How great leaders inspire action Simon Sinek

how do you explain when things don’t go

as we assumed or better how do you

explain when others are able to achieve

things that seem to defy all of the

assumptions for example why is Apple so

innovative year after year after year

after year they’re more innovative than

all their competition and yet they’re

just a computer company they’re just

like everyone else they have the same

access to the same talent the same

agencies the same consultants the same

media then why is it that they seem to

have something different why is it that

Martin Luther King led the civil rights

movement he wasn’t the only man who

suffered in a pre-civil Rights America

and he certainly wasn’t the only great

orator of the day why him and why is it

that the Wright brothers were able to

figure out control powered man flight

when there were certainly other teams

who were better qualified better funded

and they didn’t achieve powered man

flight the Wright brothers beat them to

it there’s something else at play here

about three and a half years ago I made

a discovery and this discovery

profoundly changed my view on how I

thought the world worked and it even

profoundly changed the way in which I

operated it as it turns out there’s a

pattern as it turns out all the great

and inspiring leaders and organizations

in the world whether it’s Apple or

Martin Luther King or the Wright

brothers they all think act and

communicate the exact same way and it’s

the complete opposite to everyone else

all I did was codify it and it’s

probably the world’s simplest idea I

call it the Golden Circle

why how what this little idea explains

why some organizations and some leaders

are able to inspire where others aren’t

let me define the terms really quickly

every single person every single

organization on the planet knows what

they do 100 percent some know how they

do it whether you call it your

differentiating value proposition or

your proprietary process or your USP but

very very few people or organizations

know why they do what they do and by why

I don’t mean to make a profit that’s a

result it’s always a result by why I

mean what’s your purpose what’s your

cause what’s your belief why does your

organization exist why do you get out of

bed in the morning and why should anyone

care well as a result the way we think

the way we act the way we communicate is

from the outside in it’s obvious we go

from the clearest thing to the fuzziest

thing but the inspired leaders and the

inspire or inspired organizations

regardless of their size regardless of

their industry all think act and

communicate from the inside out let me

give you an example I use Apple because

they’re easy to understand and everybody

gets it if Apple were like everyone else

a marketing message from them might

sound like this we make great computers

they’re beautifully designed simple to

use and user friendly want to buy one

man and that’s how most of us

communicate that’s how most marketing is

done the time of sales done and that’s

how most of us communicate

interpersonally

we say what we do we say how we’re

different or how we better and we expect

some sort of behavior or purchase a vote

something like that here’s our new law

firm we have the best lawyers with the

biggest clients we have you know we

always perform for our clients do

business with us here’s our new car it

gets great gas mileage it has you know

leather seats by our car but it’s

uninspiring here’s how Apple actually

communicates

everything we do we believe in

challenging the status quo we believe in

thinking differently the way we

challenge the status quo is by making

our products beautifully designed simple

to use and user friendly we just happen

to make great computers want to buy one

totally different right you ready to buy

a computer from me all I did was reverse

the order of the information what it

proves to us is that people don’t buy

what you do people buy why you do it

people don’t buy what you do they buy

why you do it

this explains why every single person in

this room is perfectly comfortable

buying a computer from Apple but we’re

also perfectly comfortable buying an mp3

player from Apple or a phone from Apple

or a DVR from Apple but as I said before

Apple is just a computer company there’s

nothing that distinguishes them

structurally for many of their

competitors their competitors are all

equally qualified to make all of these

products in fact they tried a few years

ago gateway came out with flat-screen

TVs they’re eminently qualified to make

flat-screen tvs they’ve been making

flat-screen monitors for years nobody

bought one Dell came out with mp3

players and PDAs and they make great

quality products and they can make

perfectly well design products and

nobody bought one in fact talking about

it now we can’t even imagine buying an

mp3 player from Dell why would you buy

an mp3 player from a computer company

but we do it every day people don’t buy

what you do they buy why you do it the

goal is not to do business with anybody

with everybody who needs what you have

the goal is to do business with people

who believe what you believe

here’s the best part none of what I’m

telling you is my opinion it’s all

grounded in the tenets of biology not

psychology biology if you look at a

cross-section of the human brain looking

from the top down what you see is the

human brain is actually broken into

three major components that correlate

perfectly with the golden circle our

newest brain our Homo Sapien brain our

neocortex corresponds with the what

level the neocortex is responsible for

all of our rational and analytical

