Start With Why- Most Important Passages Examined

This is perhaps the best book out there advocating for the importance of establishing a vision for an organization. Simon goes so far as to arguing that the vision is the foundation of success for any company.

The premise is that we can draw three concentric circles, with the outermost one titled "what," the middle one titled "how," and the innermost one titled "why." Basically, most companies focus on selling their product or service, their "what." However, this merely just scrapes the surface of why a customer should buy into you, based on the circle analogy. The core reason that will resonate with customers is their mission, their "why."

Although many of his points are outstanding, sometimes, I feel like there are holes in Simon's logic. At times, it seems like Simon is forcing the analogy so that it's relevant to every scenario, when it just isn't applicable.

In either case, I've outlined his major quotes and passages below, so you can be the final judge.

__________________________________________________________________________

Studies show that over 80 percent of Americans do not have their dream job.

Most Americans are also unhappy with their lives, although a major contributing factor may be dissatisfaction with their work. However, I think the reason for this is due to our idolization of the pinnacle with a disregard for the process.

Let me explain. We want the luxury lifestyle of relaxing on the beach every day, but we're unwilling to do the work to get there. We're unsatisfied until we actually attain that pinnacle lifestyle.

Yet, the process should be fulfilling in itself. Everyday should be seen as a closer step in attaining that dream. With this framework in mind, the very process isn't just a means to happiness, it becomes an end. How I see it is that fulfillment leads to happiness, and we can only be fulfilled when we're striving for our dreams, fighting complacency. I do recognize this may be completely subjective though.

But we could apply Simon's principles to this phenomenon. People's job seem monotonous and rote because they focus on the "what," instead of the "why." Once they align their personal beliefs to that of the organization and recognize their role is pivotal for the greater good, fulfillment is achieved and satisfaction is attained.

_____

This perceived truth impacted behavior. During this period, there was very little exploration. People feared that if they traveled too far they might fall off the edge of the earth. So for the most part they stayed put. It wasn't until that minor detail was revealed—the world is round—that behaviors changed on a massive scale. Upon this discovery, societies began to traverse the planet. Trade routes were established; spices were traded. New ideas, like mathematics, were shared between societies which unleashed all kinds of innovations and advancements.

Oftentimes, the only thing stopping us from trying anything new and discovering something remarkable is that it defies convention. But convention is only established with stagnation, with complacency.

An easy comparison is if we compare the digital revolution to the modern education system. Strides are made everyday to improve processor speed, performance, and user-friendliness, but the classroom has remained the same for over a century. The difference is that an environment has been cultivated that welcomes change for the digital world, while the reverse is true for the classroom.

Stagnation precedes further stagnation. Change precedes further change.

_____

There is a wonderful story of a group of American car executives who went to Japan to see a Japanese assembly line. At the end of the line, the doors were put on the hinges, the same as in America. But something was missing. In the United States, a line worker would take a rubber mallet and tap the edges of the door to ensure that it fit perfectly. In Japan, that job didn't seem to exist. Confused, the American auto executives asked at what point they made sure the door fit perfectly. Their Japanese guide looked at them and smiled sheepishly. "We make sure Japanese auto plant, they it fits when we design it." In the didn't examine the problem and accumulate data to figure out the best solution—they engineered the outcome they wanted from the beginning. If they didn't achieve their desired outcome, they understood it was because of a decision they made at the start of the process. At the end of the day, the doors on the American-made and Japanese-made cars appeared to fit when each rolled off the assembly line. Except the Japanese didn't need to employ someone to hammer doors, nor did they need to buy any mallets. More importantly, the Japanese doors are likely to last longer and maybe even be more structurally sound in an accident. All this for no other reason than they ensured the pieces fit from the start.

By streamlining the manufacturing process, Japan may have initially taken an extra step, but it pays off handsomely in labor fees, durability, and customer satisfaction. Every step of the way in delivering a perfect car, they understood the bigger picture, which in this case was to produce a functioning door, and examined how to best attain that.

_____

There's barely a product or service on the market today that customers can't buy from someone else for about the same price, about the same quality, about the same level of service and about the same features. If you truly have a first-mover's advantage, it's probably lost in a matter of months. If you offer something truly novel, someone else will soon come up with something similar and maybe even better. But if you ask most businesses why their customers are their customers, most will tell you it's because of superior quality, features, price or service. In other words, most companies have no clue why their customers are their customers. This is a fascinating realization. If companies don't know why their customers are their customers, odds are good that they don't know why their employees are their employees either. 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 and encourage loyalty among those they already have? The reality is, most businesses today are making decisions based on a set of incomplete or, worse, completely flawed assumptions about what's driving their business.

Another contributing factor to complacency with the flat earth effect. Once a first mover is established, others seem to replicate their feat, without thinking creatively how to better or usurp the former. The result is a continuum of similar products, which then establishes convention.

____

There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.

A very interesting outlook on human nature.

_____

Typical manipulations include: dropping the price; running a promotion; using fear, peer pressure or aspirational messages; and promising innovation to influence behavior—be it a purchase, a vote or support.

Note that all these tactics cover the "what" and "how." But to profoundly influence human behavior, we need to seek inspiration, which is only achieved through positing a "why."

_____

When companies or organizations do not have a clear sense of why their customers are their customers, they tend to rely on a disproportionate number of manipulations to get what they need.

We see a disparity of this in modern society where advertisements and commercials define these major corporations. Their marketing strategies solely involves manipulation to ensure profits.

But then there's others that don't believe in marketing and rely solely on word-of-mouth to spread their product or service's greatness. Customers are attracted to the vision. They're inspired by the company's efforts, thereby rendering conventional marketing efforts useless. A prime example is Tesla.

_____

For the seller, selling based on price is like heroin. 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 and lower in order to compete, find their margins cut slimmer and slimmer. This only drives a need to sell more to compensate. And the quickest way to do that is price again. And so the downward spiral of price addiction sets in. In the drug world, these addicts are called junkies. In the business world, we call them commodities.

The commodities that are forced to sell at lower and lower prices tend to miss relaying their "why." Apple products are heavily overpriced, but people justify the value in their heads by the vision: think different. People want to be different, and they align that belief to the company. They're willing to pay a premium for the brand.

The one exception is if your "why" is contingent on your price. Walmart was established as the first major retailer that provided innumerable products at drastically low prices for consumers.

_____

Scale helped Wal-Mart avoid the inherent weaknesses of a price strategy, but the company's obsession with price above all else has left it scandal-ridden and hurt its reputation. And every one of the company's scandals was born from its attempts to keep costs down so it could afford to offer such low prices.

Here, Simon belittles Walmart to conform to his original point of price, but I think it is wholly unnecessary. It isn't warranted to undermine Walmart due to their pricing strategy as they are still a successful multibillion-dollar company.

_____

Price always costs something. The question is, how much are you willing to pay for the money you make?

Play on words.

_____

But in the long term the incentives only helped to dramatically erode GM's profit margins and put them in a deep hole. In 2007, GM lost $729 per vehicle, in large part due to incentives. Realizing that the model was unsustainable, GM announced it would reduce the amount of the cash-back incentives it offered, and with that reduction, sales plummeted. No cash, no customers. The auto industry had effectively created cash-back junkies out of customers, building an expectation that there's no such thing as full price.

Pricing strategies may precede dangerous cycles of expectation and unsustainability, each which spurs on each other until the company becomes bankrupt. It becomes incredibly difficult to bounce back from adversity when this occurs.

It would have been nice if Simon examined GM's rise again.

_____

But perhaps one has a promotion—a free carrying case or free memory card. Given the relative parity of the features and benefits, that little something extra is sometimes all it takes to tip the scale.

Balance, a recurring theme in all the executive summaries I write.

_____

"No one ever got fired for hiring IBM," goes the old adage, describing a behavior completely borne out of fear. An employee in a procurement department, tasked with finding the best suppliers for a company, turns down a better product at a better price simply because it is from a smaller company or lesser-known brand. Fear, real or perceived, that his job would be on the line if something went wrong was enough to make him ignore the express purpose of his job, even do something that was not in the company's best interest.

Reputation allows for unreasonable pricing. The company has already spent their efforts in establishing themselves as a force to be trifled with, so it's only fair to now reap the rewards.

______

When fear is employed, facts are incidental. Deeply seated in our biological drive to survive, that emotion cannot be quickly wiped away with facts and figures. This is how terrorism works. It's not the statistical probability that one could get hurt by a terrorist, but it's the fear that it might happen that cripples a population.

Emotion overrides logic, another recurring theme in all the executive summaries I've written.

_____

"Quitting smoking is the easiest thing I've ever done," said Mark Twain. "I've done it hundreds of times."

Creative humor. An optimistic, albeit useless way of looking at things.

_____

Though positive in nature, aspirational messages are most effective with those who lack discipline or have a nagging fear or insecurity that they don't have the ability to achieve their dreams on their own (which, at various times for various reasons, is everyone).

It's interesting because I've previously written how like attracts like, but in this scenario, the very opposite principle applies. Opposites attract, even if it is one-directional. A hallmark that not everything can be applicable to anything.

