The Power of Starting with Why
There are very few leaders, products, or companies that create movements. Very few leaders that inspire loyalty, not just a single transaction. Very few leaders that motivate their followers and employees to stick with them through thick or thin.
Think of leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. Or companies like Apple, Southwest Airlines, or Harley Davidson. These leaders and companies started movements. They have incredibly loyal followers and customers.
What is it that separates them from the rest? It’s that these leaders, products, and companies start with WHY.
In his book Start With Why, Simon Sinek explains why this approach works, and how every aspiring leader can incorporate it. As Simon mentions throughout his book:
“People don’t buy WHAT you do; they buy WHY you do it.”
The Golden Circle
Simon provides a useful framework for his approach to leadership: the Golden Circle. At the center of the Golden Circle is WHY. The next concentric circle is HOW. And finally, the outermost circle is WHAT.
Every leader and company knows the WHAT. They can describe their products, their industry, and their competitors. Some companies also know HOW they do WHAT they do — their unique differentiators, their value proposition, and their values. But few companies know or articulate their WHY — their purpose, their cause or their belief. The WHY is their reason for being. And the WHY is why anyone should care.
Since the WHAT is the easiest to know and articulate, most leaders and companies start with WHAT. Sometimes they will also discuss HOW, but they rarely talk about WHY. With respect to the Golden Circle, they go outside-in.
Simon advocates that we should invert the order. Go from the inside-out in the Golden Circle. Start with WHY, discuss the HOW, and end with WHAT.
As Simon writes:
“When most organizations or people think, act or communicate they do so from the outside in, from WHAT to WHY. And for good reason — they go from clearest thing to the fuzziest thing. We say WHAT we do, we sometimes say HOW we do it, but we rarely say WHY we do WHAT we do.”
“When communicating from the inside out, however, the WHY is offered as the reason to buy and the WHATs serve as the tangible proof of that belief.”
Apple starts with why
A good example that Simon discusses is Apple. Is Apple a computer company? A consumer electronics company? A smartphone company? These are all expressions of WHAT. If Apple only identified itself with the WHAT, you might rightly ask, “What the heck is Apple doing in all of these disparate industries?”
But Apple doesn’t start with WHAT. They start with WHY. In the early 2000s, Apple started a campaign to communicate the WHY called “Think Different.”
Throughout its history, Apple has been a challenger, a disruptor, an innovator. With the Apple computer, they did this with the computer industry in the ‘70s and ‘80s. With iTunes and the iPod, they did it again with the music industry in the early 2000s. And with the iPhone, they did it again with the mobile phone industry in 2007. Each time, they stayed true to their WHY: “Think different.”
Millions and millions of consumers identify with the WHY. It’s why every single iPhone release is an industry phenomenon. It’s why customers camp out overnight and line up around the block for hours to get their hands on the newest iPhone. It’s why customers are willing to pay premium prices, even when cheaper Android alternatives exist. As Simon reminds us throughout the book:
“People don’t buy WHAT you do; they buy WHY you do it.”
In the case of Apple, they’re buying the WHY of “Think Different.” Of challenging the status quo, of being an innovator.
As Simon writes:
“We want to be around people and organizations who are like us and share our beliefs. When companies talk about WHAT they do and how advanced their products are, they may have appeal, but they do not necessarily represent something to which we want to belong. 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.”
Starting with WHY gives your followers and customers a way to identify with you on a personal level. If your WHY matches their WHY, they are willing to stand with you through thick and thin. Without a clear WHY, people default to the WHAT. Then you are always caught in this struggle to differentiate yourself in the sea of WHAT. And you are forced to differentiate yourself with features, or worse, with price. Simon describes this well below:
“Products with a clear sense of WHY give people a way to tell the outside world who they are and what they believe. Remember, people don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it. If a company does not have a clear sense of WHY then it is impossible for the outside world to perceive anything more than WHAT the company does. And when that happens, manipulations that rely on pushing price, features, service or quality become the primary currency of differentiation.”
WHY, HOW, and WHAT must all be in harmony
To build trust with your followers and customers, you need authenticity. What does that mean in practice? It means that your HOW (actions) and WHAT (results) have to be consistent with your WHY (beliefs). They all need to work together in harmony. People can detect inconsistencies, and when they do, you are perceived as inauthentic and you erode trust.
