Start With Why by Simon Sinek. 

3/5 rating. 

Book #3 of 2020. Read January 7, 2020.

This book had a great message for all individuals and businesses who want to make an impact, namely, the same as the title: start with why.

While I thought some of the book was a little slow, it had quite a few good ideas that I think will best sum up the book: 

“People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.”

“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.”

“You don’t hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills.”

“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.”

Additional Quotes:

“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. Those who truly lead are able to create a following of people who act not because they were swayed, but because they were inspired.”

“At the end of the [Japanese car assembly] 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 it fits when we design it.’ In the Japanese auto plant, they 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.”

“We say WHAT we do, we sometimes say HOW we do it, but we rarely say WHY we do WHAT we do.”

“And if you have to write ‘honesty’ on your wall to remind you to do it, then you probably have bigger problems anyway.”

“Articulating our values as verbs gives us a clear idea…we have a clear idea of how to act in any situation.”

“Men wanted for Hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.”

“As Herb Kelleher famously said, ‘You don’t hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills.’”

“If the people inside a company are told to come to work and just do their job, that’s all they will do. If they are constantly reminded WHY the company was founded and told to always look for ways to bring that cause to life while performing their job, however, then they will do more than their job.”

“Some in management positions operate as if they are in a tree of monkeys. They make sure that everyone at the top of the tree looking down sees only smiles. But all too often, those at the bottom looking up see only asses. Great leaders like General Robinson are respected by those both above and below.”

“She’s a great leader because she understands that earning the trust of an organization doesn’t come from setting out to impress everyone, it comes from setting out to serve those who serve her.”

“Regardless of the economy, most young boys and girls who grow up in the United States have an inherent sense of optimism that they can achieve something if they want to – to live the American Dream. A young boy growing up in Gaza or a young girl living in Yemen does not wake up every day with the same feeling. Even if they have the desire, the same optimism is not there. It is too easy to point and say the culture is different. That is not actionable. The real reason is that there is a distinct lack of institutions to give young people in the region a sense of optimism for their future.”

“Bruder realized the problems we face with terrorism in the West have less to do with what young boys and girls in the Middle East think about America and more to do with what they think about themselves and their own vision of the future.”

“Don’t let anyone tell you that America’s best days are behind her, that the American spirit has been vanquished. We’ve seen it triumph too often in our lives to stop believing in it now.”

“Likewise, so many companies act like dictators – it’s all about them and what they want. They tell us what to do, they tell us what we need, they tell us they have the answers but they do not inspire us and they do not command our loyalty.”

“Harbridge’s business succeeded not just because she knew WHY she was doing what she was doing, but because she found a way to measure the WHY.”

“If we can’t easily assess a company’s WHY simply from looking at their products, services, marketing and public statements, then odds are high that they don’t know what it is either. If they did, so would we.”

“What if we showed up to work every day simply to be better than ourselves? What if the goal was to do better work this week than we did the week before? To make this month better than last month? For no other reason than because we want to leave the organization in a better state than we found it?”

IG Link.