1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Start With Why

Why do some companies thrive while their competitors fail? According to business and leadership expert Simon Sinek, the key difference is the company’s purpose (or lack thereof). In Start With Why, Sinek explains how to build an organization that puts its values at the center of its business. The core concept is simple and straightforward: Great companies know why they’re in business, and that mission guides everything they do.

Sinek is an author, motivational speaker, and organizational consultant best known for his insights on leadership and business strategy. He rose to prominence with his TEDx Talk, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action,” which has received nearly 70 million views. He quickly followed that video with Start With Why (2009)—his first book and a global best seller.

We’ll start this guide by explaining why a core purpose or mission will make your company more successful than any product will. Then we’ll discuss how you can use that “why” to guide everything your company does and every decision you make. Finally, we’ll explore how you can stay focused on that mission as your company grows and evolves.

Our commentary will compare and contrast Sinek’s ideas with those in other influential business books, such as Purple Cow and No Rules Rules. We’ll also provide some actionable steps to help you start creating your own WHY-focused company.

Why to Start With WHY

Sinek begins by defining WHY, HOW, and WHAT in terms of a business. He also explains that your WHY must come first because it leads to your HOW and your WHAT.

The WHY: This is your company’s overarching vision and core belief. It’s the ultimate motivation behind your service or product, the mission you stand for, and the idea that gets you out of bed in the morning. In short, your WHY is the whole reason you’re in business.

The HOW: HOW refers to the steps you must take to achieve your WHY—the practical, operational knowledge that will bring your vision to life.

(Shortform note: Sinek provides additional guidance in Find Your Why. In that book, he suggests writing a purpose statement: a single sentence that describes the impact you want your company to have (your WHY) and the core action of your business (the HOW). For example, the Walt Disney Company’s mission statement includes “...to entertain, inform and inspire people around the globe (its impact) through the power of unparalleled storytelling (its core action)...”.)

The WHAT: Finally, your WHAT is the specific product or service you’re selling. It’s the tangible part of your company and therefore the easiest to identify.

(Shortform note: You can test your WHAT using what Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) calls a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). An MVP is a bare-bones prototype of the product you want to sell, which you make as quickly and cheaply as possible. Note that an MVP is not a final product; it’s just a means to collect data and feedback about your idea.)

In this section we’ll explain how your company’s WHY, HOW, and WHAT come together to create what Sinek calls the Golden Circle. We’ll then explain how your central WHY inspires both your customers and your employees. Finally, we’ll briefly explore the opposite situation: what happens when a business starts with WHAT, and why Sinek says such businesses are doomed to failure.

The Golden Circle: WHY, HOW, and WHAT

Sinek introduces the Golden Circle model of business strategy. The Golden Circle looks like a target, where the WHY is the bull’s-eye, the HOW is the middle ring, and the WHAT is the exterior ring.

When you start with WHY, you build your company’s message from the inside out—your HOW and WHAT become extensions of your WHY. As a result, customers want to engage with your product because they believe in it. They become loyal to you and your company, which builds your brand and spreads your message.

Conversely, if you start with HOW or WHAT, you’re simply building a hollow shell with no core belief or vision. In this case, your WHY becomes a shallow justification for your business rather than the actual reason it exists. Customers will recognize that you don’t really believe in your mission, so you’ll lose their trust (and their business).

The Pyramid of Goals

Sinek’s explanation of WHY, HOW, and WHAT aligns with Angela Duckworth’s pyramid of goals from Grit. They describe similar structures of purpose and action—Sinek from the perspective of business, and Duckworth from the perspective of your individual goals. Applying Duckworth’s framework gives a more practical understanding of how your WHY translates into daily work.

In Duckworth’s framework, your overarching purpose (what Sinek calls your WHY) is the tip of the pyramid. Beneath that are a number of major, long-term goals that support your purpose—the HOW that leads to the WHY. Those goals, in turn, are supported by numerous short-term goals that form the base of the pyramid. These short-term goals roughly correspond to WHAT: the specific actions you take to reach the goals that will accomplish your overall mission.

For example, let’s say your main goal is to tell uplifting stories to people all over the world. Long-term goals to support that mission could include becoming a professional author and starting a publishing company to...

Start With Why Summary Introduction: Why Start With Why?

Certain companies and leaders inspire people around them to achieve amazing goals. They mobilize people beyond using personal incentives and rewards - instead, they make people feel a sense of purpose and belonging to a community.