_____

Gym memberships tend to rise about 12 percent every January, as people try to fulfill their New Year's aspiration to live a healthier life. Yet only a fraction of those aspiring fitness buffs are still attending the gym by the end of the year. Aspirational messages can spur behavior, but for most, it won't last.

This is why the motivation industry will never die. It's addicting. People will only want more and more, spurring them to take incremental action, forever.

_____

Managers of companies, big and small, all want to do well, so they make decisions, hire consultants and implement systems to help them achieve that desired outcome. But all too often, it is not the systems that fail but the ability to maintain them. I can speak from personal experience here. I've implemented a lot of systems or practices over the years to help me "achieve the success to which I aspire," only to find myself back to my old habits two weeks later. I aspire for a system that will help me avoid implementing systems to meet all my aspirations. But I probably wouldn't be able to follow it for very long.

We can be consulted and inspired for long term effects after original implementation if we have a symbol or reminder that instills a raging drive in us.

_____

The problem was, she explained, no matter the issue, the company's managers were always drawn to the quicker, cheaper option over the better long-term solution. Just like the habitual dieter, "they never have the time or money to do it right the first time," she said of her client, "but they always have the time and money to do it again."

Similarly, large corporations focus on short-term gain for commendable quarterly financial reports, while satiating investors and chairmen. On the surface, it seems like the dumb thing to do. It's intuitive to do things the best, to do them for the long-term solution.

Yet, perhaps, at times, the short term benefits may outweigh the long term advantages. Perhaps, it's better to satisfy investors with short-term gain than to risk losing their support in favor of an audacious, yet favorable move for the long term.

I'll admit I'm inexperienced to make a final claim, but it is a possibility that occurred to me while reading this passage.

_____

The peer pressure works because we believe that the majority or the experts might know more than we do. Peer pressure works not because the majority or the experts are always right, but because we fear that we may be wrong.

70 percent of your competitors are using their service, so why aren't you? But what if 70 percent of your competitors are idiots? Or what if that 70 percent were given so much value added or offered such a low price that they couldn't resist the opportunity?

We believe the majority is right. But the majority was only established because people started copying the original. It expands and multiplies until it becomes this insurmountable force.

Then, one individual defies convention, alters history, and allows all the followers to be hypocrites and laugh at the past.

This is essentially peer pressure.

_____

In contrast, relying on manipulations creates massive stress for buyer and seller alike. For the buyer, it has become increasingly difficult to know which product, service, brand or company is best. I joke about the proliferation of toothpaste varieties and the difficulty of choosing the right one. But toothpaste is just a metaphor. Nearly every decision we're asked to make every single day is like choosing toothpaste. Deciding what law firm to hire, college to attend, car to buy, company to work for, candidate to elect—there are just too many choices. All the advertising, promotions and pressure employed to tempt us one way or another, each attempting to push harder than the other to court us for our money or our support, ultimately yields one consistent result: stress. For the companies too, whose obligation it is to help us decide, their ability to do so has gotten more and more difficult. Every day, the competition is doing something new, something better. To constantly have to come up with a new promotion, a new guerrilla marketing tactic, a new feature to add, is hard work. Combined with the long-term effects of years of short-term decisions that have eroded profit margins, this raises stress levels inside organizations as well. When manipulations are the norm, no one wins.

Decision paralysis. The best way to combat this as a company is to run batches of experiments. Only hard statistics can tell you what you should do for your specific company. On the consumer side, you have to realize that ultimately, the decision doesn't matter. For example, no matter which college you attend, you will end up being happy there because each offer an experience of a lifetime.

_____

According to Whybrow, all those promises of more, more, more are actually overloading the reward circuits of our brain. The short-term gains that drive business in America today are actually destroying our health.

Something to consider.

_____

The example starts to prove that people don't buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.

The premise of the book.

_____

With the iPod and iTunes, Apple did a much better job of communicating the value of both the mp3 and the mp3 player relative to how we lived our lives. Their advertising didn't offer exhaustive descriptions of product details; it wasn't about them, it was about us. And we understood WHY we wanted it.

I'd like to point out that although we can deduce why we want it, it's oftentimes a subconscious decision. The iPod was the new big thing, allowing you to store thousands of song within your pocket. But that in itself was an attractive offer to buy. Upon closer scrutiny do we realize the reason why it's so attractive is because of the convenience, portability, and value it offers.

As marketers, tapping into the subconscious brain is important, but formulating an offer that just caters to the "what" can be effective as well.

_____

People couldn't see Dell as anything more than a computer company.

