Find Your Why – Simon Sinek

Every single one of us is entitled to feel fulfilled by the work we do, to wake up feeling inspired to go to work, to feel safe when we’re there and to return home with a sense that we contributed to something larger than ourselves.

For those who hold a leadership position, creating an environment in which the people in your charge feel like they are a part of something bigger than themselves is your responsibility as a leader.

What draws me in is not what people do for a living but why they do, connecting his work to his sense of purpose. Every one of us has a WHY.

The difference between happiness and fulfillment is the difference between liking something and loving something. Happiness comes from what we do. Fulfillment comes from why we do it.

Chapter 1: Start with Why

Every person’s career— operates on three levels: What we do, how we do it, and why we do it. Money is a result. It is the purpose, cause or belief that drives every organization and every person’s individual career. Why does your company exist? Why did you get out of bed this morning? And why should anyone care?

Loyalty is not built on features and benefits. Features and benefits do not inspire. Loyalty and long-lasting relationships are based on something deeper.

For better or for worse, hiring for cultural fit is usually less about facts and more about how it feels.

Chapter 2: Discover Your WHY

Within an organization, it will likely have its own subculture.

cause or belief can help you change course and realign with a new perspective, a new role or perhaps even a new company to help you find the feeling of fulfillment that may have eluded you thus far.

For individuals, our WHY is fully formed by our late teens.

Step 1: Gather Stories and Share Them: Rediscovering the details, the feelings, the conversations, the lessons learned will offer clues to who you are and what your WHY is. The more stories you can recover and share, the more data you’ll compile. And the more data you can draw on, the more easily you’ll begin to see the recurring ideas or themes.

Step 2: Identify Themes: Did you ever come home from a party and realize that you had a really good time— mostly because you met someone who got you talking about your life growing up or your experiences in your business? Part of the fun that night (besides the joy of hearing yourself talk) may have been that, in hearing the stories, your listener developed an idea of who you are.

Think of specific experiences and people in your life that have really shaped who you are today. If the event meant something to you, helped you become who you are, taught you something or made you proud, write it down. As you think of the people who have been the most influential in your life, try to recall specifics about what they said or did that made such a difference to you.

As you pan for your stories and share them, themes will start to emerge.

Step 3: Draft and Refine a Why Statement: To ___ so that ____

Chapter 3: Why Discovery for Individuals

Find your partner > Get your partner up to speed > Pick a time and place > Gather your stories > Share your stories > Identify your themes > Draft your why

Chapter 4: Why Discovery for Groups

An organization has a WHY. And within an organization are teams— subcultures that exist within the larger group. Each of these parts within the whole will have its own WHY. We call that a Nested WHY. Then within each of those teams are people who also have their own unique WHY— their individual WHY.

WHY. A company’s WHY is made up of cultural norms, common values and strong relationships, and a new leader can’t simply come in and change those things.

An organization that’s highly dysfunctional— perhaps as the result of a merger, acquisition or some other development— is not operating at its natural best. It likely has no unified sense of purpose, which results in a group of individuals or silos trying to advance their own interests. Organizations that are completely dysfunctional and broken, where fear, mistrust, paranoia and self-interest run rampant.

A team is not a group of people who work together. A team is a group of people who trust each other.

Chapter 7: Take a Stand

We find that the best place to practice is among strangers. When meeting someone for the first time, they almost always ask, “What do you do?” This is your opportunity to start with WHY.