These effective leaders Start With WHY - they communicate the purpose of what they are doing and the impact their work will have.

Here are three examples of leaders who put their WHY first.

Story 1: Samuel Pierpont Langley vs. The Wright Brothers

Samuel Pierpont Langley had a goal: he wanted to be the first man to build a working airplane. He seemed like the perfect man for the job: he was a senior officer at the Smithsonian Institution, had been a mathematics professor at Harvard, and had secured a $50,000 grant from the War Department to help fuel his ambitions.

Already an established man, he sought fame and glory. He wanted to have the same level of fame as a Thomas Edison. He wanted the result more than the WHY itself.

A few hundred miles away, two brothers--Will and Orville Wright--had the same vision but none of the resources. They had no funding, no government connections, and no one on their team had a college...

Shortform Exercise: Learn to Identify the WHY

Now that you’ve had a brief introduction to why a person, movement, or company’s WHY is important, let’s think of some other examples.

We’ve seen three examples of people and companies that start with WHY, i.e. a core idea that motivates them and inspires others. Can you think of another example of a person, movement, or company that starts with WHY? What is their WHY?

Start With Why Summary Chapter 1: Trust Your Intuition

Business runs on a series of decisions. Whether it’s deciding what to sell, who to sell it to, or how to staff your organization, leaders have to make tons of decisions every day.

Many businesses and people rely on data to guide their decision making. We obsess over discovering details, thinking this will lead to better decisionmaking. We read books and journals, go to trade conferences, and ask our friends for more information.

But in many situations, more data doesn’t help make a better decision. We’re often tempted to think that a project didn’t work because of some missing vital detail. But sometimes, we have the entire premise of our information gathering incorrect, or we start with a wrong critical assumption. In these cases, no amount of extra data would have helped us make the right decision.

Sinek uses an example to illustrate how easily we can make mistaken...

Start With Why Summary Chapter 2: Manipulations Don't Work

All businesses need to motivate customers and employers to do something, whether that’s buying a product or just performing a job.

There are two ways we can motivate people to act: manipulation and inspiration.

• Manipulations use outside influences to get people to buy a product or service. They use the “carrots and sticks” model of behavior reinforcement. While manipulations may produce short-term gains, they don’t create long-term loyalty.
• Inspiration causes a person to act from internal will, not from outside influence. Commonly, these people are inspired by a company’s WHY. Inspirations encourage loyalty, and loyalty leads to repeat business.

Six Common Manipulations (And Why They Fail)

Here are six common manipulation tactics and why they don’t work.

#1: Price

Lower prices induce people to buy, so companies engage in price wars and sell at rock-bottom prices.

But price manipulation can be dangerous for a company. When a customer becomes used to paying a low price, it can be nearly impossible to increase the cost of an item.

This creates a market of commodities, where companies have to create more products to keep their...

Start With Why Summary Chapter 3: The Golden Circle

Chapter 3 introduces the core concept of The Golden Circle, one of the fundamental concepts of the book. In essence, the Golden Circle is the embodiment of how you start with WHY.

Defining The Golden Circle

The Golden Circle visualizes the structure of an organization and looks like a bullseye target with three rings. The bullseye at the center is the WHY, the next ring out is the HOW, and the largest ring is the WHAT. When making decisions or communicating, you begin at the center with the WHY, then migrate out to the HOW, then finally the WHAT.

Let’s define those terms in reverse order:

• WHAT: this is the product a company sells, the service a company offers, or what a particular employee does. The WHAT is what most companies talk about the most. It’s easy to understand but superficial.
• HOW: this describes HOW the company accomplishes the WHAT. Often, this is considered a company’s “differentiating proprietary process” or “unique value proposition.”
• WHY: this boils down to the motivation behind why companies or people do what...

Shortform Exercise: Apply The Golden Circle to Your Organization

Apply The Golden Circle to what you do. Start with WHY, go to HOW, then to WHAT.

Think about your business, organization, or your personal work. What is your WHY?

Start With Why Summary Chapter 4: The Golden Circle’s Biological Foundation

The reason Golden Circle works has roots in human biology. Humans want to belong, and the need is so powerful that we will often put incredible effort and money into achieving that feeling.

Organizations that start with WHY clearly define who they are and what they stand for, and as a result, their products or services come to represent those beliefs.

When those beliefs align with our own, it creates a sense of belonging and kinship. Buying their products makes us feel like we belong in the same group as other people who buy the same things and believe in the same ideals.

