Benefits of Books – Start with Why by Simon Sinek

I enjoy reading as I enjoy teaching myself. As I read business or skills-based books, I take notes. So now I want to share my notes and thoughts that I have taken away from some amazing books and authors. For each book that I comment on I highly recommend that you buy it, as it is likely that you will take something different from it than I did.

Start with Why by Simon Sinek

Text in italics are quotes from the book.

“Great leaders, in contrast, are able to inspire people to act. Those who are able to inspire give people a sense of purpose or belonging that has little to do with any external incentive or benefit to be gained”

I enjoyed this quote as it fits in with my project management and leadership style. As a Project Manager I have no hire or fire authority, so I have to achieve results through inspiration not through my team’s obedience or fear.

This book talks about planning, so it links in very well with project management. As planning is a key part of project management, but as all PMs know, no plan survives contact with the client or reality. It is still very important to plan for the solution you want and not to solve a problem when it occurs. Planning is important as decisions at the start of the project will determine what happens at the end. So, it is best to plan long term not short term.

The challenge I have observed in western companies is that short term actions are more likely to be rewarded than long term solutions. It appears to be common place that people are recognised financially and with promotions for their ability to put out fires and fix problems. It is not often that people are recognised financially or promoted based on their ability to prevent fires or ensuring that problems do not occur.

The book raises a series of interesting questions such as “Do you know why your customers are your customers? Do you know why your employees are your employees?”

These 2 questions are fundamental for why a company exists and what kind of workforce a company wants to have. I would like to see the various companies try and answer these questions.

Project management goes hand in hand with behavioural economics and psychology. There are only 2 ways to influence human behaviour, “you can manipulate it or you can inspire it”

Typical manipulations –

• Lower the price
• Run a promotion
• Use fear
• Peer pressure
• Aspirational message
• Promise innovation

Competing via price is effective. Be cheaper than the competition and people will buy from you. But they are your customers due to price not due to your brilliant product or service. If someone else offers the same as you for less, then they will no longer be your client. This is a short-term strategy so to gain market share. It also can be a long-term strategy if the company has enough income form other sources or funding to stay cheaper than their competitors.

Competing via promotions. Pay people to be your client (cash back offers, 2 for 1, free toy, free gift).

Fear – no one got fired for buying the market leading product. Buy the market leader no matter what. So, if anything goes wrong you can protect yourself as you bought the market leader. No personal risk was taken. Buy from the market leader even if it is not the best choice.

Aspirations – aspirational messages tempt us towards something desirable. Fear motivates us to move away from something horrible. For example, join this gym and be like Brad Pitt, 6 easy steps to lose weight. Aspirations works best on the undisciplined. This is the short-term fix of an issue not the long-term work required to understand and to fix the underlying cause. E.g. in project management, why do projects get delayed? Because of a lack of robust and fit for purpose project management methodology. The long-term solution is to understand and then create the required project management methodology. The short-term solution and easy fix is to escalate the issue and put more people on it.

Peer pressure – 4 out of 5 people use product X. Number of 4/5 star reviews on Amazon. Endorsements by other clients or celebrities. Decision making gets easier if we can follow other people.

Novelty (innovation) – The example used in the book is the Razr mobile phone. For a few years Motorola dominated the mobile phone market but then as they did not have another similarly innovative product people moved onto the iPhone. In project management this novelty could be the use of Agile project management in non-software projects. Agile sounds great and works well in one area so companies try to use it in a different environment.

The takeaway from this section was that manipulations lead to transactions not loyalty. So if a competitor does the same but cheaper then customers will leave, as there is no loyalty to the product or service.

I liked this analysis in the book as not every transaction or purchase requires customer loyalty. So, for a one off transaction it is best to use manipulations as there is no need to build loyalty or repeat business as there will not be any. This is less applicable in project management as reputation transcends projects. Maybe it is a one-off project but if it went well then your positive reputation will spread as a project manager / team, if it went badly then your negative reputation will also be known.

The key argument of the book is the “golden circle – Why in the centre, then How and finally What”

Why do we do it?

How do we do it?

What do we do?