Fair point, but Simon here is proclaiming a point too narrow-minded. Companies can pivot and captivate different markets. Google started as a search engine, but there's miscellaneous products and services now in various disciplines that all befall under the name Google.

_____

For Apple, however, having the word "Computer" in their name didn't limit WHAT they could do. It limited how they thought of themselves. The change wasn't practical, it was philosophical.

This is an intriguing point. Having "Motors" in Tesla's name did not prevent them from originally creating commercial energy storage tanks, but the psychological impact of how the employees perceived their company may have an adverse effect. Thus, especially if Tesla wanted to dabble in other sectors, removing "Motors" from their name was a wise decision.

However, it's imperative to be focused and specific at first. Dominate a niche before expanding. The contrary is a surefire way to lose, as posited by leading executives like Peter Thiel in his book, Zero to One.

_____

And that's one of the primary reasons why so many companies feel the need to differentiate in the first place—based on the flawed assumption that only one group can be right. But what if both parties were right? What if an Apple was right for some people and a PC was right for others?

There will always be Apple vs PC wars, as each party remains loyal to their origin.

_____

"WHY did we start doing WHAT we're doing in the first place, and WHAT can we do to bring our cause to life considering all the technologies and market opportunities available today?"

I understand Simon's motive in capitalizing "why" and "what" but do not think it's particularly effective. Especially when an organization is founded upon just an idea. The idea might not be anything particularly moving; there might not have been an overarching grand vision for it. But if it was interesting and new, that was enough to get the ball rolling. Sometimes, there just isn't a "why," but that doesn't mean the company will be unsuccessful.

Just like how some psychologists posit there is an underlying motive for every behavior. Maybe there just isn't. And someone did something just for the sake of doing so.

Yet, we can always contemplate later and slap a vision that didn't exist to the origin to make the company's story sound better, so I guess there's some merit to Simon's statement.

_____

But when a company clearly communicates their WHY, what they believe, and we believe what they believe, then we will sometimes go to extraordinary lengths to include those products or brands in our lives. This is not because they are better, but because they become markers or symbols of the values and beliefs we hold dear. Those products and brands make us feel like we belong and we feel a kinship with others who buy the same things.

And when you build a loyal foundation, those without your product or service will feel left out.

_____

Look no farther than Apple's TV commercials "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC" for a perfect representation of who a Mac user needs to be to feel like they belong. In the commercial, the Mac user is a young guy, always in jeans and a T-shirt, always relaxed and always having a sense of humor poking fun at "the system." The PC, as defined by Apple, is in a suit. Older. Stodgy. To fit in with Mac, you have to be like Mac. Microsoft responded to Apple with its own "I'm a PC" campaign, which depicts people from all walks of life identifying themselves as "PC." Microsoft included many more people in their ads—teachers, scientists, musicians and children. As one would expect from the company that supplies 95 percent of the computer operating systems, to belong to that crowd, you have to be everyone else.

Still begs the question though... which is better? It's all subjective, and these companies recognize that. They try to broaden the scope of their markets by slightly altering their ideal customer avatar so that it's slightly more accommodating, without changing the grand scheme of things. But alas, the differences will persist forever (that is, unless one company does something incredibly stupid, and dies).

_____

Again, the part of the brain that controls decision-making doesn't control language, so we rationalize. This complicates the value of polls or market research. Asking people why they chose you over another may provide wonderful evidence of how they have rationalized the decision, but it does not shed much light on the true motivation for the decision. It's not that people don't know, it's that they have trouble explaining why they do what they do. Decision-making and the ability to explain those decisions exist in different parts of the brain.

This is fascinating, because the very reasons we determine why we do things may be entirely false.

_____

When you force people to make decisions with only the rational part of their brain, they almost invariably end up "overthinking." These rational decisions tend to take longer to make, says Restak, and can often be of lower quality. In contrast, decisions made with the limbic brain, gut decisions, tend to be faster, higher-quality decisions.

Our limbic brains are smart and often know the right thing to do. It is our inability to verbalize the reasons that may cause us to doubt ourselves or trust the empirical evidence when our gut tells us not to.

I think this is actually debatable depending on the circumstance. The limbic system is the most primitive part of our brain; it's the same that reptiles have. It's geared toward survival. When faced with a life-threatening event, one of the reactions we may subconsciously enforce is a complete freeze. Now logically, this makes no sense, but in the past, freezing might be a way so that predators will pass over us.

So the whole argument of higher-quality decisions is questionable.

_____

Companies that fail to communicate a sense of WHY force us to make decisions with only empirical evidence. This is why those decisions take more time, feel difficult or leave us uncertain. Under these conditions manipulative strategies that exploit our desires, fears, doubts or fantasies work very well.

Although true, this is where it's effective to, as other businessmen have opted, provide a value proposition that is exponentially higher than your competitors. The empirics then make it blatant that your product is better than others.

In fact, this might actually be more viable then the alternative of determining a "why" that aligns with your customers' values. A great product by itself doesn't need a grandiose manifested vision for consumers to buy it.

_____

Most companies are quite adept at winning minds; all that requires is a comparison of all the features and benefits. Winning hearts, however, takes more work. Given the evidence of the natural order of decision-making, I can't help but wonder if the order of the expression "hearts and minds"

Exactly the point I've made above! Sometimes, it might be easier just to have a really great "what" and "how" than a winning "why."

Another point I'd like to bring up is how do you draw the line between the concentric circles? Take Zappos for example. Their motto is "delivering happiness." That's the overarching "why," no question about it.

But if we delve into the subtleties such as great customer service, is that a "what," a "how," or another "why" in itself? "What" if we take for granted the very act of great customer service. "How" as a means to attain their company motto. Or "why" as in great customer service is just something that means a lot to Zappos because they wanted to be treated like kings as well, as human beings.

_____

Henry Ford summed it up best. "If I had asked people what they wanted," he said, "they would have said a faster horse."

Sometimes, it isn't helpful to ask customers what they want. This is what Steve Jobs discovered as he created the i lineup. People don't know what they want until you give it to them. Only then should you ask them for feedback for improvement and iteration.

_____

In reality, their purchase decision and their loyalty are deeply personal. They don't really care about Apple; it's all about them.

That's true; a company's vision, their "why," falls flat if it doesn't align with a customer's own personal values.

_____

For values or guiding principles to be truly effective they have to be verbs. It's not "integrity," it's "always do the right thing." It's not "innovation," it's "look at the problem from a different angle." Articulating our values as verbs gives us a clear idea ... we have a clear idea of how to act in any situation.

I personally don't think stating the definition of a word changes its effectiveness, but perhaps that's just me.

_____

What authenticity means is that your Golden Circle is in balance. It means that everything you say and everything you do you actually believe.

Transparency is key in the modern economy, especially as social media could be exploited to unveil all your good deeds or all your vices.

_____

At that point, it is the buyer who is at the greatest risk of ending up being inauthentic. If they buy something that doesn't clearly embody their own sense of WHY, then those around them have little evidence to paint a clear and accurate picture of who they are.

In a way, what we consume defines our own identities. We carve our true individuality, determined by the combinations and permutations of everything we interact with.

_____

"You know what I love about our company? Every single one of us comes to work every day to do something we love. We get to inspire people to do the things that inspire them. It's the most wonderful thing in the world. In fact, the fun part is trying to figure out all the different ways we can do that. It really is amazing. The best part is, it is also good for business. We do really well. We have beautiful offices, you should stop by sometime to see. We work with some of the biggest companies. I'm sure you've seen our ads. We're actually doing pretty well."

Going backwards, and starting with why. Makes it redundant and elongated, but strangely lofty and satisfying.

_____

Trust begins to emerge when we have a sense that another person or organization is driven by things other than their own self-gain.

Camaraderie is born when two or more individuals have to work together to achieve a common objective. It's the same idea.

_____

Bethune was very different. He understood that beyond the structure and systems a company is nothing more than a collection of people. "You don't lie to your own doctor," he says, "and you can't lie to your own employees."

It's for your own good.

_____

So Bethune told employees that each month Continental's on-time percentage ranked in the top five, every employee would receive a check for $65. When you consider that Continental had 40,000 employees in 1995, every on-time month cost the airline a whopping $2.5 million, But Bethune knew he was getting a deal: being chronically late was costing it $5 million a month in expenses like missed connections and putting Bethune was passengers up overnight. But most important to what the bonus program did for the company culture: it got tens of thousands of employees, including managers, all pointed in the same direction for the first time in years.

Something to consider...

_____

And on every check a message reminded them WHY they came to work: "Thank you for helping make Continental one of the best."

I'm reminded of the movie, The Wolf of Wall Street, where Jordan Belfort ends every sales call with "And welcome to Stratton Oakmont." It's different in that it isn't really a "why" statement, but it nonetheless ingrains in the other party's mind who you just dealt with.

_____

This is what happens when companies feel the need to pay mega-salaries to "get the best talent." Those people are not necessarily showing up because they believe in your WHY, they are showing up for the money.

But by having an outstanding company culture and vision, top talents may be compelled to choose you over another, even with a lower salary.

