The following contains excepts from the book, Start With Why (Simon Sinek).
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we believe that music is more than sound, it is relationships. When discussing the subject of relationships, the understanding of the role Leadership plays is of paramount importance.
This is a book that deals with the prioritization of motive. His ‘Golden Circle’ philosophy deals with the three interrogatives: Why, How, and What, in that order. He analogizes this to a triangle, the top of which (in the corporate ladder) is the leader with the vision, the next layer down are those who know how to carry out the leader’s vision, and finally the lowest layer being those who do the work. Carrying this analogy further, he puts the triangle into a three-dimensional space and turns it into a cone, or in his picture, a megaphone. The leader initiates the vision, then the vision becomes amplified throughout the rest of the expanding cone. The challenge to any organization is, when it grows and becomes successful, the initial vision does not get lost or compromised.
“According to the Law of Diffusion, mass-market success can only be achieved after you penetrate between 15 percent and 18 percent of the market…The ability to get the system to tip is the point at which the growth of a business or the spreading of an idea starts to move at an extraordinary pace. It is also at this point that a product gains mass-market acceptance. The point at which an idea becomes a movement. When that happens, the growth is not only exponential, it is automatic. It just goes.”
“Energy motivates but charisma inspires. Energy is easy to see, easy to measure and easy to copy. Charisma is hard to define, near impossible to measure and too elusive to copy. All great leaders have charisma because all great leaders have clarity of WHY; an undying belief in a purpose or cause bigger than themselves…Charisma has nothing to do with energy; it comes from a clarity of WHY. It comes from absolute conviction in an ideal bigger than oneself. Energy, in contrast, comes from a good night’s sleep or lots of caffeine. Energy can excite. But only charisma can inspire. Charisma commands loyalty. Energy does not.”
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we teach students to dig deep within themselves to ask the probing question of why they want to pursue musical and artistic development. If it is for self-aggrandizement, the meaning will ultimately be shallow. However, if it is for the betterment of the community, enriching relationships, the cause will yield long-lasting fruit.
“In every case of a great charismatic leader who ever achieved anything of significance, there was always a person or small group lurking in the shadows who knew HOW to take the vision and make it a reality…Most WHY-types end up as starving visionaries, people with all the answers but never accomplishing much themselves…To reach the billion-dollar status, to alter the course of an industry, requires a very special and rare partnership between one who knows WHY and those who know HOW…Bill Gates, for example, may have been the visionary who imagined a world with a PC on every desk, but Paul Allen built the company.”
“It’s not an accident that these unions of WHY and HOW so often come from families or old friendships…Walt Disney and Roy Disney were brothers. Bill Gates and Paul Allen went to high school together in Seattle. Herb Kelleher was Rollin King’s divorce attorney and old friend. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy both preached in Birmingham, long before the civil rights movement took form. And Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were best friends in high school. The list goes on.”
“For a message to have real impact, to affect behavior and seed loyalty, it needs more than publicity. It needs to publicize some higher purpose, cause of belief to which those with similar values and beliefs can relate. Only then can the message create any lasting mass-market success…Clarity of purpose, cause or belief is important, but it is equally important that people hear you. For a WHY to have the power to move people it must not only be clear, it must be amplified to reach enough people to tip the scale.
“It is not just WHAT or HOW you do things that matters; what matters more is that WHAT and HOW you do things is consistent with your WHY…With a WHY clearly stated in an organization, anyone within the organization can make a decision as clearly and as accurately as the founder. A WHY provides the clear filter for decision-making. Any decisions- hiring, partnerships, strategies and tactics.”
Our music school in Odessa, Texas seeks to promote relationships, giving individuals the capacity to grow in their giftedness, not for the purpose of becoming an island unto themselves; rather, to learn to participate with others in ensemble, creating a community experience that yields both training and insight in to how to enrich lives on a larger scale.
“Many people who achieve great success don’t always feel it. Some who achieve fame talk about the loneliness that often goes with it. That’s because success and achievement are not the same thing, yet too often we mistake one for the other. Achievement is something you reach or attain, like a goal. It is something tangible, clearly defined and measurable. Success, in contrast, is a feeling or state of being…In my vernacular, achievement comes when you pursue and attain WHAT you want. Success comes when you are clear in pursuit of WHY you want it. The former is motivated by tangible factors while the latter by something deeper in the brain, where we lack the capacity to put those feelings into words.”
“The reason so many small businesses fail…is because passion alone can’t cut it. For passion to survive, it needs structure. A WHY without the HOWs, passion without structure, has a very high probability of failure…Passion may need structure to survive, but for structure to grow, it needs passion.”
As teachers, at our music school in Odessa, Texas we endeavor to give students a clear set of core values and competencies that they can apply in a myriad of ways as they move forward in their creative pursuits.
“Money is a perfectly legitimate measurement of goods sold or services rendered. But it is no calculation of value. Just because somebody makes a lot of money does not mean that he necessarily provides a lot of value. Likewise, just because somebody makes a little money does not necessarily mean he provides only a little value…Value is a feeling, not a calculation.”
When Steve Jobs left Apple in 1985, the company faltered. “Needless to say, morale was dismal. It wasn’t until Jobs returned in 1997 that everyone inside and outside the company was reminded WHY Apple existed. With clarity back, the company quickly reestablished its power for innovation…When the person who personifies the WHY departs without clearly articulating WHY the company was founded in the first place, they leave no clear cause for their successor to lead.”
“Just as Apple ran on the fumes of Steve Jobs for a few years after he left the company before significant cracks started to show, so did Wal-Mart remember Sam Walton and his WHY for a short time after he died. But as the WHY started to get fuzzier and fuzzier, the company changed direction. From then on, there would be a new motivation at the company, and it was something that Walton himself cautioned against: chasing money.”
“When you compete against everyone else, no one wants to help you. But when you compete against yourself, everyone wants to help you.”
We believe one of the most important life-principles we can give to students in our music school in Odessa, Texas is that the first rule of Leadership is learning to lead one’s self well. Personal discipline and practice goes a long way toward gaining mastery of one’s self, all for the purpose of serving others more effectively.
“All leaders must have two things: they must have a vision of the world that does not exist and they must have the ability to communicate it.”
“Leaders never start with what needs to be done. