Start with WHY!
Last week, I have completed another book titled “ Start with Why “ written by Simon Sinek. It was really inspirational and I am sharing my takeaway from the book here.
Any business revolves around three basic questions. Why, How, What !! The reason most business perishes over time is, they forgot the fact that why they are here. They forget about their purpose and start competing with each other. The book “Start with Why by Simon Sinek” reminds us of the importance of WHY !! When a company makes it clear to the customer why they even exist, They can attract the customers easily. Eventually answering “How” and “What” makes the journey easier.
Carrots and Sticks
According to Sinek, Anyone can follow two ways to bring the customers to their business either by inspiring the carrots or by manipulating the sticks. A business cannot thrive for a long time by manipulating the customers with cheap rates, better discounts, free goodies, and advertisements. Rather than any cheap discounts, focus more on making a quality product without compromising the vision.
Golden Circle
Simon Sinek introduces his approach towards leadership with a Golden Circle. It says Start with WHY, discuss the HOW, and end with WHAT.
Know your Why! Why do you want to build this product? Know the purpose.
How do you do?
What do you build?
Only a few companies understand the importance of Why and that makes them unique. The author cites the example of Apple. There exist a lot of cheap, low-cost Android devices available in the market with a similar configuration to an Apple device. Still, people go crazy about Apple because Apple products answer the question Why.
Creative Technology Ltd. a Singapore-based company introduced the first MP3 player with the campaign titled 5GB MP3 player. Meanwhile, Apple launched their IPod 2 years later with the campaign 1000 songs in your pocket. Can you see the difference? Creative Technology told us What is the storage capacity of their new device while Apple told us why we need the iPod?
“You have to know WHY you do WHAT you do. If people don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it, so it follows that if you don’t know WHY you do WHAT you do, how will anyone else? 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?”
Energy vs Charisma
Though people are motivated by energy, charisma is the one that inspires them. What makes someone a great leader is the charisma that they possess. When someone has the clarity to “why”, they have more charisma with them.
Sinek uses the example of Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Everyone knows, Steve Balmer has a strong voice to motivate people with his super energetic speech. The moment Steve Balmer gets onto the stage, everyone watching him gets super energized but it fades away sooner the presentation is done. While Bill Gates known to be shy and not someone known for his energetic voice takes command over the audience with his charisma. Though Bill Gates speaks less, people pay attention to his every word. That inspires them tevern after a week, a month, and sometimes even after years.
Revolutionary vs Evolutionary
“Companies that study their competitors in hopes of adding the features and benefits that will make their products “better” are only working to entrench the company in WHAT it does. Companies with a clear sense of WHY tend to ignore their competition, whereas those with a fuzzy sense of WHY are obsessed with what others are doing.”
Only very few companies focus on revolutionary changes while many other companies just evolve their existing product over time bringing some extra features.
When mobile phones were on the flow, all companies focused on adding extra features to them. Like a high-quality camera, storage extension, weight, etc. During those times the software ran on the mobiles are completely controlled by the carriers. But Apple was the first company to take full control over the software of the phone with a tie-up with AT&T though other carriers denied this demand. This became a revolutionary step that made them go big.
The New Competition:
When you are competing against the world, nobody wants to help you improve. But consider a scenario you are competing against yourself every single day. Everyone around you wants to help you.
Most of the companies are competing against each other. They wanted to beat the competition by offering faster service, cheap rates, discounts, and nobody wants to help them.
Just Imagine, if you go to your work every single day just to beat who you are yesterday. The growth will be tremendous and everyone around will try to help you beat yourself.
You are the best competition
Are you gonna build a startup?
Are you leading a big team?
Always remember,
“People don’t buy WHAT you do; they buy WHY you do it.”
Signing off with this famous quote from the book,
“If I had asked people what they wanted they would have said a faster horse.” — Henry Ford