In order to create harmony between WHY, HOW, and WHAT, you need:
- Clarity of WHY
- Discipline of HOW
- Consistency of WHAT
Clarity of WHY
You need to know your own WHY and be able to articulate that WHY in simple, clear terms. For Apple, it’s “Think different.” For Southwest Airlines, its to be the champion for the common man and to make air travel accessible to all. Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, boils down their WHY to, “We’re in the business of telling stories.”
As Simon writes:
“You have to know WHY you do WHAT you do. If people don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it, so it follows that if you don’t know WHY you do WHAT you do, how will anyone else? If the leader of the organization can’t clearly articulate WHY the organization exists in terms beyond its products or services, then how does he expect the employees to know WHY to come to work?”
Discipline of HOW
Once you know and crisply articulate the WHY, you need the discipline to act in ways that support your purpose. This is where HOW comes in. The HOWs are the values and principles that guide your actions and decisions on a day-to-day basis. They are the true differentiators of your product or service.
As Simon writes, the discipline of HOW can be more difficult than the WHY:
“Ironically, the most important question with the most elusive answer — WHY do you do what you do? — is actually quite simple and efficient to discover… It’s the discipline to never veer from your cause, to hold yourself accountable to HOW you do things; that’s the hardest part.”
Consistency of WHAT
Finally, WHAT you do brings your WHY to life. A WHY is your core belief. HOWs are the actions and decisions you take to support the WHY. The WHAT is everything you produce. WHAT includes your products and services, but also your “marketing, PR, culture and whom you hire.”
It is critically important that WHAT you produce is consistent with WHY and HOW. The WHAT is the tangible proof that people see, and the WHAT needs to be reinforced over and over again to build trust. As Simon writes:
“If people don’t buy WHAT you do but WHY you do it, then all these things must be consistent. With consistency people will see and hear, without a shadow of a doubt, what you believe. After all, we live in a tangible world. The only way people will know what you believe is by the things you say and do, and if you’re not consistent in the things you say and do, no one will know what you believe. It is at the WHAT level that authenticity happens.”
Applying “Start with Why”
The principle of “Start with Why” can have powerful benefits in everything we do. In a sales discussion with a new customer, we can start with WHY to help customers self-select as to whether they believe in our cause. If they do, they will buy into WHY we do it rather than WHAT we do, which can set the stage for them to become a loyal customer. As a result, they will be willing to pay a premium, put up with the occasional hiccup, and be resistant to the manipulations of our competitors.
When recruiting, if we “Start with Why,” we can help potential employees self-select as to whether they believe in our cause. If they do, they will buy into WHY we do WHAT we do. In a startup, this belief in the WHY — the purpose — will sustain the employees through the inevitable ups and downs. When the company makes a major pivot, the employees will stand with them through thick and thin because they believe in the WHY. And when other companies come calling with solely extrinsic manipulations of better salary and title, these employees will think twice about exploring those other opportunities.
We can also use “Start with Why” as our compass for decision-making. When pursuing anything new and innovative, there are so many unknowns. Despite that, there are plenty of people who will tell you what to do, sometimes with a smug over-confidence. “It’s so obvious — you should just do X. How can you be so dense not to see that?” If you know your WHY, you can quickly and safely reject any HOW or WHAT suggestions that are inconsistent with the WHY.
This last point is especially important for PMs and entrepreneurs. You need to be able to focus. Steve Jobs once said, “Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.” If you start with WHY, you know your purpose. You can only do those few, important things that are consistent with your purpose. And you can say “no” to the many feature ideas that you hear for your customers, employees, and advisors that are inconsistent with your WHY.
You can also avoid the trap of focusing too much on your competitors and blindly copying whatever features they introduce. What they’re doing may work for them, but if it’s inconsistent with your WHY, it just doesn’t make sense to pursue. And more often than not, what your competitors are doing is likely to be inconsistent with your WHY.
As Simon writes:
“Companies that study their competitors in hopes of adding the features and benefits that will make their products “better” are only working to entrench the company in WHAT it does. Companies with a clear sense of WHY tend to ignore their competition, whereas those with a fuzzy sense of WHY are obsessed with what others are doing.”
As entrepreneurs, product managers, and leaders, we often depend on others for support. We can’t bring about transformative change on our own. We clearly need the help of others.
