Simon Sinek is a fantastic storyteller albeit a bit repetitive. The book is a little dated in terms of the some of the stories but the wisdom provided is very valid. ( )

Helped guide my work and dealing with trying to refocus our team ( )

A fundamental resource for those who wish to lead anything, turning much of the conventional wisdom of leading an organization, team, or group on its head.

Highly recommended to those who wish to know more about leadership, business, or social dynamics.

(In response to some of the other reviews on this site I've seen: like all books concerning leadership and/or business, yes, there is some repetition involved. However, such repetition can serve to reinforce the key ideas in the book, if read with an open mind.) ( )

Very intriguing theory about why some people are more influential or inspiring than others. The thesis of the book is pretty clear and focused throughout (it's the title). This is not to suggest that the WHAT and HOW are unimportant, but that WHY you do what you do is fundamental and changes the mentality, morale and vision of a person/company. ( )

Overall I felt this book was fairly descent. As mentioned by others the author has a tendency to repeat themselves, however for those who have limited or junior experience of business I can understand why he has done so, it reinforces the points he is attempting to make.

For myself I don't always agree with the author, his history is faulty, his understanding if science superficial, etc but these are irritations rather than significant detractors and do not, on balance, lessen the central theme of the book.

There are key pieces of information scattered throughout the book, at the beginning where Sinek sets out the theoretical basis, the middle chapters as related to trust and symbols, and the final two chapters where how WHY relates to the individual. If you are reading this book hoping to discover how to turn yourself into an inspirational leader you will be disappointed, this isn't a how to book, this is Why knowing who you are, what you believe in and why you do what you do is important (whether the you is an individual or an organisation), only you can find your why (there are a few tips though).

Another criticism if this book is the overuse of the same few examples (Apple, Southwestern Airways, etc). I would argue this is less a fault of the author and more an indictment that there are so few organisations who can clearly articulate their reasons for being. Anyone who has worked for a range of businesses after reading this book will attest to the truth of that.

Overall its a worthwhile read but I am left with the overall impression that Sinek is a more engaging speaker than he is a writer, so start nit with the bookbut with his TED talk. ( )

Start With Why is one of those books that takes material that would make a great essay or pamphlet and stretches it into a mediocre book.

Sinek's advice is simple but powerful: if you want to convince people to follow you, you need to have a vision, and you have to communicate it. You have to start with why. As Sinek says over and over again, "People don't buy what you buy, they buy why you do it."

"Why" is your vision. "How" is your strategy. "What" is your product. It took awhile before I really understood how How differed from What. Oddly enough, that was because what is sold as a Why is actually a How. For example, you might think that Google's Why is "Organizing the world's information" and their How/What is search. But "Organizing the world's information" is actually a How. I don't know exactly what the Why behind this How is, but it could be something like, "People should spend their time on what is most meaningful to them" or "Empower people to change the world". (Incidentally, Whys often start with people.)

"Start With Why" is a great message and a great communication strategy. However, it's fairly simple. There's a bit more subtlety, but not a lot. Stretching the discussion to a full book led to a lot of repetition of ideas and examples. I got a little more out of the book than I did from the TED talk, but if you just watch the author's TED talk, you'll get most of the value in a fraction of the time.

( )

A great public speaker but this book isn't great at all. Cherry picks examples to prove his point. Also far overstates the extent to which consumers pay attention to the vision of the company. Perhaps in some instances, sure. But do you buy Andrex toilet paper because of the company vision? Please.

Worships Apple but examples in book seem quite dated now since Jobs' death.

No doubt articulating reason for action is good advice and, perhaps its owing to Sinek's work that its become a given in leadership forums.

The problem is the post-hoc reductionism thats says - Company X did well, lets tell a story about how they 'sold a vision'. Company Y went bust - so lets explain why they didn't articulate their vision enough. 'Successful companies think of their vision, and then think of what they do'. Do they? Wouldn't have much luck with that on Dragons Den. ( )

Pse e bëni atë që bëni?

Pse disa njerëz dhe organizata janë më novatorë, më influencues dhe më fitim-prurës se të tjerët? Pse disa krijojnë besni-këri më të madhe, si te klientët, ashtu dhe te punonjësit? Madje dhe midis të sukses-shmëve, pse disa prej tyre arrijnë të kenë vazhdimisht sukses?

Njerëz si Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, dhe vëllezërit Wright, mund të kenë pak gjëra të përbashkëta me njëri-tjetrin, por të gjithë e kanë filluar me pse. Aftësia e natyrshme e tyre për të filluar me pse, u mundësoi të frymëzonin njerëzit që i rrethonin, si dhe të arrinin gjëra të jashtëzakonshme.

