How to Build an Amazing Culture in an Organization

A review of Simon Sinek’s Book, Start With Why

Why do some companies build an amazing culture and others don’t? In Simon Sinek’s book, Start With Why, he explains why and how some companies can build a truly amazing culture where employees want to come to work and customers choose to be loyal, even paying premiums for the company’s products and services.

According to Sinek, the WHY relates to an organization’s or a leader’s values and purpose. If a leader can articulate their purpose and values, others who believe in those values and purpose will support them and join them. This creates a strong culture where everyone is working towards the same higher purpose. People are excited to come to work and customers go out of their way to buy that company’s products and services.

People don’t buy WHAT you do. People buy WHY you do it.

That’s the premise of Sinek’s book. He discusses what he calls “The Golden Circle” depicted below. We all have a good idea of WHAT we do and HOW we do it. That tends to be what we articulate in our social posts, ads, and on our websites. The WHY, though, is the more difficult and challenging to articulate. But this is the reason people buy from you. It’s WHY you do what you do; not WHAT you do that attracts your loyal customers. The goal, then, is to promote from the inside out. Start with WHY, then communicate HOW, and then talk about WHAT.

Throughout his book Sinek gives examples of companies we all know – Apple, Southwest Airlines, TiVo, and more – that succeeded or didn’t because they either knew their WHY and articulated it or they didn’t. Apple and Southwest know their WHY. They just happen to produce computers or provide an economic means of travel for the common person. TiVo may have a great product, but they never communicated their WHY. It appears they are still selling their WHAT on their website as it’s all about their product features. It doesn’t speak to WHY someone should buy their product. It describes lots of WHAT’s.

By contrast, the home page on the Apple website welcomes you to the “era of spatial computing”. Even the promotion for iPhone 15 promotes their WHY in the simple statement: “New camera. New design. Newphoria.” The Watch is all about “Next level adventure.” That’s the WHY, not the WHAT. It appeals to those “Innovators” and “Early Adopters who seek excitement and adventure and have the desire to be the first to have the latest and greatest.

According to Sinek, companies do best when they promote and communicate their WHY, their purpose, their reason for being in business, and target that communication to the “Innovators” (about 2.5% of the population and the “Early Adopters” (13.5% of the population). These are the people who believe what you believe and will follow your purpose (your cause) because it resonates with them. They are the ones who stand in line to get the latest Apple phone or watch, who buy yet another set of earbuds because they’re the latest thing with more and better features. But they don’t just buy any earbuds or phones or watches. They buy the Apple brand because they believe in the cause, their vision: “To make the best products on earth and to leave the world better than we found it.” Now that’s a cause.

Don’t market to the middle comprised of the Early and Late Majority, says Sinek. That’s expensive and they won’t buy until they have seen and heard what the Innovators and Early Adopters have to say about your product or service. (See the bell curve graph below.)

Read more here.