Book Review - Start with Why (by Simon Sinek)

Part 1/3

This book was gifted to me by one my closest friend while I was about to leave my last organization.

Important Lessons :

1. Since beginning of any project ensure initial steps are 100 % right. Otherwise short term tactics will resolve the issue. But will lead to inferior quality products/life/organization.
2. If most companies don't really know why their customers are their customers or why their employees are their employees, then how do they know how to attract more employees & encourage loyalty among those already have?
3. There are only two ways to influence human behavior : you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.
4. The short term gain is fantastic, but the more you do it, the harder it becomes to kick the habit. Once buyers get used to paying a lower than average price for a product or service, it is very hard to get them to pay more. And the sellers, facing overwhelming pressure to push prices lower & lower in order to compete, find their margins cut slimmer & slimmer.
5. Carrots & Sticks Motivator - Price, Promotions, Fear, Aspirations, Peer Pressure, Novelty.
6. Aspirational messages are not only effective in consumer market, they also work quite well in business to business transactions. Managers of companies, big & small, all want to do well, so they make decisions, hire consultants & implement systems to help them achieve that desired outcome. But all too often, it is not the system that fail but the ability to maintain them. " They never have the time & money to do it right the first time; but they always have the time & money to do it again".
7. Repeat business & loyalty - Repeat business is when people do business with you multiple times. Loyalty is when people are willing to turn down a better product or a better price to continue doing business with you. Loyalty is not easily won. Repeat business, however is. All it takes is more manipulations.
8. Manipulations are a perfectly valid strategy for driving a transaction, or for any behavior that is only required one or on rare occasions. Manipulations will work if the incentive feels high enough to mitigate the risk. The American car industry learned the hard way the high cost of relying on manipulations to build a business when loyalty was what they really needed to nurture.
9. Knowing you have a loyal customer & employee base not only reduces costs, it provides massive peace of mind. It is the feeling of "we're in this together," shared between customer & company, voter & candidate, boss & employee, that defines great leaders.