What’s in it for me? Learn to inspire others by leveraging the power of why.
How to inspire . . . and how not to
Sinek identifies two main ways to influence the behavior of others, whether they’re your employees or customers: inspiration and manipulation. And while companies want to be inspirational, many of them are actually manipulative.
Apple and the Golden Circle
The why describes the mission of a business or organization. Why was it founded? What is its main goal?
Here’s a last good reason to know your why: once you know your purpose, you’ll automatically attract those who share it. This is particularly important when it comes to hiring. You’ll be able to filter out the bystanders and freeloaders – those that are only in it for the money or for prestige. You’ll then be left with people who are inherently passionate about your mission. If you really start with your why, it’ll be easier to continue on with it once you have the right people on board.
How to start with why
Once you’ve found your why, move on to step number two. That’s finding a way to clearly communicate your why. If you can’t, people won’t understand you. There are thousands of leaders who know what they want, but their companies never take off because they struggle to get the message across. From their perspective, others just don’t “get it.” Well, if you’re serious about your why, that’s not an option. No two ways about it: inspiring leaders have to know how to clearly communicate their why.
Here’s where we bring back the Golden Circle, which has the why in the center, the how in the middle, and the what in the outer ring. The key to inspiring leadership is to communicate from the inside out. Put simply, whatever you communicate, always start with why you do things. Then move on to how you do them before moving on to what exactly you do. Never go in the other direction, leaving your why for last. This is just as true for internal communications as it is for marketing messages.
Final summary
It’s the story of two medieval stonemasons at a large construction site. You go up to the first one and ask him if he likes his job. He says: “Well, it’s really a drag, if you want to know the truth. It’s burning hot in the sun and the work is back-breaking, just one stone after the other. And I don’t even know if I’ll live long enough to see the end result of what I’m doing here. So in short: no. I don’t like it at all.”
Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?
Then you walk up to the second stonemason and ask him the same question.
He says, “Well, as you can imagine, it’s pretty monotonous, it’s hot and not particularly good for my lower back. I’ve been doing this for years now, and I don’t even know if I’ll live long enough to see the end result. But you know what, despite all the drudgery, I love it. It’s worthwhile, because I’m building a cathedral!”
Those two stonemasons are doing exactly the same work. But the second one does it with a sense of purpose. He knows what he’s doing it for – he’s building a cathedral. He’s inspired. And this is exactly your job as a leader: Remind everyone why they’re doing something. Give them cathedrals.
