If there is one secret in life that one never knows fully it is the secret to success. Simon Sinek, author of many books like, “Leaders Eat Last” and “The Infinite Game”, gives his perspective in his book “Start with Why”.
Sinek draws three concentric circles and writes WHY within the smallest one, HOW within the second or middle one and WHAT in the last and third circle. Using this sketch he explains, “Every single person knows what they do. Some know how they do it...but very, very few people or organizations know why they do what they do. And by “why” I don't mean “to make a profit”. That's a result. It's always a result. By “why”, I mean: What's your purpose? What's your cause? What's your belief? Why does your organization exist? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? And why should anyone care?”
Sinek says the WHAT tells us, “...the way we think, we act, the way we communicate is from the outside in, it's obvious. We go from the clearest thing to the fuzziest thing. But the inspired leaders and the inspired organizations – regardless of their size, regardless of their industry – all think, act and communicate from the inside out.” That is by answering the WHY.
Sinek continues, “If Apple were like everyone else, a marketing message from them might sound like this: ‘We make great computers. They're beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. Want to buy one?’...That's how most of us communicate. We say what we do, we say how we're different or better and we expect some sort of a behaviour, a purchase, a vote, something like that.”
How Apple communicates is different says Sinek which goes, “Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. We just happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?”
Sinek asserts that, “None of what I'm telling you is my opinion. It's all grounded in the tenets of biology. If you look at a cross-section of the human brain, from top down, the human brain is actually broken into three major components that correlate perfectly with the circle. Our newest brain, our Homo sapien brain, our neocortex, corresponds with the ‘what’ level. The middle two sections make up our limbic brains, and our limbic brains are responsible for all of our feelings, like trust and loyalty. It's also responsible for all human behaviour, all decision-making, and it has no capacity for language. In other words, when we communicate from the outside in...people can understand vast amounts of complicated information...It just doesn't drive behaviour. When we can communicate from the inside out, we're talking directly to the part of the brain that controls behaviour...This is where gut decisions come from.”
