Start with why
The most important question for any organization There's a naturally occurring pattern shared by the people and organizations that achieve the greatest long-term success. From Martin Luther King Jr. to Steve Jobs, from the pioneers of aviation to the founders of Southwest Airlines, the most inspiring leaders think, act, and communicate the exact same way—and it's the complete opposite of everyone else.The common thread, according to Simon Sinek, is that they all start with why. This simple question has the power to inspire others to achieve extraordinary things.Any organization can explain what it does; some can explain how; but very few can clearly articulate why. Why do we offer these particular products or services? Why do our customers choose us? Why do our employees stay (or leave)? Once you have those answers, teams get stronger, the mission clicks into place, and the path ahead becomes much clearer.Starting with why is the key to everything from putting a man on the moon to launching the iPod. Drawing on a wide range of fascinating examples, Sinek shows readers how to apply why to their culture, hiring decisions, product development, sales, marketing, and many other challenges. Some naturally think this way, but Sinek proves that anyone can learn how.
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28recommend
61mentions
48people
2010–2025years
61% recommend34% neutral5% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I totally agree. Coming across Simon Sinek's 'Start with Why' has helped me a great deal in communicating in general. Even in conversations this applies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA
I also suggest reading his book.
In terms of this theory you should communicate like this: Why, How, What
You are starting from your 'What'.
I haven't really grasped the core of your product, but to restructure it could be something like:
Stop wasting time looking up documents, e-mails and chats in different systems. Stop paying for 20 different single purpose services just to run your business.
By having everything in one place it is easier to find and share information throughout you business. Creating custom combinations of docs, chats, sheets, forms, etc will allow you to create the tool to support your own processes and ways of thinking rather than having to learn some app's way of thinking.
Nino allows you to quickly build your own custom flows using modular building blocks. Create the tools that you need and have all of your information in one place.
- I am old(er) but I am not done yet.
I have had a somewhat successful career as both an executive and entrepreneur, always making pragmatic decisions based on data, logic, and reasoning. Growing up poor had something to do with that.
As an executive in tech startups I have often witnessed entrepreneurs making what seemed like emotional decisions, good or bad, just because they felt that way, without any regards to data, or factual evidences. And I am taking about hiring, firing, layoffs, M&A, financing, re-financing, breaking leases, moving locations, closing down branches...
I do read a lot of business and personal development books, and recently I am reading, again, "Start with Why" by Simon Sinek.
Generally speaking I like the book, but there's an entire chapter where Simon praises making decision by listening to one's gut feelings; especially within the context of being an entrepreneur.
I am aware of Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink". I love that book, and the way I interpreted it is that people who have both deep expertise and vast experience in a field, can often, but not always, sense end results with incomplete data. I get that, I have witnessed and experienced that. But to me it's not gut feelings, it's expertise.
I am a good executive but a terrible entrepreneur. I am trying to change that.
Should I go more with my gut feelings AND at the same time take more actions/risks? Without pondering too much about data, and analysis and trying to take calculating risks?
HN: do you have any insightful comments or resources for me?
Thanks in advance.
- Advice to Founders and CEOs
- Dear Founder (Maynard Webb) - The Hard Things About Hard Things (Ben Horowitz) - Straight Talk for Startups (Randy Komisar and Jantoon Reigersman) - The Founders’ Dilemmas (Noam Wasserman) - The Entrepreneur’s Daily Nietzsche (Brad Feld and Dave Jilk) - Build (Tony Fadell) - Zero to IPO (Frederic Kerrest) - The Great CEO Within (Matt Mochary)
Finance
- Wharton's Introduction to Financial Accounting course: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/wharton-accounting](https://w... - How Finance Works: The HBR Guide to Thinking Smart About the Numbers (Mihir Desai) - Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs: What You Really Need to Know About the Numbers (Karen Berman and Joe Knight)
Open-Book Company (Employee Ownership, Financial Literacy, Goal-setting)
- The Great Game of Business (Jack Stack and Bo Burlingham)
Legal
- Acceleration (Ryan Roberts) - The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Law and Strategy (Constance Bagley and Craig Dauchy)
Company Strategy and Direction (post-product/market fit)
- Crossing the Chasm (Geoff Moore) - Zone to Win (Geoff Moore) - Only the Paranoid Survive (Andy Grove) - Blitzscaling (Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh) - The Innovator's Dilemma (Clayton Christensen) - Good to Great (Jim Collins) - Playing to Win (A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin) - Tape Sucks (Frank Slootman) - Strategy vol. 1&2 (Harvard Business Review)