Ndërsa studionte liderët që kanë pasur ndikimin më të madh në botë, Simon Sinek zbuloi se ata mendojnë, veprojnë dhe komunikojnë në të njëjtën mënyrë – dhe kjo është krejt e kundërta e asaj që bën kushdo tjetër. Këtë ide të rëndësishme Sinek e quan Rrethi i Artë, dhe paraqet një strukturë mbi të cilën mund të ndërtohen organizata, mund të udhëhiqen lëvizje, dhe mund të frymëzohen njerëz. Dhe e gjitha fillon me PSE.

Cilado organizatë mund ta shpjegojë se çfarë bën; disa prej tyre mund edhe të shpjegojnë si e bëjnë; por shumë pak mund të artikulojnë me qartësi pse. PSE-ja nuk ka të bëjë me paratë ose fitimin – këto janë gjithmonë rezultate. Pse ekziston organizata juaj? Pse i bën ato gjëra që bën? Pse klientët blejnë nga një kompani e caktuar? Pse njerëzit janë besnikë ndaj disa liderëve, dhe jo ndaj të tjerëve?

Të fillosh me PSE funksionon si me bizneset e mëdha, ashtu dhe me ata të vegjël, si në botën jofitimprurëse, ashtu dhe në politikë.

Ata që fillojnë me PSE nuk manipulojnë kurrë, vetëm frymëzojnë. Dhe njerëzit i ndjekin jo sepse janë të detyruar, por sepse duan.

Duke marrë nga histori të vërteta në fusha të ndryshme, Sinek thur një vizion të qartë të asaj që duhet për të udhëhequr dhe frymëzuar. Ky libër është për këdo që do të frymëzojë të tjerët, ose këdo që do të gjejë dikë për t’u frymëzuar.

There is a good premise here and learnings for leaders. However, this content just has not aged very well. The examples are outdated and less relevant to business today. ( )

The idea at the heart of 'Start With Why' is really convincing and engaging. Unfortunately it's also so simple that it doesn't need a whole book to sell it. As a result, the book doesn't come close to justifying its length and ends up feeling padded and repetitive which takes away from its impact. ( )

3/24/22

A simple (but not new) idea beat into the ground with an unorganized salad of anecdotes. Really painful to read, because I'm pretty sure that the author is smarter than this book appears.

Early on, he promises a later chapter about how you can discover your WHY. Yes, he always puts that in all caps. I never could find that, even in the short section titled "Discover WHY".

In the acknowledgements, he thanks his editor who "let me push him to do things differently." Looking at the finished product, that was probably not a smart decision.

I haven't seen the TED Talk, but I would recommend spending 20 minutes on that and skipping this book. ( )

Das Buch ist eine sehr ausführliche Version des TEDx-Talks von Simon Sinek.

Es gibt sehr viele Beispiele, mit denen erklärt wird, warum Unternehmen, die durch einen "guten Grund" - das Warum - getrieben sind, wahrhaftiger und zum grossen Teil erfolgreicher sind als Firmen, die nur durch messbare Kriterien - beispielsweise Geld - sich weiterentwickeln.

Ohne die persönlichen Beispiele am Ende des Buchs wäre es "nur" vier Sterne geworden. ( )

I liked the book, loved the ideas put forward in it, but couldn't finish the book. It stretched a bit more than it should have. ( )

One of the top recommendations by Aaron Skonnard, I knew I had to read this one. The premise is that great leaders lead by asking why to get to the bottom of something. I hadn't realized it before, but I'd already seen Simon Sineks TED talk. His talk focuses around working from the outside in, asking questions more tied to emotion than to superficial results. ( )

There are no genuine new ideas in this managerial self-help screed. Rigorous adherence to advertising principles of repetition makes the book a chore to read, no matter how engaging some of the individual anecdotes might be. The main theses are more concisely expressed in the TED Talk version, where author Simon Sinek nevertheless comes off almost as a parody of a motivational speaker.

While Thelemic doctrine uses "Why" to indicate rationalization, Sinek wants to use it to mean purpose, aim, or will. Alas, often enough in his various case studies of corporate business CEO heroism, he accepts the self-serving rationalizations of such figures as their genuine aims. For example, he praises Bill Gates as embracing "a higher cause" summarized as "A PC in every home and on every desk" (194)--as if Gates were interested in empowering people with personal computers, as opposed to seeking 100% market share for MS-DOS and Windows by means of the notorious anti-competitive strategies that distinguished Microsoft among its rivals. Sinek also adulates Sam Walton as a salt-of-the-earth type who "talked about building stores in rural communities so that the backbone of America's workforce didn't have to travel to the urban centers," which is rich. Walmart's willingness to set up shop in small towns, drain off the local economies, pull up stakes and move on is cast as a virtuous service to consumers.

