Start With Why: The Inspiring Million-Copy Bestseller That Will Help You Find Your Purpose - Softcover

Sinek, S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241958229 ISBN 13: 9780241958223

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2011

Synopsis

"A powerful and penetrating exploration of what separates great companies and great leaders from the rest." -Polly LaBarre, coauthor of Mavericks at Work Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty? In studying the leaders who've had the greatest influence in the world, Simon Sinek discovered that they all think, act, and communicate in the exact same way-and it's the complete opposite of what everyone else does. People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers might have little in common, but they all started with why. Drawing on a wide range of real-life stories, Sinek weaves together a clear vision of what it truly takes to lead and inspire.

About this title

About the Author:

Simon Sinek is the bestselling author of Start with Why, Leaders Eat Last and Together is Better which have helped organizations around the world inspire their people to reach new heights. He has presented his ideas to Fortune 100 companies and small startups; to non-profit organizations and members of Congress; to foreign ambassadors and the highest levels of the US military, among many others. His TED Talk based on Start with Why is the third most popular video of all time on TED.com, with more than 30.5 million views.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Preface

Introduction

 

PART 1 - A WORLD THAT DOESN’T START WITH WHY

Chapter 1 - ASSUME YOU KNOW

Chapter 2 - CARROTS AND STICKS

 

PART 2 - AN ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Chapter 3 - THE GOLDEN CIRCLE.

Chapter 4 - THIS IS NOT OPINION, THIS IS BIOLOGY

Chapter 5 - CLARITY, DISCIPLINE AND CONSISTENCY

 

PART 3 - LEADERS NEED A FOLLOWING

Chapter 6 - THE EMERGENCE OF TRUST

Chapter 7 - HOW A TIPPING POINT TIPS

 

PART 4 - HOW TO RALLY THOSE WHO BELIEVE

Chapter 8 - START WITH WHY, BUT KNOW HOW

Chapter 9 - KNOW WHY. KNOW HOW. THEN WHAT?

Chapter 10 - COMMUNICATION IS NOT ABOUT SPEAKING, IT’S ABOUT LISTENING

 

PART 5 - THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE IS SUCCESS

Chapter 11 - WHEN WHY GOES FUZZY

Chapter 12 - SPLIT HAPPENS

 

PART 6 - DISCOVER WHY

Chapter 13 - THE ORIGINS OF A WHY

Chapter 14 - THE NEW COMPETITION

 

AFTERWORD

Acknowledgements

NOTES

INDEX

PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN

START WITH WHY

Simon Sinek is leading a movement to inspire people to do what inspires them.

 

With a bold goal to build a world in which the vast majority of people go home every day feeling fulfilled by their work, he is invited to share the concept of WHY with a dizzying array of organizations. From members of Congress to foreign ambassadors, from small businesses to corporations Microsoft and Wal-Mart, from Hollywood to NASA to the Pentagon, those who want to inspire people want to learn about the WHY. His TEDx Talk about WHY is one of the top twenty most viewed talks on TED.com.

 

Sinek is also an adjunct staff member of the RAND Corporation, teaches graduate level strategic communications at Columbia University, and is active in the arts and not-for-profit world. When not living in hotels, he lives in New York City.

PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published in the United States of America by Portfolio, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2009 This paperback edition with a new preface and new afterword published 2011

 

 

Copyright © Simon Sinek, 2009 All rights reserved

 

“The Sneetches” from The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss. Trademark TM and
copyright © by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. 1953, 1954, 1961, renewed 1989. All rights reserved.
Used by permission of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc. and
International Creative Management, Inc., agents for Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P.

 

Sinek, Simon.

Start with why : how great leaders inspire everyone to take action / by Simon Sinek. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 9781101149034

1. Leadership. I. Title.

HD57.7.S549 2009

658.4’092—dc22

2009021862

 

 

 

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While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

For Victoria,
who finds good ideas
and makes them great

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.

PREFACE

THE POWER OF WHY

When I first discovered this thing called the WHY, it came at a time in my life when I needed it. It wasn’t an academic or intellectual pursuit; I had fallen out of love with my work and found myself in a very dark place. There was nothing wrong with the quality of my work or my job, per se; it was the enjoyment I had for that work that I’d lost. By all superficial measurements, I should have been happy. I made a good living. I worked with great clients. The problem was, I didn’t feel it. I was no longer fulfilled by my work and I needed to find a way to rekindle my passion.

The discovery of WHY completely changed my view of the world and discovering my own WHY restored my passion to a degree multiple times greater than at any other time in my life. It was such a simple, powerful, and actionable idea, that I shared it with my friends. That’s what we do when we find something of value, we share it with the people we love. Inspired, my friends started making big life changes. In turn, they invited me to share this idea with their friends, the people they loved. And so the idea started to spread.