• For example, Apple’s “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” marketing put their beliefs front and center. They made it clear what type of person belongs in the Apple community (they’re young, laid back, and question the system.)
• In response, Microsoft launched their “I’m a PC” campaign, which showed people from all walks of life. This makes sense given that 95 percent of all computers are powered by Microsoft’s software.

Like we mentioned in Chapter 3, it’s not about Mac or PC being better or worse....

Shortform Exercise: Trust Your Gut

When has your gut triumphed over your rational brain?

Think about a time when your gut instinct triumphed over the more logical, rational choice when making a purchase. What was the outcome? How would the outcome have changed if you went with your neocortex (or rational brain) instead?

Start With Why Summary Chapter 5: The Three Principles of The Golden Circle

The Golden Circle is a powerful tool that helps you run inspirational companies or become a great leader. But The Golden Circle only works if all three elements--the WHY, HOW, and WHAT--are in balance and used in the right order.

Let’s start by talking more about three key principles of the Golden Circle.

Element #1: Clarity in WHY

Starting with WHY means that leaders need to be able to clearly articulate why they do what they do.

Without a WHY, you have to resort to manipulations to get people to engage with your products or services, which only leads to short-term results.

Leaders who start with WHY get people to follow them willingly instead.

Element #2: Discipline in HOW

Discipline kicks in during the HOW phase. (Remember that HOW applies to the values, principles, and operational structures that help you achieve your WHY.)

HOW you work lets you make decisions that support your WHY, like hiring the right people, creating purposeful policies, and finding partners that support your vision.

But in order to do that, you have to have discipline. You need to hold every team member accountable to the principles and never veer from your direction....

Shortform Exercise: Operate with Discipline and Consistency

Is your business operating with a balanced circle in mind?

Now that you know your organization’s WHY, do you think your company clearly and consistently articulates its WHY? Why or why not?

Start With Why Summary Chapter 6: Establish Trust

Trust is a gut feeling--it exists in the limbic brain and can’t be rationalized. That’s why we trust certain companies even when things go wrong, and mistrust other companies even though they do everything right.

And when people trust a leader or organization, they place a higher value on it. Sinek defines value as “the transference of trust,” meaning value is the result of people trusting in you, your product, or your company.

Consequently, you can’t rationally convince someone to trust you. You have to earn that trust by showing them that you share their values and beliefs. That happens when you clearly communicate your WHY. Once people trust you, they will follow you willingly.

Trust and Culture Go Together

Trust is important because it’s also the foundational building block of culture. Culture emerges when a group of people who believe and value the same things unite around those shared ideals. When we are around people who think like us, we start to trust them.

On an individual level, we form communities with people who share similar beliefs, values, and ideals. In other words, we form communities with people who share our WHY.

Consequently, those...

Start With Why Summary Chapter 7: Create Your Own Tipping Point

So after you define your WHY and Golden Circle, how do you get your new product or mission to reach more people?

In sum, by 1) understanding that different people will adopt your product at different stages of maturity, 2) finding your early adopters, and gaining a critical mass of them.

This chapter explains both concepts and how they apply to starting with WHY.

Defining the “Tipping Point” and the “Law of Diffusion of Innovations”

To understand the key points in this chapter, we have to define two key terms: the tipping point and the Law of Diffusion of Innovations.

Tipping Point

The term “tipping point” was coined in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point.

According to Malcolm Gladwell, a tipping point is “the point in a situation, process, or system beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes place.” (Related terms for this include critical mass and inflection point.)

Tipping points happen when a mass of influencers unite to support an idea or a product.

While tipping points might seem like they happen somewhat spontaneously or by luck, they can actually be consciously designed by leveraging The Law of...

Shortform Exercise: Start a Tipping Point

Reach the right people to create a tipping point for your new product or service.

In the work that you do, who are the early adopters? Why does your WHY resonate with these people? What would make them become loyal supporters of your mission?

Start With Why Summary Chapter 8: The Golden Circle Megaphone

Clarifying your WHY is well and good. But concretely, how do you achieve your WHY? It comes through building your HOW and your WHAT.

Without a strong HOW, inspirational WHY leaders have big ideas but struggle to execute them. An organization needs to be built to support and execute the WHY.

The Golden Circle Megaphone

By now, you know what The Golden Circle looks like: it’s a bullseye with WHY in the center, HOW in the second ring, and WHAT in the last ring.

