Simon Sinek Start With Why Quotes

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People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Great companies don't hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
You don’t hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
The role of a leader is not to come up with all the great ideas. The role of a leader is to create an environment in which great ideas can happen.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
When you compete against everyone else, no one wants to help you. But when you compete against yourself, everyone wants to help you.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Leadership requires two things: a vision of the world that does not yet exist and the ability to communicate it.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Working hard for something we do not care about is called stress, working hard for something we love is called passion.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Some in management positions operate as if they are in a tree of monkeys. They make sure that everyone at the top of the tree looking down sees only smiles. But all too often, those at the bottom looking up see only asses.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Henry Ford summed it up best. “If I had asked people what they wanted,” he said, “they would have said a faster horse.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Great leaders and great organizations are good at seeing what most of us can’t see. They are good at giving us things we would never think of asking for.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Charisma has nothing to do with energy; it comes from a clarity of WHY. It comes from absolute conviction in an ideal bigger than oneself. Energy, in contrast, comes from a good night’s sleep or lots of caffeine. Energy can excite. But only charisma can inspire. Charisma commands loyalty. Energy does not.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Regardless of WHAT we do in our lives, our WHY—our driving purpose, cause or belief—never changes.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Passion alone can't cut it. For passion to survive it needs structure. A why without how has little probability of success.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Great companies don’t hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them. People are either motivated or they are not. Unless you give motivated people something to believe in, something bigger than their job to work toward, they will motivate themselves to find a new job and you’ll be stuck with whoever’s left.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Innovation is not born from the dream, innovation is born from the struggle.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Great leaders are those who trust their gut. They are those who understand the art before the science. They win hearts before minds. They are the ones who start with WHY.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
This is important because our behavior is affected by our assumptions or our perceived truths. We make decisions based on what we think we know.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it. Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do WHAT they do. By WHY I mean your purpose, cause or belief - WHY does your company exist? WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care? People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it. We are drawn to leaders and organizations that are good at communicating what they believe. Their ability to make us feel like we belong, to make us feel special, safe and not alone is part of what gives them the ability to inspire us. For values or guiding principles to be truly effective they have to be verbs. It’s not “integrity,” it’s “always do the right thing.” It’s not “innovation,” it’s “look at the problem from a different angle.” Articulating our values as verbs gives us a clear idea - we have a clear idea of how to act in any situation. Happy employees ensure happy customers. And happy customers ensure happy shareholders—in that order. Leading is not the same as being the leader. Being the leader means you hold the highest rank, either by earning it, good fortune or navigating internal politics. Leading, however, means that others willingly follow you—not because they have to, not because they are paid to, but because they want to. You don’t hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills. Great companies don’t hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them. People are either motivated or they are not. Unless you give motivated people something to believe in, something bigger than their job to work toward, they will motivate themselves to find a new job and you’ll be stuck with whoever’s left. Trust is maintained when values and beliefs are actively managed. If companies do not actively work to keep clarity, discipline and consistency in balance, then trust starts to break down. All organizations start with WHY, but only the great ones keep their WHY clear year after year.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
When we tell people to do their jobs, we get workers. When we trust people to get the job done, we get leaders.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
That’s the problem with love; we only know when we’ve found it because it “just feels right.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Being the leader means you hold the highest rank, either by earning it, good fortune or navigating internal politics. Leading, however, means that others willingly follow you—not because they have to, not because they are paid to, but because they want to.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Average companies give their people something to work on. In contrast, the most innovative organizations give their people something to work toward.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
All organizations start with WHY, but only the great ones keep their WHY clear year after year. Those who forget WHY they were founded show up to the race every day to outdo someone else instead of to outdo themselves. The pursuit, for those who lose sight of WHY they are running the race, is for the medal or to beat someone else.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Our need to belong is not rational, but it is a constant that exists across all people in all cultures.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
If they had started their sales pitch with WHY the product existed in the first place, the product itself would have become the proof of the higher cause—proof of WHY.
Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
If the leader of the organization can’t clearly articulate WHY the organization exists in terms beyond its products or services, then how does he expect the employees to know WHY to come to work?
Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
For great leaders, The Golden Circle is in balance. They are in pursuit of WHY, they hold themselves accountable to HOW they do it and WHAT they do serves as the tangible proof of what they believe.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Instead of asking, “WHAT should we do to compete?” the questions must be asked, “WHY did we start doing WHAT we’re doing in the first place, and WHAT can we do to bring our cause to life considering all the technologies and market opportunities available today?
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
He gave the “I Have a Dream” speech, not the “I Have a Plan” speech.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Leadership is always about people.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Our visions are the world we imagine, the tangible results of what the world would look like if we spent every day in pursuit of our WHY.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
There are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or influence. Those who lead inspire us.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
There are many ways to motivate people to do things, but loyalty comes from the ability to inspire people.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Put bluntly, the struggle that so many companies have to differentiate or communicate their true value to the outside world is not a business problem, it's a biology problem. And just like a person struggling to put her emotions into words, we rely on metaphors, imagery and analogies in an attempt to communicate how we feel. Absent the proper language to share our deep emotions, our purpose, cause or belief, we tell stories. We use symbols. We create tangible things for those who believe what we believe to point to and say, "That's why I'm inspired." If done properly, that's what marketing, branding and products and services become; a way for organizations to communicate to the outside world. Communicate clearly and you shall be understood.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Finding WHY is a process of discovery, not invention.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
The only way people will know what you believe is by the things you say and do, and if you’re not consistent in the things you say and do, no one will know what you believe.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
We are drawn to leaders and organizations that are good at communicating what they believe. Their ability to make us feel like we belong, to make us feel special, safe and not alone is part of what gives them the ability to inspire us.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
In weak cultures, people find safety in the rules. This is why we get bureaucrats. They believe a strict adherence to the rules provides them with job security. And in the process, they do damage to the trust inside and outside the organization. In strong cultures, people find safety in relationships. Strong relationships are the foundation of high-performing teams. And all high-performing teams start with trust.
Simon Sinek (The Infinite Game)
Great companies don’t hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Studies show that over 80 percent of Americans do not have their dream job. If more knew how to build organizations that inspire, we could live in a world in which that statistic was the reverse - a world in which over 80 percent of people loved their jobs. People who love going to work are more productive and more creative. They go home happier and have happier families. They treat their colleagues and clients and customers better. Inspired employees make for stronger companies and stronger economies.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
people don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
It’s not Bill Gates’s passion for computers that inspires us, it’s his undying optimism that even the most complicated problems can be solved.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
We say WHAT we do, we sometimes say HOW we do it, but we rarely say WHY we do WHAT we do.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Greatness is not born from one success. Greatness is born from persevering through the countless failed attempts that preceded.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
The lack of a clear set of values and beliefs, along with the weak culture that resulted, created the conditions for an every-man-for-himself environment, the long-term impact of which could yield little else than disaster. This is caveman stuff.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
As anyone who starts a business knows, it is a fantastic race. There is a statistic that hangs over your head - over 90 percent of all new businesses fail in the first three years. For anyone with even a bit of competitive spirit in them, especially for someone who defines himself or herself as an entrepreneur, these overwhelming odds of failure are not intimidating, they only add fuel to the fire. The foolishness of thinking that you're a part of the small minority of those who actually will make it past three years and defy the odds is part of what makes entrepreneurs who they are, driven by passion and completely irrational.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
For values or guiding principles to be truly effective they have to be verbs. It’s not “integrity,” it’s “always do the right thing.” It’s not “innovation,” it’s “look at the problem from a different angle.” Articulating our values as verbs gives us a clear idea … we
Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
WHY: Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do WHAT they do. When I say WHY, I don’t mean to make money—that’s a result. By WHY I mean what is your purpose, cause or belief? WHY does your company exist? WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care?
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
If the people aren’t looking out for the community, then the benefits of a community erode. Many companies have star employees and star salesmen and so on, but few have a culture that produces great people as a rule and not an exception.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
You have to be careful what you think you know.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Only when the WHY is clear and when people believe what you believe can a true loyal relationship develop.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Even with objective metrics in hand, the argument about which is better or which is worse without first establishing a common standard creates nothing more than debate.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Imagine if every organization started with WHY. Decisions would be simpler. Loyalties would be greater. Trust would be a common currency.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
The WHY exists in the part of the brain that controls feelings and decision-making but not language. WHATs exist in the part of the brain that controls rational thought and language.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Great leaders, in contrast, are able to inspire people to act. Those who are able to inspire give people a sense of purpose or belonging that has little to do with any external incentive or benefit to be gained. Those who truly lead are able to create a following of people who act not because they were swayed, but because they were inspired. For those who are inspired, the motivation to act is deeply personal. They are less likely to be swayed by incentives. Those who are inspired are willing to pay a premium or endure inconvenience, even personal suffering. Those who are able to inspire will create a following of people—supporters, voters, customers, workers—who act for the good of the whole not because they have to, but because they want to.
Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
The farther right you go on the curve, the more you will encounter the clients and customers who may need what you have, but don't necessarily believe what you believe. As clients, they are the ones for whom, no matter how hard you work, it's never enough. Everything usually boils down to price with them. They are rarely loyal. They rarely give referrals and sometimes you may even wonder out loud why you still do business with them. "They just don't get it," our gut tells us. The importance of identifying this group is so that you can avoid doing business with them.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
When you start with WHY, those who believe what you believe are drawn to you for very personal reasons. It is those who share your values and beliefs, not the quality of your products, that will cause the system to tip.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Every company, organization or group with the ability to inspire starts with a person or small group of people who were inspired to do something bigger than themselves. Gaining clarity of WHY, ironically, is not the hard part. It is the discipline to trust one's gut, to stay true to one's purpose, cause or beliefs. Remaining completely in balance and authentic is the most difficult part.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
There’s barely a product or service on the market today that customers can’t buy from someone else for about the same price, about the same quality, about the same level of service and about the same features. If you truly have a first-mover’s advantage, it’s probably lost in a matter of months. If you offer something truly novel, someone else will soon come up with something similar and maybe even better. But if you ask most businesses why their customers are their customers, most will tell you it’s because of superior quality, features, price or service. In other words, most companies have no clue why their customers are their customers. This is a fascinating realization.
Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
When they are unclear about your WHY, WHAT you do has no context. Even though
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Like so many before it, the company confused innovation with novelty.
Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
When people know WHY you do WHAT you do, they are willing to give you credit for everything that could serve as proof of WHY.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
As Herb Kelleher famously said, “You don’t hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills.
Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
People who love going to work are more productive and more creative. They go home happier and have happier families. They treat their colleagues and clients and customers better.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Companies that fail to communicate a sense of WHY force us to make decisions with only empirical evidence. This is why those decisions take more time, feel difficult or leave us uncertain.
Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
A company is a culture. A group of people brought together around a common set of values and beliefs. It’s not products or services that bind a company together. It’s not size and might that make a company strong, it’s the culture—the strong sense of beliefs and values that everyone, from the CEO to the receptionist, all share. So the logic follows, the goal is not to hire people who simply have a skill set you need, the goal is to hire people who believe what you believe.
Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
There are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or influence. Those who lead inspire us. Whether individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead not for them, but for ourselves. This is a book for those who want to inspire others and for those who want to find someone to inspire them.
Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
But when a company clearly communicates their WHY, what they believe, and we believe what they believe, then we will sometimes go to extraordinary lengths to include those products or brands in our lives.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
There are many ways to motivate people to do things, but loyalty comes from the ability to inspire people. Only when the WHY is clear and when people believe what you believe can a true loyal relationship develop.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
The problem was, they advertised their product as a “5GB mp3 player.” It is exactly the same message as Apple’s “1,000 songs in your pocket.” The difference is Creative told us WHAT their product was and Apple told us WHY we needed it.
Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Those who lead are able to do so because those who follow trust that the decisions made at the top have the best interest of the group at heart. In turn, those who trust work hard because they feel like they are working for something bigger than themselves.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Cultures are groups of people who come together around a common set of values and beliefs. When we share values and beliefs with others, we form trust. Trust of others allows us to rely on others to help protect our children and ensure our personal survival.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Instead of asking, “WHAT should we do to compete?” the questions must be asked, “WHY did we start doing WHAT we’re doing in the first place, and WHAT can we do to bring our cause to life considering all the technologies and market opportunities available today?” But
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
The vision is the public statement of the founder’s intent, WHY the company exists. It is literally the vision of a future that does not yet exist. The mission statement is a description of the route, the guiding principles—HOW the company intends to create that future. When both of those things are stated clearly, the WHY-type and the HOW-type are both certain about their roles in the partnership. Both are working together with clarity of purpose and a plan to get there. For it to work, however, it requires more than a set of skills, it requires trust. As
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
We are drawn to leaders and organizations that are good at communicating what they believe. Their ability to make us feel like we belong, to make us feel special, safe and not alone is part of what gives them the ability to inspire us. Those whom we consider great leaders all have an ability to draw us close and to command our loyalty. And we feel a strong bond with those who are also drawn to the same leaders and organizations.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Those who are inspired are willing to pay a premium or endure inconvenience, even personal suffering. Those who are able to inspire will create a following of people—supporters, voters, customers, workers—who act for the good of the whole not because they have to, but because they want to.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Successful succession is more than selecting someone with an appropriate skill set—it’s about finding someone who is in lockstep with the original cause around which the company was founded. Great second or third CEOs don’t take the helm to implement their own vision of the future; they pick up the original banner and lead the company into the next generation. That’s why we call it succession, not replacement. There is a continuity of vision.
Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Products with a clear sense of WHY give people a way to tell the outside world who they are and what they believe. Remember, people don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it. 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. And when that happens, manipulations that rely on pushing price, features, service or quality become the primary currency of differentiation.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Great companies don`t hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them. People are either motivated or they are not. Unless you give motivated people something to believe in, something better than their job to work toward, they will motivate themselves to find a new job and you`ll be stuck with whoever`s left.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
if we don’t understand the cause, then even the right answers will always steer us wrong … eventually. The truth, you see, is always revealed … eventually.
Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Don’t forget, the superior Betamax technology did not beat out the substandard VHS technology as the standard format for videotape in the 1980s.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Don’t forget that a WHY is just a belief, HOWs are the actions we take to realize that belief and WHATs are the results of those actions.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
But only companies that act like commodities are the ones who wake up every day with the challenge of how to differentiate.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Many companies have star employees and star salesmen and so on, but few have a culture that produces great people as a rule and not an exception.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
It doesn't matter when we start. It doesn't matter where we start. All that matters is that we start!
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
When the person who personifies the WHY departs without clearly articulating WHY the company was founded in the first place, they leave no clear cause for their successor to lead.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Leadership is the ability to rally people not for a single event, but for years.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
She’s a great leader because she understands that earning the trust of an organization doesn’t come from setting out to impress everyone, it comes from setting out to serve those who serve her.
Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Trust does not emerge simply because a seller makes a rational case why the customer should buy a product or service, or because an executive promises change. Trust is not a checklist. Fulfilling all your responsibilities does not create trust. Trust is a feeling, not a rational experience. We trust some people and companies even when things go wrong, and we don’t trust others even though everything might have gone exactly as it should have. A completed checklist does not guarantee trust. Trust begins to emerge when we have a sense that another person or organization is driven by things other than their own self-gain. With trust comes a sense of value—real value, not just value equated with money. Value, by definition, is the transference of trust. You can’t convince someone you have value, just as you can’t convince someone to trust you. You have to earn trust by communicating and demonstrating that you share the same values and beliefs. You have to talk about your WHY and prove it with WHAT you do.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
However, if we’re starting with the wrong questions, if we don’t understand the cause, then even the right answers will always steer us wrong . . . eventually. The truth, you see, is always revealed . . . eventually.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
In order to improve HOW and WHAT we do, we constantly look to what others are doing. We attend conferences, read books, talk to friends and colleagues to get their input and advice, and sometimes we are also the dispensers of advice. We are in pursuit of understanding the best practices of others to help guide us. But it is a flawed assumption that what works for one organization will work for another. Even if the industries, sizes and market conditions are the same, the notion that “if it’s good for them, it’s good for us” is simply not true.
Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
the course of time, all of Apple’s competitors lost their WHY. Now all those companies define themselves by WHAT they do: we make computers. They turned from companies with a cause into companies that sold products. And when that happens, price, quality, service and features become the primary currency to motivate a purchase decision. At that point a company and its products have ostensibly become commodities. As any company forced to compete on price, quality, service or features alone can attest, it is very hard to differentiate for any period of time or build loyalty on those factors alone.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
American culture strongly values ideals of entrepreneurship, independence and self-reliance. We call our WHY—the American Dream. French culture strongly values ideals of unified identity, group reliance and joie de vivre. (Notice that we use the French word to describe the joy-of-life lifestyle. Coincidence? Perhaps.)