To earn true employee and customer loyalty, you have to start with WHY. Most people start with WHAT because it’s the easiest thing to communicate. Then they may discuss the HOW, but rarely the WHY.
In order to inspire, invert the order. Start with WHY (purpose), then HOW (values and actions and differentiators), and then WHAT (products and results). To communicate authentically, you need to keep WHY, HOW, and WHAT in harmony. People only see the tangible evidence (WHAT), and if that is inconsistent with what you say your WHY is, you appear inauthentic.
It’s not enough to just communicate the WHY once. As Simon writes:
“A company, indeed any organization, must work actively to remind everyone WHY the company exists. WHY it was founded in the first place. What it believes. They need to hold everyone in the company accountable to the values and guiding principles.”
So, if you’re starting a company, start with WHY. If you’re building a new product, start with WHY. If you’re leading a team or an organization, start with WHY. Remember that “People don’t buy WHAT you do; they buy WHY you do it.” The most effective leaders always win the heart first, and then the mind. And the only chance you have to win the heart if you start with WHY.
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6 Reasons Apple Is So Successful
Apple’s iPads and iPhones are displayed inside an Apple store in New York City on Dec. 7, 2011
One of the more interesting questions I get asked about as an industry analyst who’s followed Apple since 1981 is why Apple is so successful. It’s an honest question because to those unfamiliar with Apple, the company’s rise and current dominance in non-PC devices is somewhat puzzling.
Most people have a working understanding of the fact that Apple lost the PC wars to Microsoft, and only nominally understand that when Apple created the iPod and then the iPhone, the company started to go in a new direction. And anyone who’s gone into an Apple store knows full well that Apple’s customer service and stores represent the gold standard for selling and supporting tech gadgets. But beyond that, the reasons why Apple is really successful are still a mystery to many.
There are plenty of books about Apple that talk about everything from Steve Jobs’ history to tenets of Apple’s business models to secrets about Apple’s internal-management ideas. However, after years of watching Apple up close and personal and having to deal with every one of their CEOs, as well as interacting with various Apple execs over the years, I would like to suggest that the reasons the company is successful can be boiled down to six key principles that make it very hard for competitors to compete with Apple.
1. For any product that Apple creates, the people who create it have to want it themselves
So many times with projects I do with other tech companies, the goal is almost always based around the technology first, followed by whether or not people really want to use it. Geeky engineers are dazzled by the technology at their disposal and often create something because they can. But Apple’s approach is quite different. The engineers who are creating Apple products actually make them for themselves. And Jobs was the chief “user” of Apple products when he was alive. All of Apple’s products are based on the fact that Jobs represented the real customer. And his engineers had to come to grips with that when designing a product. It has to be something that they personally couldn’t live without.
2. The products have to be easy to use
Jobs was a stickler on this point. While industrial design is a critical component of any product Apple makes, if it is not easy to use, it is considered worthless to the consumer. This is what drove the company’s user-interface designs from Day 1 and is still the mantra pushed to the software and hardware engineers every day they go to work. All of the products they create have to be intuitive and easy to understand and learn. As technology has become more intricate and users want more features, the task of keeping things simple is sometimes difficult. And Apple creates tools for power users and rookies, which can mean a broad range of ease-of-use issues. But even with that, Apple is the only company I deal with where ease of use is more important than the product itself. Apple makes this a critical goal of its approach to creating anything for the market.
3. Keep things simple
I was in Paris in the past two weeks and had talks with various French telecommunications officials about many mobile-computing issues. But one conversation I had in particular emphasizes this keep-it-simple point. We were discussing how to compete with Apple — a major pastime for all Apple competitors and carriers these days — when the question of why Apple is really successful came up. And one exec nailed it when he said he felt that the real reason Apple is successful is because it has one product; in this case the iPhone. It minimizes the decisionmaking process for the consumer by making things simple. The person speaking was with a carrier in France, and he said that in their stores, they have to have as many as 25 different models of phones available. That makes it hard for his staff to be really knowledgeable about all of them all of the time, and their customers just have too many options to choose from.
But Apple only has one iPhone model, and anyone who has gone into an Apple store understands that every staff member there knows a great deal about each of the four major products carried in its stores. Apple doesn’t have five iPhone models to choose from; it has only one. While this may seem limiting given the amount of smart phones available to users, the truth is the reverse. Our company has done consumer research for over 30 years, and consumers constantly tell us that while choice is nice, in reality they want the process of choosing a tech product to be simple and not complicated by a plethora of choices.
