Business Book Review: ‘Start with Why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action’ by Simon Sinek
19/06/2018

Summarised by Keith Thompson
Introduction
[su_row][su_column size=”2/3″]Why do you do what you do? This is the key question Simon Sinek asks in his bestselling book. In this book, Sinek addresses what many leaders and managers within organisations I think are missing. “Start with Why” addresses what is essentially an organisation’s purpose, why does it exist, what need does it fulfil or what problem does it solve?
Sinek talks about great people such as Martin Luther King, Steve Jobs and the Wright brothers in trying to discover what, in a range of disparate people, made then so successful, innovative and influential.
Sinek became famous or infamous through a 20-minute TED Talk (video below) on the same subject. The TED Talk essentially covers the content of the book. However, the book has many more examples and stories such as Sam Walton of Walmart, Herb Kellerman of South West Airlines and Bill Gates of Microsoft. At the expense of becoming repetitive, all these examples drive home his key point – Start with Why.
[/su_column] [su_column size=”1/3″]
The initial parts of the book maintain a remarkable similarity to the TED talk, but the examples in the latter portion show how great leaders change the face of their companies by focusing on “Why”.
Sinek introduces a tool that he has developed called the Golden Circle. This tool effectively centres around Purpose or Why. The Golden Circle is an alternative way of looking at Mission Command / Centralised Intent – subjects of some of our recent blogs.
[su_row][su_column size=”1/2″] The tool can work two ways.Most organisations probably know “What” they do. In parts of those organisations some will know “How” they do it. But very few people in these organisations will know “Why” they do it. So you can eventually get to Why through starting with What and then How.
[/su_column] [su_column size=”1/2″]Used the other, and arguably more powerful, way we start with Why we are going to do something. When we know Why, we can then go on to develop How we do something and once we know How we will know What to do maintaining a clear line sight to the Purpose or Why.
[su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/Wb8KpHqU5tg”]Consisting of 14 chapters, in six effective parts, it is very easy to read in a day or over the weekend. Following on from his book Sinek has written two further books – the second, on a similar theme, entitled “Find your Why” and his third entitled “Leaders Eat Last”
Categories & Tags:
Leave a comment on this post:
You might also like…
Jubilee weekend opening hours for Library services
Library services will change over the weekend of Thursday 2 until Sunday 5 June for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. Kings Norton Library and Management and Resource Centre (MIRC) Both library spaces will be open for ...
‘Meet the bees’ tour May 2022
When I started working at Cranfield University in March 2021, a couple of the things that I really liked were the amount of green spaces and their dedication to become more environmentally friendly. I’ve never ...
Introducing…. Orbis BankFocus
For anyone researching the financial sector, Orbis BankFocus is a great place to start, providing financial and company data for finance institutions and companies. The service allows you to search for a single company or ...
Me, myself, and anxiety
Then and now I remember the moment very well – I was sat at a desk talking to my boss, pointing out the key elements of a strategic plan. I was in quite a stressful ...
“My Cranfield degree transformed me as a person”
Kalyani Hedge (Management MSc, 2021), is currently working as the Head of Supply Chain, Administration and Legal at Nandu Chemicals Private Limited. We caught up with Kalyani to find out more about her experiences ...
“Studying at Cranfield encouraged me to move out of my comfort zone”
For marketing professional Jim Davies, studying for a part-time MSc in Marketing and Leadership at Cranfield School of Management was the catalyst for making a bold career move after more than a decade spent ...