_____

The ability of a company to innovate is not just useful for developing new ideas, it is invaluable for navigating struggle. When people come to work with a higher sense of purpose, they find it easier to weather hard times or even to find opportunity in those hard times. People who come to work with a clear sense of WHY are less prone to giving up after a few failures because they understand the higher cause.

Which precedes a company with productive individuals that will outwork and outperform competitors.

_____

But not without trust. For those within a community, or an organization, they must trust that their leaders provide a net— practical or emotional. With that feeling of support, those in the organization are more likely to put in extra effort that ultimately benefits the group as a whole.

It's intriguing that Simon describes this trust in the form of a support net: practical or emotional. Of course, we tend to think of the emotional, of consoling others during hard times. However, a practical net involves providing the tools, resources, and circumstances for others to best perform.

It establishes a culture of preparedness, where the only thing needed and required is the hard work.

_____

The early majority, indeed the entire majority, need the recommendation of someone else who has already sampled the product or service. They need to know someone else has tested it. They need that trusted, personal recommendation. According to the Law of Diffusion, mass-market success can only be achieved after you penetrate between 15 percent to 18 percent of the market.

Each market sector you're targeting will be different, and they will have different needs before purchasing. Cater accordingly based on your product or service's timeline.

_____

You don't just want any influencer, you want someone who believes what you believe. Only then will they talk about you without any prompts or incentives. If they truly believe in what you believe and if they are truly on the left side of the curve they won't need to be incentivized; they'll do it because they want to. The entire act of incentivizing an influencer is manipulative. It renders the influencer completely inauthentic to his or her group. It won't take long for the group to find out that a recommendation wasn't made with the group's best interest in mind, but rather because of one person's self-interest. Trust erodes and the value of the influencer is rendered useless.

Influencers should only promote thins that would be native to their platform and personal identity and brand anyway. Thus, by applying this principle, not only will you just seek mutually beneficial relationships but you'll also maximize your time and efforts in reaching out.

_____

Compounding that bad aim, they attempted to appeal to the cynical majority by explaining WHAT the product did instead of stating WHY the company or the product existed in the first place.

I like what Simon calls the middle of the bell curve in the Law of Diffusions plot: the cynical majority. The trust from those already cynical needs to be established, and stating your "why" instead of your "what" is just a far more pragmatic solution to do just that.

____

His belief was bigger than the civil rights movement. It was about all of mankind and how we treat each other.

Something small should have a much larger purpose. Paradoxically, the larger you go, the vaguer the purpose becomes, and can be aligned to more people's beliefs and personal values.

____

But how many people showed up for Dr. King? Zero. They showed up for themselves. It was what they believed... This was a cause and it was their cause.

The vision attracts early adopters, not the execution. But the execution would simply attract more people, as they're curious to what all the hype is all about.

____

He gave the "I Have a Dream" speech, not the "I Have a Plan" speech. It was a statement of purpose and not a comprehensive twelve- point plan to achieving civil rights in America. Dr. King offered America a place to go, not a plan to follow. The plan had its place, but not on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

So belief trumps execution? Perhaps maintaining a grander vision is important, but without implementation, the idea's useless.

_____

More than anything else, what Martin Luther King Jr. gave us was clarity, a way to explain how we felt. He gave us the words that inspired us. He gave us something to believe in, something we could easily share with our friends... Everyone at the Mall that day shared a set of values and beliefs. And everyone there that day, regardless of skin color or race or sex, trusted each other. It was that trust, that common bond, that shared belief that fueled a movement that would change a nation.

Energy Excites. Charisma Inspires.

Hmmm...

_____

It's not Bill Gates's passion for computers that inspires us, it's his undying optimism that even the most complicated problems can being solved.

While this may or may not be true, I think it's dangerous thinking for us to become narrow-minded and perhaps even arrive at the wrong conclusion.

_____

Putting a man on the moon was one goal John F. Kennedy used to rally people to bring to life his belief that service to the nation—and not being serviced by the nation—would lead America to advance and prosper.

Perfect historical execution of "why."

_____

For every great leader, for every WHY-type, there is an inspired HOW-type or group of HOW-types who take the intangible cause and build the infrastructure that can give it life. That infrastructure is what actually makes any measurable change or success possible.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Elon Musk and Tom Mueller. Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz.

What's interesting is that although the "why" types may have contributed to the technical success of their respective companies, they could not have done it without their counterpart. What's more is that in some of the prime examples, the "how" type was the one who architectured the overarching vision, but wasn't adept at conveying it to millions of people.

That's where the "why" types come in. Although the "why" types remain the face of the company, (when you think of Apple, SpaceX, or Facebook, you just don't think about Wozniak, Mueller, or Moskovitz) they could have been inspired by the "how" types, not their own vision.