thought

and language the middle two sections

make up our limbic brains and our limbic

brains are responsible for all of our

feelings like trust and loyalty it’s

also responsible for all human behavior

all decision-making and it has no

capacity for language in other words

when we communicate from the outside in

yes people can understand vast amounts

of complicated information like features

and benefits and facts and figures

it just doesn’t drive behavior when we

communicate from the inside out we’re

talking directly to the part of the

brain that controls behavior and then we

allow people to rationalize it with the

tangible things we say and do this is

where gut decisions come from you know

sometimes you can give somebody all the

facts and your figures in these hi know

what all the facts in detail say but it

just doesn’t feel right why would we use

that verb it doesn’t feel right because

the part of the brain that controls

decision-making doesn’t control language

and the best we can muster up is I don’t

know it just doesn’t feel right or

sometimes you say you’re leading with

your heart or you’re leading with your

soul well I hate to break it to you

though zone other body parts controlling

your behavior it’s all happening here in

your limbic brain the part of the brain

that controls decision-making and not

language but if you don’t know why you

do what you do and people respond to why

you do what you do then how will anybody

how will you ever get people to vote for

you or buy something from you or more

importantly be loyal and want to be a

part of what it is what you bet you do

again the goal is not just as to sell

people who need what you have the goal

is to sell to people who believe what

you believe the goal is not just to hire

people who need a job it’s to hire

people who believe what you believe I

always say that you know this if you if

you if you hire people just because they

can do a job they’ll work for your money

but if you hire people who believe what

you believe they work for you with blood

and sweat and tears and nowhere nowhere

else is there a better example of this

than with the Wright brothers most

people don’t know about Samuel Pierpont

Langley and back in the early 20th

century the pursuit of powered man

flight was like the dot-com of the day

everybody was trying it and Samuel

Pierpont Langley had what we assume to

be the recipe for success

I mean even now we you asked people why

did your product or why did your company

fail and people always give you the

permeate same permutation of the same

three things undercapitalized

the wrong people bad market conditions

it was the same three things so let’s

explore that Samuel Pierpont Langley was

given fifty thousand dollars by the War

Department to figure out this flying

machine money was no problem

he held a seat at Harvard and worked at

the Smithsonian and was extremely

well-connected he knew all the big minds

of the day he hired the best minds money

could find and the market conditions

were fantastic

the New York Times followed him around

everywhere and everyone was rooting for

Langley and how come we’ve never heard

of Samuel Pierpont Langley a few hundred

miles away in Dayton Ohio Orville and

Wilbur Wright they had none of what we

consider to be the recipe for success

they had no money they paid for their

dream with the proceeds from their

bicycle shop not a single person on the

Wright brothers team had a college

education

not even Orville or Wilbur and the New

York Times followed them around nowhere

the difference was Orville and Wilbur

were driven by a caused by a purpose by

a belief they believed that if they

could figure out this flying machine

it’ll change the course of the world

Samuel Pierpont Langley was different he

wanted to be rich and he want to be

famous he was in pursuit of the result

he was in pursuit of the riches and lo

and behold look what happened the people

who believed in the Wright brothers

dream worked with them with blood and

sweat and tears the others just worked

for the paycheck and they tell stories

of how every time the Wright brothers

went out they would have to take five

sets of parts because that’s how many

times they would crash before they came

in for supper and eventually on December

17th 1903 the Wright brothers took

flight

and no one was there to even experience

it we found out about it a few days

later and further proof that Langley was

motivated by the wrong thing the day the

Wright brothers took flight he quit he

could have said that’s an amazing

discovery guys and I will improve upon

your technology but he didn’t he wasn’t

first he didn’t get rich he didn’t get

famous so he quit people don’t buy what

you do they buy why you do it and if you

talk about what you believe you will

attract those who believe what you

believe well why is it important to

attract those who believe what you

believe something called the law of

diffusion of innovation and if you don’t

know the law you definitely know the

terminology the first two and a half

percent of our population are our

innovators the next thirteen and a half

percent of our population are our early

adopters the next thirty four percent

are your early majority your late

majority and your laggards the only

reason these people by touch-tone phones

is because you can’t buy rotary phones

anymore

we all sit at various places at various

times on the scale but with the law of

diffusion of innovation tells us is that

if you want mass-market success or

mass-market acceptance of an idea you

cannot have it until you achieve this

tipping point between 15 and 18 percent

market penetration and then the system