It was at this point I decided to turn myself into the guinea pig. It didn’t seem right that I would share or promote a concept that I didn’t practice myself. So I was going to practice it as wholly as I could. The only reason I am where I am today, this representative of WHY, is for one reason and one reason only: because of other people.

I have no publicist. I have had only very little national press coverage. Yet the concept of WHY is spreading far and wide because it resonates with people on such a visceral level that they share it with those they love and care about. That I was given the opportunity to write a book about the concept has allowed the depth idea to spread without me. The TEDx Talk I gave that was posted on ted.com continues to spread far and wide not because of any social media strategy. It spreads because this message is inherently optimistic. It is inherently human. And those who believe in it share it.

The more organizations and people who learn to also start with WHY, the more people there will be who wake up feeling fulfilled by the work they do. And that’s about the best reason I can think of to continue sharing this idea.

Inspire on!

Simon Sinek
New York
July 28, 2011

INTRODUCTION

WHY START WITH WHY?

This book is about a naturally occurring pattern, a way of thinking, acting and communicating that gives some leaders the ability to inspire those around them. Although these “natural-born leaders” may have come into the world with a predisposition to inspire, the ability is not reserved for them exclusively. We can all learn this pattern. With a little discipline, any leader or organization can inspire others, both inside and outside their organization, to help advance their ideas and their vision. We can all learn to lead.

The goal of this book is not simply to try to fix the things that aren’t working. Rather, I wrote this book as a guide to focus on and amplify the things that do work. I do not aim to upset the solutions offered by others. Most of the answers we get, when based on sound evidence, are perfectly valid. 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.

The stories that follow are of those individuals and organizations that naturally embody this pattern. They are the ones that start with Why.

1.

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.

In 1965, students on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, were the first to publicly burn their draft cards to protest America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Northern California was a hotbed of antigovernment and antiestablishment sentiment; footage of clashes and riots in Berkeley and Oakland was beamed around the globe, fueling sympathetic movements across the United States and Europe. But it wasn’t until 1976, nearly three years after the end of America’s military involvement in the Vietnam conflict, that a different revolution ignited.

They aimed to make an impact, a very big impact, even challenge the way people perceived how the world worked. But these young revolutionaries did not throw stones or take up arms against an authoritarian regime. Instead, they decided to beat the system at its own game. For Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, the cofounders of Apple Computer, the battlefield was business and the weapon of choice was the personal computer.

The personal computer revolution was beginning to brew when Wozniak built the Apple I. Just starting to gain attention, the technology was primarily seen as a tool for business. Computers were too complicated and out of the price range of the average individual. But Wozniak, a man not motivated by money, envisioned a nobler purpose for the technology. He saw the personal computer as a way for the little man to take on a corporation. If he could figure out a way to get it in the hands of the individual, he thought, the computer would give nearly anyone the ability to perform many of the same functions as a vastly better resourced company. The personal computer could level the playing field and change the way the world operated. Woz designed the Apple I, and improved the technology with the Apple II, to be affordable and simple to use.

No matter how visionary or how brilliant, a great idea or a great product isn’t worth much if no one buys it. Wozniak’s best friend at the time, the twenty-one-year-old Steve Jobs, knew exactly what to do. Though he had experience selling surplus electronics parts, Jobs would prove to be much more than a good salesman. He wanted to do something significant in the world, and building a company was how he was going to do it. Apple was the tool he used to ignite his revolution.

In their first year in business, with only one product, Apple made a million dollars in revenues. By year two, they did $10 million in sales. In their fourth year they sold $100 million worth of computers. And in just six years, Apple Computer was a billion-dollar company with over 3,000 employees.

Jobs and Woz were not the only people taking part in the personal computer revolution. They weren’t the only smart guys in the business; in fact, they didn’t know much about business at all. What made Apple special was not their ability to build such a fast-growth company. It wasn’t their ability to think differently about personal computers. What has made Apple special is that they’ve been able to repeat the pattern over and over and over. Unlike any of their competitors, Apple has successfully challenged conventional thinking within the computer industry, the small electronics industry, the music industry, the mobile phone industry and the broader entertainment industry. And the reason is simple. Apple inspires. Apple starts with Why.

3.

He was not perfect. He had his complexities. He was not the only one who suffered in a pre–civil rights America, and there were plenty of other charismatic speakers. But Martin Luther King Jr. had a gift. He knew how to inspire people.

Dr. King knew that if the civil rights movement was to succeed, if there was to be a real, lasting change, it would take more than him and his closest allies. It would take more than rousing words and eloquent speeches. It would take people, tens of thousands of average citizens, united by a single vision, to change the country. At 11:00 a.m. on August 28, 1963, they would send a message to Washington that it was time for America to steer a new course.

The organizers of the civil rights movement did not send out thousands of invitations, nor was there a Web site to check the date. But the people came. And they kept coming and coming. All told, a quarter of a million people descended on the nation’s capital in time to hear the words immortalized by hi...

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0241958229
• ISBN 13: 9780241958223
• Binding: Paperback