_____

The vision and charisma of the leader are enough to attract the innovators and the early adopters. Trusting their guts and their intuition, these people will make the greatest sacrifices to help see the vision become a reality. With each success, with every tangible demonstration that the vision can in fact become reality, the more practical-minded majority starts to take interest. What was previously just a dream soon becomes a provable and tangible reality. And when that happens, a tipping point can be reached and then things really get moving.

This is the (somewhat) actionable process Simon advocates for. I find a similar system authors' follow in nearly every book I read.

_____

And, like almost every HOW type, Roy never wanted to be the front man, he preferred to stay in the background and focus on HOW to build his brother's vision.

Without someone inspired by their vision and the knowledge to make it a reality, most WHY-types end up as starving visionaries, people with all the answers but never accomplishing much themselves.

Ask an entrepreneur what they love about being an entrepreneur and most will tell you they love to build things. That they talk about building is a sure clue that they know HOW to get things done.

The differential between the "how" and the "why" types.

_____

A shared upbringing and life experience increases the probability of a shared set of values and beliefs.

A reason why members of the same race tend to form their own groups of friendships. They all had similar backgrounds, and thus shared values and beliefs.

_____

For a message to have real impact, to affect behavior and seed loyalty, it needs more than publicity. It needs to publicize some higher purpose, cause or belief to which those with similar values and beliefs can relate. Only then can the message create any lasting mass-market success. For a stunt to appeal to the left side of the curve of the Law of Diffusion, WHY the stunt is being performed, beyond the desire to generate press, must be clear. Though there may be short-term benefits without clarity, loud is nothing more than excessive volume. Or in business vernacular: clutter...

But only the few people with front-row seats would have been inspired by those words. A leader with a cause, whether it be an individual or an organization, must have a megaphone through which to deliver his message.

Hmm..

_____

Gucci is a lifestyle brand— Apple changes the course of industries. By any definition these few companies don't function like corporate entities. They exist as social movements.

Simon's renowned for making such grandiose statements, but sometimes, they're right.

_____

To say that a logo stands for quality, service, innovation and the like only reinforces its status as just a logo. These qualities are about the company and not about the cause.

In truth, most people who tattoo Harley-Davidson logos on their bodies have no idea what the stock price of Harley is. They have no idea about some management shake-up the week before. That symbol is no longer about Harley. The logo embodies an en- tire value set—their own.

I've never read of something remotely similar to this. The logo should reflect the cause, and that involves more than just a symbol for quality, service, and innovation since that reinforces the characteristics of the company.

Outstanding.

_____

This commercial, like all Apple's advertising, is one of the things Apple has said or done that reinforces what they believe. It is every bit consistent with the clear belief we know they embody. And if the commercial speaks to you and you're not an Apple lover, odds are you still like the idea of thinking differently.

Apple mirrors my analysis of portraying a "why" message broad enough that it's applicable to nearly everyone. To do so, simply take the positive emotions we all strive to experience, and formulate that into words.

Here, we like to think that we're special. It then makes us feel loved, cared for, and important. Apple embodies this all in two words: think different.

_____

When we say that something like that "speaks to me," what we're really saying is, through all this clutter and noise, I can hear that. I can hear it and I will listen. This is what it means for a message that comes out of the megaphone to resonate.

The differential between hearing and listening.

______

The good news is, VW hasn't made the same mistake again, and their WHY remains clear. But if a company tries too many times to "seize market opportunities" inconsistent with their WHY over time, their WHY will go fuzzy and their ability to inspire and command loyalty will deteriorate.

Inconsistencies of the "why" isn't just an external phenomenon in which customers don't see an overarching vision the company strives for anymore. It's an internal one as well.

By focusing on "seizing market opportunities," the company only focuses on the "what" and perhaps the "how," while neglecting the all-important "why."

What's internal gets reflected externally.

______

"A computer can tell you down to the dime what you've sold, but it can never tell you how much you could have sold," said Walton.

Because emotion is such an innately human characteristic, robots won't be able to take all of our jobs in the future...

______

"Celebrate your successes," said Walton. "Find some humor in your failures. Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up and everybody around you will loosen up."

Behavior and mood are contagious. Control it, and don't let it control you.

______

In my vernacular, achievement comes when you pursue and attain WHAT you want. Success comes when you are clear in pursuit of WHY you want it. The former is motivated by tangible factors while the latter by something deeper in the brain, where we lack the capacity to put those feelings into words.

You achieve happiness. You pursue fulfillment.

______

Like a massive freight train with brakes applied, it will still take miles for this train to come to a complete stop.

So even if a vision is confused or lost, there is still hope.