The why is the inspiration as it connects with our emotions. Customers buy the why you do it not what you do. Telling people why they need it is more powerful that the what it is. The example used in the book is Apple’s slogan for the iPod – 1000 songs in your pocket. As this is better than saying the same thing as 5gb of music. Therefore, in project management it is important to know why a project was started or is needed. Then every decision can be linked back to this why and the origin of the project.

For example, why outsource payroll? So, to ensure the employees are paid correctly every time all the time. As this will allow the employees to focus on their job and not worry about being paid correctly.

If a company can only compete on price, quality, service or features only it is hard to stay different from the competition for long. As these do not build loyalty. Knowing and following the why is essential for long term success and makes you different to others. As you can sell a lifestyle not a product.

As a project manager it is vital that we ask why is this project needed? This will allow us to determine how the success of the project will be measured and the benefits realised.

“No matter where we are or where we go we trust those with whom we are able to perceive common values or beliefs. As we want to feel like we belong. We are drawn to leaders and organisations that are good at communicating what they believe. Their ability to make us feel like we belong, to make us feel special, safe and not alone is part of what gives them the ability to inspire us.”

The important argument from the book is that the WHY gives companies great benefits but it is very hard to create and communicate. Companies that fail to communicate a sense of WHY force us to make decisions with only empirical evidence. This is why decisions take more time, feel difficult or leave is uncertain. So this is why manipulative strategies work very well. We make less than inspiring decisions as we only have facts from the companies we are buying from. They do not tell us the WHY.

We buy WHY the company does something not what they do.

The decision starts with the emotional WHY and then the rational parts (facts, features, price etc) rationalise the emotional decision. It is about winning hearts and minds. Harder to win the heart than the mind.

HOW is the values and principles that bring the WHY to life. The HOW is shown in the systems and processes in a company and form the culture

In my experience companies have values and these are normally adjectives such as integrity, accountability, passion, innovation, caring etc. The book speaks about the language of the adjectives used in company values and holds up a mirror to them as adjectives can be interpreted differently by different people.

For example, Integrity – the phrase “always do the right thing” is proposed as a replacement value. As possibly companies should not only obey the law but also follow a moral and ethical code. Laws can be changed but a moral and ethical code cannot be so easily changed. Innovation – the phrase “always look at problems and processes from a different view point” e.g. from the clients or users view point not your own. Accountability – the idea of “how would you feel if the action you were about to take was shown to your family and friends”. Or what if in 5 years’ time you had to explain your behaviour and return any money if the long-term effect of your decision / action was negative. Honesty – here the book amusingly talks about that if you must remind your employees to be honest then you have a big problem!

The book breaks down WHY as a belief, the HOW is the action you take to realise that belief and the WHAT are the results of the why and the how – such as processes, products, services, marketing, culture, PR, who you hire etc

The challenge companies face is how can the WHAT be consistent with the why. So, everything you say and everything you do you actually have to believe (be authentic).

These questions seem to be rarely asked of leaders and I would be interested in learning the answers to them – why are people following you? Is it because they are paid to? They follow you out of fear that they will lose their jobs if they do not follow you? Or have they chosen to follow you no matter if they are paid or not.

A source of frustration for employees is how is compensation such as bonus payments calculated across a company. In theory everyone in the company should be marked on the same result. If sales are only marked on new sales, then they will not care about client retention or client satisfaction. If client services are only marked on retention, they will not care about taking on new clients. If the non-client facing teams are not marked in the same way as client facing teams on client satisfaction, implementation, retention, sales etc then they will only work on the metrics they are evaluated on. Therefore, the whole company has to be evaluated on the same metrics so everyone is working in the same direction. If not, different departments will only focus on their own metrics even if it hurts other departments. As they are not marked on the same metrics. Everyone is in the same fight or they are fighting each other.

It is normal for people to like to be inspired. Therefore, we should aim to give people a purpose, a sense of why and they will be more effective and productive as they are working on something bigger than themselves. Average companies give their employees something to work on. Great and innovative companies give their employees something to work towards.

When the book talks about leadership it makes an interesting conclusion that the role of a leader is not to come up with all the great ideas. The role of a leader is to create an environment in which great ideas can happen. It is the people inside the company, those dealing with clients, products, systems and processes each day that are the best qualified to find new ways of working.

I read the book over a few days. It is a useful book that emphasis vital points about understanding the root desires and reasons for doing what we are doing.