Sinek's "Golden Circle" is a model that he asserts is bolstered by neurobiological findings, but there's little consequence to that justification, which is largely rhetorical. It does attempt to integrate the fact that effective decision-making can be pre-verbal and non-rational. In light of models and nomenclature I prefer, I found his WHY-HOW-WHAT anatomy opaque and muddled. For my purposes, the three-part formula would be better expressed as Will-Work-Result (cf. CCXX I:44). But I did think that the corresponding sequence of clarity-discipline-consistency was well formulated.

Near the end of the book, Sinek supplies a conversion account, in which he was saved by the power of "WHY," brought through an entrepreneurial dark night of the soul to behold the power of the Golden Circle. This evangelical narrative helps to demonstrate his motive for identifying "WHY" with "belief," which is again at odds with the ways in which I constellate these symbols or the ways in which I would seek to help others use them.

"If Will stops and cries Why, invoking Because, then Will stops & does nought. If Power asks why, then is Power weakness." (CCXX II:30-31)

Most people engage the world passionately through labor of some kind, only to lose their sense of purpose with time. Work becomes repetitive, and new outlets become sparse. In this book, Sinek suggests that great leaders continually re-engage with why they are doing what they do. They articulate their vision and systematize their effects in organization. By scaling their purpose, the best leaders inspire others to amplify their purpose for positive (and measurable) outcomes.

Now, Sinek freely admits that not everyone is a “why” person. There are also “how” people. Often, the why and how people pair together with one defining a vision and another implementing that vision into action. However, to borrow from spiritual language, the why person represents the soul of the organization, without which the group flounders. As the endeavor expands, the why person has to use words and structure to scale their vision for wider effects. Few actually have the skill to see these ventures through from beginning to end. Those that do achieve greatness.

To illustrate and argue for his points, Sinek borrows from a wide berth of figures and businesses. Apple, Microsoft, Walmart, Dr. Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, and other popular entities are referenced throughout this work. He even mentions the hardships that people face in losing their sense of why as they are overcome by a relentless what. The what and they why predictably “split” as the vision slowly dies out. Towards the end of the book, he ties these concepts to his personal story of struggle and success.

This book has obvious appeal to business and management types. However, the leaders of other organizations – like religious organizations, non-profits, or even educators – can benefit from a quick sprucing up on their leadership skills. Sinek provides clear words, cogent examples, and organizational structures for others to codify their inspiration into. It helps those active in hard work to remember why they are doing the what they do. ( )

The concept of the book is a good idea - if you know why you are doing something, eg running a business, helping people, politics, you will have an easier time convincing others who believe in the same why that your cause is good, and you will have a better chance of succeeding, as you will ground how you do things in that why and then the what you do is a direct consequence.
However, I found the book repetitive, and the stories to illustrate the point simplistic, creating illusions of coherent narratives based on a handful of elements that did not convince me for the most part.
I would suggest that you watch his TED talks to get the message Sinek wants to convey. ( )

Rated: A-
Simon Sinek is one of my mentors. Love his perspective on life. Leaders need to Inspire a Shared Vision which starts with Purpose -- your WHY. For the most part, the book is filled with wisdom of why WHY is so important as a starting point to align people with purpose and passion. His TED-talk got to the heart of the matter while the book's take one HOW and WHY was a little messy. ( )

Although I felt that there could have been a bit more editing, it was just a little repetitive in sections, I found the ideas inspiring. Gave me food for thought in my upcoming enterprises.

Try to find a summary of the book and save yourself the time of reading the whole thing. Many repetitions of one insight (which is indeed valuable). Quit reading after half of the book, which was already too much. ( )

As I look around at various organizations to which I belong, whether it's for work, volunteer, or past organizations, I believe the organizations are not as strong as they could be because they do not effectively talk about why they exist. This viewpoint has come to me after reading Simon Sinek's book, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action*. In his book, he indicated that a number of organizations talk about what they do and how they do it but don't tap into why they do it. As he explained in his book, it is the why that drives the loyalty of its employees, its customers, and its fans. Read more ( )

Even more than one expects with business titles, this is full of fluff text and dubious research. While I want to get behind the main idea, the book is so poorly organized that I can't be bothered to finish it. ( )

Why read this?

Like most business and self-help books the central message can get repetitive but there are enough examples here to keep it interesting and strengthen the argument, that the key to success is to start with the why.

As a school leader, if has helped crystalise my thinking concerning the requirement for an explicit shared culture and more importantly supporting every student tofind their why so that can take full advantage of their educational opportunities. ( )

The core of this book is around the ‘why’, and his logical framework of going from ‘why’ to ‘how’ to the ‘what’.

The ‘what’ refers to the result of the actions.

There are some excellent points in the book; however, he repeats points again and again.

As long as you can take away the core message, then the book is worth reading.

Luckily, it is not a dense book so that it can be read quickly. ( )