Yes, there are tech-savvy people who like more choices and sometimes even like complexity, but from years of experience as a market researcher, I can tell you that in the end, the majority of users are not tech-savvy, and keeping things simple for them is a plus. Apple understands this in spades and is never tempted to add multiple versions of an iPhone, iPad or even more than one or two types of iPods. This makes buying an Apple product simple. And consumers seem to appreciate this considering the huge number of iDevices that are sold each year. I know the tech media and techies are the most vocal about this issue of choice, but in the end, while choice is good for competitive pricing, what nontechie consumers really want is simplicity.
4. Offer great customer service and in-store experiences
Jobs understood one of the major conundrums of technology: even if you create products that are easy to use, the variety of things that people want to use technology for often creates complexity. Because of this, consumers at all levels may need some hand holding from time to time. I was one of the most vocal critics of Apple when it introduced its first retail store in Tokyo in 2002. I thought it was crazy for Apple to try and go into retail. At the time, and even today, tech retail stores are in decline while big-box stores like Costco and Walmart sell products on price and nothing else. I thought that if price were the issue, an upscale retail store would be DOA. Wow, were other naysayers and I wrong about Apple’s retail strategy.
Apple uses this conundrum to its advantage. Because it keeps product SKUs simple, the salespeople inside the stores know the products really well. Notice that when you go into an Apple store and are greeted by one of the sales staff, you’re not asked, “How can I help you?” Instead they ask, “What would you like to do today?” They go right to the heart of any technology user’s question, a question that’s always related to what they want to do with the technology the user is interested in.
And once you explain your needs, they take care of it on the spot in most cases. Or if you need more hand holding, they turn you over to the Apple Geniuses. No wonder 50% of people buying Apple products are new to Apple. Apple’s products are simple to understand and use, but if you do have a problem, Apple can take care of it at their stores or over the phone quickly.
5. Apple only makes a product if Apple can do it better
Apple normally doesn’t invent a new product or product category. Sure, the company did invent the first commercial PC with the Apple II, and the Mac improved on PCs with a graphical user interface and mouse input. But since then, all of Apple’s other products have been recreations of existing products. Apple did not invent the MP3 player; Apple reinvented it and made it better. Apple did not invent the smart phone; Apple reinvented it and made it better. And Apple did not invent the tablet; Apple reinvented it and made it better.
As Apple designer Jonathan Ive said recently, “Our goals are very simple — to design and make better products. If we can’t make something that is better, we won’t do it.” Clearly, Apple applied that thinking first to iPods, then smart phones and more recently, to the iPad.
6. Apple stays at least two years ahead of its competitors
This is the one that scares Apple’s competitors the most. While those competing with Apple are just getting products to market that are competitive, Apple is already working on the products at least two years out. For example, the new iPhone that will most likely go to market in October was designed and signed off on two years ago. And the iPhone the company is working on now is for the fall of 2014. The same goes for the iPad. The new iPad that we will most likely see next March was signed off on two years ago. The one that’s being worked on now we will probably see in 2015. This is a nightmare for Apple’s competitors and will continue to be for some time.
Besides having geniuses in design, software and retail, Apple also has the cash to invent components, manufacturing processes and things like that, which almost makes it impossible for the competition to make any real headway against Apple. And don’t let the fact that Android has become the No. 1 smart-phone operating system make you think that it’s the big winner. Yes, Android has gained ground by the sheer numbers of companies and products pushing Android. But the real measure of success is in the profits, and Apple is making as much as 70% of all the profits in smart phones and about 85% of the profits in tablets. Just ask any Android competitor which they would like more, market share or profits. You’ll get the answer relating to the real measure of success in this market.
These six principles may seem a bit simplistic given the fact that Apple also has great software, industrial design and a powerful ecosystem of content, apps and services as part of the company’s success equation. However, I can tell you that from my three decades of following Apple, it’s these six key principles that are what really makes it successful. And as long as it adheres to them, it’s pretty likely that Apple will continue to grow and command a relatively large share of the market in the company’s product categories where it competes.
Bajarin is the president of Creative Strategies Inc., a technology-industry-analysis and market-intelligence firm in Silicon Valley.
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