Start With Why is really starting to take shape for me. As we dove into Part 3 of the book, we finished chapters 6 and 7. This part of the book was talking about leaders needing a following and revolved around ‘trust’ as the way to accomplish that.
First a few observations about my experience with Start With Why. So far, this book has been an eye opening read. And while nothing in the book has really had breakthrough information, the message and how Simon Sinek presents his arguments truly give you numerous ‘aha moments’. It’s changing the way I think about leadership in a very good way.
My good friend Winter Perkins (who recommended to the book club that we should read this) said it best;
“…not much in the way of a breakthrough… more of an AHA! This is what I lost or have been missing! It’s like connecting all the dots from your life & finally realizing what drives you…”
And these two chapters did that for me in a big way. It discussed trust and how important it is to your Golden Circle. Simon shared examples of Southwest airlines again and even the turn around story of Continental Airlines from a few years ago. The real world examples that are shared in these chapters really helped me see how important trust is to the big picture and your reason why.
I loved when it discussed the history of Samuel Pierpont Langley and the Wright Brothers…
Langley was destined to win. He was going to be the first to take flight back in the early 1900’s. He had the connections. The resources and the capital. But he was focused on his own glory and his WHAT. The Wright Brothers on the other hand, had their big WHY, and little to no experience when it came to aviation. Well as the history books show, we can see who are considered the founding fathers of modern flight.
The case study really hammered home their reason why.
In chapter 7 he dove into tipping points and how important they are as well to ‘why’. The case study he used was TiVo and while this had all it’s ducks in a row, it forgot it’s WHY and focused on WHAT. And because of that and the marketing the product did, it never really caught on. Sure we ‘tivo’ things, but are we using a real TiVo? Or just a DVR box our cable companies provided…That is an eye opener if there has ever been one!
These two chapters gave me plenty to think about and more importantly, cemented the reasons we need to build solid trust within our businesses because it all comes back to ‘WHY’. When your team mates, and partners are all on board and they trust each other, it’s a rallying cry for ‘why’.
Without trust, there can be no ‘WHY’.
I’d love to hear your take away from chapters 6 & 7! What did you think of all the real world examples that Simon shared?
Part 3 really drove the importance of my WHY home for me too! I mean I’ve had successes, and I’ve had great ideas, and I’ve worked really hard… but where was I going? Why was I trying to get there? Like the REAL why… not the standard “I want to be successful & pay my bills” general why.
There are SO MANY definitions of success, so many ways to be successful & so many ways to get there. I’ve been lost at times in my life in those millions of combinations. This book allowed me to look at my life, look at my passions and figure out what’s been driving me all along… crystal clear focus on who I am, what I want to bring to the world and WHY it’s important.
I loved what he said too when he mentioned that EVERYONE is passionate, we’re just not all passionate about the same things. Again, nothing new but when he said that and combined it with the ‘reasons why’ it gave me some huge lightbulb moments.