But The Golden Circle does more than help you create your message, it amplifies it, too. That’s because The Golden Circle is actually a cone, just like a megaphone. Pretend you’re looking at the Golden Circle from above:

The cone represents the three levels of a company or organization:

1. WHY at the Top

At the top, or point, of the cone is the WHY. This is the smallest layer of the organization which contains the top-level leaders, like the CEO or COO. These leaders provide the vision of the organization by articulating and living out its WHY.

2. HOW in the Middle

The next level of the cone is the larger...

Start With Why Summary Chapter 9: Communicating With the Marketplace

Now that you’re thinking of The Golden Circle as a three-dimensional cone, it’s time to talk about what that cone is sitting on: the marketplace.

The marketplace is made up of all the customers, shareholders, competition, supplies, money, and all the other factors that make an economy work. The marketplace is characterized by chaos and disorganization. While your organization has structure and purpose, the world outside it doesn’t.

Getting...

Start With Why Summary Chapter 10: Good Communication Is About Listening

This chapter explains how an organization--especially a large one--can communicate its WHY to the marketplace effectively.

This centers around two big ideas: the power of symbols and The Celery Test.

The Power of Symbols

A symbol is defined as an object imbued with additional meaning. It’s an object that represents an idea bigger than the thing itself.

Here are two examples of powerful symbols:

• The United States Flag: Literally, the flag is just a few pieces of cloth stitched together. But as a nation, Americans assign powerful symbolic meaning to it. It represents the beliefs of the country—freedom, equality, and opportunity. It’s such an important symbol that people will follow it into war.
• Ronald Reagan’s “Hero”: In 1982, Lenny Skutnik was invited to sit in the House chamber during the State of the Union Address. A few weeks earlier, Skutnik had jumped into the Potomac to save passengers after an Air Florida airplane crashed. President Reagan understood the power of symbolism, and Skutnik’s presence was a powerful representation of American bravery and values.

All societies use symbols to reinforce their core beliefs. And the...

Start With Why Summary Chapter 11-12: How Success Separates You From WHY

So far, the book has covered how to take a company or organization without a clear WHY and put it on the right track. But what happens when a company has a WHY—but has lost it along the way?

How Success Can Negatively Affect Your WHY

Top executives and business owners have a common problem. When they were asked whether they felt successful, 80 percent of attendees said no. They all felt that as they became successful, they lost the thing that made their business special.

The pattern: although these leaders knew WHAT they did and HOW they did it, they’d become disconnected from their WHY.

The biggest hurdle any company will face is success. That definitely sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? After all, isn’t success the goal behind starting with WHY?

The problem is that as a company grows, leadership becomes more removed from the company’s messaging. In terms of the Golden Circle, when your company grows, the rings of the Golden Circle get wider, which moves the leader with the passionate vision further away from making every decision for the company.

**When that happens, it’s easy to shift focus from WHY to WHAT—and before you know it, WHY starts coming...

Start With Why Summary Chapter 13: Where WHY Comes From

In this chapter, Sinek reinforces the process of following WHY by tracing it through three examples: Apple, the English longbow, and his own journey to becoming a mentor and coach.

The Apple Journey

Apple has put WHY first since its inception. When Apple first started, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs saw the company as a way to give individuals power.

At the time, companies held a monopoly on computing, and Jobs and Wozniak believed that by empowering individuals with computing power, they could change the world. Igniting revolutions by empowering people became the company’s WHY!

Just like the company, all of Apple’s products and their launches have started with WHY:

• The Blue Box: While this product never made it to shelves, The Blue Box was designed to help people avoid paying long-distance rates on phone bills, which were exorbitant in the 1970s. Although the product was definitely illegal, it certainly embodied their belief in empowering people to take on corporate forces.
• The Apple I Computer: Launched in 1976, Apple entered a market that was dominated by IBM. But instead of giving corporations the tools to maintain power like IBM, Apple put...

Start With Why Summary Chapter 14: Rethinking Competition

The common sentiment when it comes to building a business is that you have to make sure you’re beating the competition.

But the problem with that idea is that it makes you focus on what other companies are doing rather than steering your own. Instead of competing against others, it’s more effective to compete against yourself.

Here’s an anecdote of Ben, a high school cross-country track runner. He was the slowest on his team because Ben was born with cerebral palsy. Running was hard for Ben, but he pushed himself to finish...