tips and I love asking businesses what’s

your conversion on new business and they

love to sell you oh it’s about 10

percent proudly well you can trip over

10 percent of the customers we all have

about 10 percent who just get it that’s

how we describe them right that’s like

that gut feeling oh they just get it the

problem is how do you find the ones that

just get it before you’re doing business

with them versus the ones who don’t get

it

so it’s this here this little gap that

you have to close as Jeffrey Moore calls

it crossing the chasm because you see

the early majority will not try

something until someone else has tried

it first and these guys the innovators

in the early adopters they’re

comfortable making those gut decisions

they’re more comfortable making those

intuitive decisions that are driven by

what they believe about the world and

not just what product is available these

are the people who stood on line for six

hours to buy an iPhone when they first

came out when you could have just walked

into the store the next week and bought

one off the shelf these are the people

who spent $40,000 on flat-screen TVs

when they first came out even though the

technology was substandard and by the

way they didn’t do it because the

technology was so great they did it for

themselves it’s because they wanted to

be first people don’t buy what you do

they buy why you do it and what you do

simply proves what you believe in fact

people will do the things that prove

what they believe the reason that person

bought the iPhone on the first in the

first six hours of stood in line for six

hours was because what they believed

about the world and how they wanted

everybody at see them they were first

people don’t buy what you do they buy

why you do it

so let me give you a famous example a

famous failure and a famous success of

the law of diffusion of innovation first

the famous failure it’s a commercial

example as we said before a second ago

the recipe for success is money and the

right people in the right market

right you should have success then look

at TiVo from the time TiVo came out

about eight or nine years ago to this

current day they are the single highest

quality product on the market hands down

there is no dispute they were extremely

well-funded market conditions were

fantastic I mean we use TiVo as a verb

like TiVo stuff on my piece of junk Time

Warner DVR all the time but TiVo is

commercial failure they’ve never made

money and when they went IPO their stock

was at about 30 or 40 dollars then

plummeted and it’s never traded above 10

in fact I don’t think it’s even traded

above 6 except for a couple of little

spikes because you see when Tito

launched their product they told us all

what they had they said we have a

product that pauses live TV skips

commercials rewinds live TV and

memorizes your viewing habits without

you even asking and the cynical majority

said we don’t believe you we don’t need

it we don’t like it you’re scaring us

what if they had said if you’re the kind

of person who likes to have total

control over every aspect of your life

boy do we have a product for you it

pauses live TV skips commercials

memorizes your viewing habits etc etc

people don’t buy what you do they buy

why you do it and what you do simply

serves as the proof of what you believe

now let me give you a successful example

of the law of diffusion of innovation in

the summer of 1963 250,000 people showed

up on the mall in Washington to hear dr.

King speak they sent out no invitations

and there was no website to check the

date how do you do that well dr. King

wasn’t the only man in America who was

the who was a great orator he wasn’t the

only man in America who suffered in a

pre-civil Rights America in fact some of

his ideas were bad but he had a gift he

didn’t go around telling people what

needed to change in America you know he

went around and told people what he

believed

I believe I believe I believe he told

people and people who believe what he

believed took his cause and they made it

their own and they told people and some

of those people created structures to

get the word out to even more people and

lo and behold 250,000 people showed up

on the right day on the right time to

hear him speak how many of them showed

up for him zero they showed up for

themselves it’s what they believed about

America that got them to travel on a bus

for eight hours to stand in the Sun in

Washington for in the middle of August

it’s what they believed and it wasn’t

about black versus white 25 percent of

the audience was white dr. King believed

that there were two types of laws in

this world those that are made by a

higher authority Authority and those

that are made by man and not until all

the laws that are made by man are

consistent with the laws that are made

by the higher authority well we live in

a just world it just so happens that the

civil rights movement was the perfect

thing to help him bring his cause to

life

we followed not him not for him but for

ourselves and by the way he gave the I

have a dream speech not the I have a

planned speech

listen to politicians now with the

comprehensive 12-point plans are not

inspiring anybody because there were

leaders and there are those who lead

leaders hold a position of power or

authority but those who lead inspire us

with other individuals or organizations

we follow those who lead not because we

have to but because we want to we follow

those who lead not for them but for

ourselves and it’s those who start with

Y that have the ability to inspire those

around them or find others who inspire

them thank you very much