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
There is a big difference between repeat business and loyalty. Repeat business is when people do business with you multiple times. Loyalty is when people are willing to turn down a better product or a better price to continue doing business with you. Loyal customers often don’t even bother to research the competition or entertain other options. Loyalty is not easily won. Repeat business, however, is. All it takes is more manipulations.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
There’s barely a product or service on the market today that customers can’t buy from someone else for about the same price, about the same quality, about the same level of service and about the same features. If you truly have a first-mover’s advantage, it’s probably lost in a matter of months. If you offer something truly novel, someone else will soon come up with something similar and maybe even better. But if you ask most businesses why their customers are their customers, most will tell you it’s because of superior quality, features, price or service. In other words, most companies have no clue why their customers are their customers.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
WHAT: Every single company and organization on the planet knows WHAT they do. This is true no matter how big or small, no matter what industry. Everyone is easily able to describe the products or services a company sells or the job function they have within that system. WHATs are easy to identify. HOW: Some companies and people know HOW they do WHAT they do. Whether you call them a “differentiating value proposition,” “proprietary process” or “unique selling proposition,” HOWs are often given to explain how something is different or better. Not as obvious as WHATs, many think these are the differentiating or motivating factors in a decision. It would be false to assume that’s all that is required. There is one missing detail: WHY: Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do WHAT they do. When I say WHY, I don’t mean to make money—that’s a result. By WHY I mean what is your purpose, cause or belief? WHY does your company exist? WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care? When most organizations or people think, act or communicate they do so from the outside in, from WHAT to WHY. And for good reason—they go from clearest thing to the fuzziest thing. We say WHAT we do, we sometimes say HOW we do it, but we rarely say WHY we do WHAT we do. But not the inspired companies. Not the inspired leaders. Every single one of them, regardless of their size or their industry, thinks, acts and communicates from the inside out.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
Shackleton was looking for those with something more. He was looking for a crew that belonged on such an expedition. His actual ad ran like this: “Men wanted for Hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.” The only people who applied for the job were those who read the ad and thought it sounded great. They loved insurmountable odds. The only people who applied for the job were survivors. Shackleton hired only people who believed what he believed. Their ability to survive was guaranteed. When employees belong, they will guarantee your success. And they won’t be working hard and looking for innovative solutions for you, they will be doing it for themselves.
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
The goal was ambitious. Public interest was high. Experts were eager to contribute. Money was readily available. Armed with every ingredient for success, Samuel Pierpont Langley set out in the early 1900s to be the first man to pilot an airplane. Highly regarded, he was a senior officer at the Smithsonian Institution, a mathematics professor who had also worked at Harvard. His friends included some of the most powerful men in government and business, including Andrew Carnegie and Alexander Graham Bell. Langley was given a $50,000 grant from the War Department to fund his project, a tremendous amount of money for the time. He pulled together the best minds of the day, a veritable dream team of talent and know-how. Langley and his team used the finest materials, and the press followed him everywhere. People all over the country were riveted to the story, waiting to read that he had achieved his goal. With the team he had gathered and ample resources, his success was guaranteed. Or was it? A few hundred miles away, Wilbur and Orville Wright were working on their own flying machine. Their passion to fly was so intense that it inspired the enthusiasm and commitment of a dedicated group in their hometown of Dayton, Ohio. There was no funding for their venture. No government grants. No high-level connections. Not a single person on the team had an advanced degree or even a college education, not even Wilbur or Orville. But the team banded together in a humble bicycle shop and made their vision real. On December 17, 1903, a small group witnessed a man take flight for the first time in history. How did the Wright brothers succeed where a better-equipped, better-funded and better-educated team could not? It wasn’t luck. Both the Wright brothers and Langley were highly motivated. Both had a strong work ethic. Both had keen scientific minds. They were pursuing exactly the same goal, but only the Wright brothers were able to inspire those around them and truly lead their team to develop a technology that would change the world. Only the Wright brothers started with Why. 2.
Simon Sinek (Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)