______

Honore believes that people should not spend all their time at work, but rather they should work to spend more of their time with their families. Every employee at Honors Construction is required to clock in the morning and clock out in the evening. But there's a catch They must clock in between 8:00-8:30 a.m. and out by 5:00-5:3|j P.M. Stay any later and they are taken out of a bonus pool. Because employees know they have to leave by 5:30 p.m., wasted time has dropped to a minimum. Productivity is high and turnover in low. Consider how much you get done the day before you go on vacation. Now imagine every day is like that.

Wow.

______

There were three words missing from Bill Gates's goodbye speech when he officially left Microsoft in June 2008. They are three words he probably doesn't even realize need to be there. "I'll be back."

Hmmm....

______

It is worth considering how such a bad fit as Sculley even got the job at Apple in the first place. Simple—he was manipulated. Sculley did not approach Jobs and ask to be a part of Apple's cause. The way the real story unfolded made the fallout almost predictably Jobs knew he needed help. He knew he needed a HOW guy to help him scale his vision. He approached Sculley, a man with a solid resume, and said, "Do you want to sell sugar water your whole life or do you want to change the world?" Playing off Sculley's ego aspirations and fears, Jobs completed a perfectly executed manipulation. And with it, Jobs was ousted from his own company a few years later.

The manipulation play didn't work for the short-term as got ousted, but it sure paid off in the long run. Had Jobs not been proactive initially, there would be no Apple today.

Manipulation is just a negative version of persuasion, so I'm still uncertain how I feel about it. I have to finish Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power to decide that.

______

Worse, they may try to implement their own vision without considering the cause that originally inspired most people to show up in the first place. In these cases, the leader can work against the culture of the company instead of leading or building upon it. The result is diminished morale, mass exodus, poor performance and a slow and steady transition to a culture of mistrust and every-man-for-himself.

That first sentence underscores why leadership transitions are so incredibly important.

______

There was a time when Starbucks offered the option to sip your coffee out of a ceramic cup and eat your Danish off a ceramic plate. Two perfect details that helped bring the company's belief to life in the place between work and home. But ceramic crockery is expensive to maintain and Starbucks did away with it, favoring the more efficient paper cups. Though it saved money, it came at a cost: the erosion of trust. Nothing says to a customer "We love you, now get out" like a paper cup. It was no longer about the third space. It had become about the coffee. Starbucks's WHY was going fuzzy.

But by the time this had happened, Starbucks has already established itself as a power player in the coffee industry. And a power player with a fuzzy "why" beats a struggling startup with a clear vision of "why" any day.

What the difference will be in a decade is a completely different story.

______

But they liked the idea of giving other individuals the ability to avoid having to play by the rules of monopolistic forced a theme that would repeat many more times in Apple's future.

How ironic.. Apple is a monopoly.

_____

When you compete against everyone else, no one wants to help you. But when you compete against THE NEW COMPETITION yourself, everyone wants to help you.

I'm unsure what exactly Simon is proposing here. The new competition may prevent old players from becoming complacent for fear of being usurped. At the same time, if one is opposing new competition in completely different industries-- e.g. green energy vs coal mining-- sure, bureaucrats may want to help and preserve the status quo.

But is it for the best interest of the people? The "why" becomes muddled.

And most certainly, not everyone wants to help.

_____

What if the next time when someone asks, "Who's your competition?" we replied, "No idea." What if the next time someone pushes, "Well, what makes you better than your competition?" we replied, "We're not better than them in all cases." And what if the next time someone asks, "Well why should I do business with you then?" we answer with confidence, "Because the work we're doing now is better than the work we were doing six months ago. And the work we'll be doing six months from now will be better than the work we're doing today. Because we wake up every day with a sense of WHY we come to work. We come to work to inspire people to do the things that inspire them. Are we better than our competition? If you believe what we believe and you believe that the things we do can help you, then we're better. If you don't believe what we believe and you don't believe the things we can do will help you, then we're not better.

When I originally read this, the only note I took was "IMPORTANT!" That initial excitement still stands.

_____

Our goal is to find customers who believe what we believe and work together so that we can all succeed. We're looking for people to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us in pursuit of the same goal. We're not interested in sitting across a table from each other in pursuit of a sweeter deal. And here are the things we're doing to advance our cause ..." And then the details of HOW and WHAT you do follow. But this time, it started with WHY.

How to frame everything we do. Start with why.

Hence the title of the book.

__________________________________________________________________________

And with that, we're done!

If this executive summary and analysis provided any value for you, please share with a friend! I'd greatly appreciate any feedback and if you'd check out my other articles as well here.

Thanks again!