Introducing “Start With Why”: Why Is Your Why So Important?

One holiday week behind and one stomach bug out of my system, I am coming back to this blog to share with you, Dear Reader, the final series of deep dives for this year—we are going to look into Start With Why by Simon Sinek.

Much in the spirit of this book, I will start, indeed, with WHY.

Why this book?

First, Start With Why was a big hit in a company I worked for, and a few leaders I highly respect recommended it. Secondly, I listened to Simon Sinek’s TED talk and a few of his interviews. I find him to be an authentic speaker with good ideas and a genuine desire to make the world a better place. I read this book and found that it had some useful concepts that were worth sharing.

With this in mind, let’s start.

If You Start With WHAT

If a company does not have a clear sense of WHY then it is impossible for the outside world to perceive anything more than WHAT the company does.”—Start With Why

Start With Why is not a self-help book. It is a book primarily written for the business leaders and their companies.

Sinek starts his book by giving multiple examples of when a business does not understand its WHY and instead tries to differentiate by WHAT it does better than its competitors: offers a better price or discount, higher quality, more security, etc. Seeing constant promotions or limited sales, a customer is manipulated into buying a product instead of being inspired by it.

As a result, the more products offer sales and promotions, the thinner their margin and the less loyalty they get from their customers.

When manipulations are the norm, no one wins.”—Start With Why

The Golden Circle

To offer a better solution, Sinek introduces the concept of The Golden Circle. As you can see on the picture below, the Golden Circle includes three layers and the WHAT layer is the biggest and the most visible one. But in the center of it lies the WHY which, according to Sinek, should be clearly communicated by the business if it wants to succeed long-term.

This is a powerful message in itself. If you keep throwing discounts at everyone without communicating your values and your reason of being, your business will lose to the next cheaper option available (or actually a more expensive one—if a higher price in your segment is perceived as a sign of higher quality). You are also more likely to lose your business to someone who will be more articulate about their WHY.

Absent a balanced Golden Circle means no authenticity, which means no strong relationships, which means no trust. And you’re back at square one selling on price, service, quality or features.”—Start With Why

This is also an empowering message for the business internally.

The pharmaceutical company I worked for was highly focused on finding the cure for cancer and this WHY was palpable in the office buildings as much as in the labs. It was contagious. Armed with this WHY the company was able to secure an FDA approval for its new therapy in record times and grow from 450 people to 1,000 in less than 5 months.

The Context For Everything Else

Start With Why claims that the WHY sets the context for everything else—your HOW, your WHAT, everything you put in front of your customer, and every decision you make in your office.

The real differentiation happens in WHY and HOW, not in HOW and WHAT.

Everything you say and everything you do has to prove what you believe.”—Start With Why

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In our next deep dive, we will look further into the role of WHY in leadership and communication. See you very soon!