Pricing
- Monetizing Innovation (Georg Tacke and Madhavan Ramanujan) - Confessions of the Pricing Man (Hermann Simon)
Startup Phase
- The Lean Startup (Eric Ries) - The Four Steps to the Epiphany (Steve Blank) - Zero to One (Peter Thiel)
Management/Leadership
- The Effective Executive (Peter Drucker) - Managing Humans (Michael Lopp) - The Art of Leadership (Michael Lopp) - High Output Management (Andy Grove) - Managing Oneself (Peter Drucker) - Essentials: Management (First Round Capital) - The Making of a Manager (Julie Zhuo) - The Powell Principles (Oren Harari) - Radical Candor (Kim Scott) - Leading Matters (John L. Hennessy) (fantastic book list in the coda) - Turn the Ship Around (L. David Marquet) (this is THE book on delegation) - Principles (Ray Dalio)
COO/Succession Planning
- Riding Shotgun (Nathan Bennett and Stephen A. Miles)
People Performance/HR/Culture
- Powerful (Patty McCord) - No Rules Rules (Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer) - Netflix culture deck - The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Patrick Lencioni) - Work Rules! (Laszlo Bock) - It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work (DHH and Jason Fried) - The Culture Map (Erin Meyer) - The Talent War (Mike Sarraille and George Randle) - Great People Decisions (Claudio Fernández-Aráoz) - The Holloway Guide to Technical Recruiting and Hiring (Ozzie Osman) - Punished by Rewards (Alfie Kohn)
Purpose, Passion, and Self
- Start with Why (Simon Sinek) - What You Do is Who You Are (Ben Horowitz) - Drive (Daniel Pink) - Mindset (Carol Dweck) - Grit (Angela Duckworth) - The Almanack of Naval Ravikant (Eric Jorgenson)
Fundraising/VC
- Secrets of Sand Hill Road (Scott Kupor) - Venture Deals (Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson) - Raising Venture Capital (Andy Sparks) - The Business of Venture Capital (Mahendra Ramsinghani) - Done Deals (Udayan Gupta) - The Power Law (Sebastian Mallaby) - VC (Tom Nicholas)
Board
- Boardroom Excellence (Paul Brountas) - Startups Boards (Brad Feld and Mahendra Ramsinghani)
M&A
- Winning (Jack Welch) - M&A chapter - Connecting the Dots (John Chambers) - M&A chapter
Marketing
- Data-Driven Marketing (Mark Jeffery) - Positioning (Al Ries and Jack Trout) - Scientific Advertising (Claude Hopkins) - Traction (Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares) - Behind the Cloud (Marc Benioff and Carlye Adler) - Ogilvy on Advertising (David Ogilvy) - Marketing High Technology (William Davidow)
Psychology
- Influence (Robert Cialdini)
Negotiation
First, read Influence (under Psychology), then, in order
- Thinking in Bets (Annie Duke) - Getting to Yes (Roger Fisher and William Ury) - Never Split the Difference (Chris Voss) - The Bald Truth (David Falk)
Self
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey)
Design and UX
- Creative Confidence (Tom Kelley and David Kelley)
AI (Machine Learning, Deep Learning/Neural Networks)
- Andrew Ng's AI for Everyone course: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/ai-for-everyone](https://www....
Growth (Data Science, etc.)
- Hacking Growth (Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown)
Graph Theory
Product
- Inspired (Marty Cagan) - Joel on Software (Joel Spolsky)
Customer Loyalty/Customer Success
- Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh) - Setting the Table (Danny Meyer)
Finding a Startup Job
- Entering StartupLand (Jeffrey Bussgang)
CIO as ICP
- The CIO Paradox (Martha Heller) - Be the Business (Martha Heller)
Stories
- Made in America (Sam Walton) - Shoe Dog (Phil Knight) - The Everything Store (Brad Stone) - Built from Scratch (Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank) - Hard Drive (James Wallace) - Steve Jobs (Walter Isaacson) - Elon Musk (Ashlee Vance) - Creativity, Inc. (Ed Catmull) - The Ride of a Lifetime (Bob Iger) - Valley of Genius (Adam Fisher) - The Idea Factory (Jon Gertner) - Dealers of Lightning (Michael Hertzik) - Idea Man (Paul Allen) - Pour Your Heart Into It (Howard Schultz)
- The problem is that the economy is not a very valid environment in which get useful & timely feedback. It's therefore almost impossible to become an expert. Moreover I think a large part of sucess is people skills.
But there are certainly some key aspects which do help a lot:
- Start with why(Simon Sinek)
- Move (preferably were there is higher return - similar to hill climbing algorithms)
- Discipline, Focus & Persistence
- Improve your social intelligence
- Learn about power dynamics (Power from Jeffrey Pfeffer)
- Simon Sinek has a really good point in his book "Start With Why" that basically says selling your company is a complete failure, because you basically lose your autonomy and ability to adapt to unique market conditions that let companies be successful in the first place.
- I'd strongly suggest Simon Sinek:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7108725-start-with-why
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16144853-leaders-eat-las...
presently reading:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38390751-the-infinite-ga...
Before these, I've really appreciated:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7_Habits_of_Highly_Effecti...
Someone already suggested Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4069.Man_s_Search_for_Me... ...and I absolutely agree!
Next in my queue is Flow by prof. Mihai Csikszentmihalyi:
https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_flow_the_s...
Happy reading! :)
Edit: formatting
