The points discussed in this book about Jobs and Apple are good examples. Please read "Inside Apple" and Jobs biographies for more correct views on Jobs and Apple.

At the first reading, the book seems repetitious. The WHY, HOW and WHAT get repeated over and over. However, on the 2nd and 3rd reading, this apparent repetition disappears and you can see the different points that the author was trying to emphasize.

I would like to recommend some future topics or books for Simon Sinek: a) Qualify and rank levels of WHYs -- not all WHYs are equal. Probably some are top-notch while most are mediocre. Also, tell us how to construct best kinds of WHYs. b) Compare the WHYs to big tech companies, the WHYs of big Wall Street firms (if they have any???) and the WHYs of big retail companies. c) Compare the WHYs of big empires in history d) Compare the WHYs of nations in WWI and WWII e) Compare the WHYs of great leaders in history f) Compare the WHYs of great geniuses g) Consider how WHYs can be incorporated into Teachers' College (Ed College). It is the teachers who educate our future generations. They need to be thoroughly immersed in the understanding of The Golden Circle, The Cone and The Megaphone. h) Consider how WHYs can be incorporated into the K-12 and the college education g) Consider how WHYs can be incorporated into and how HOWs can be enforced in our political systems. We have far too many politicians and not enough true leaders i) Consider how WHYs can be incorporated into our law schools. Our lawyers really need a strong dose of treatment.

In summary, this book is dynamic. It's a dynamite! It's the best book I have read in the last 10 years!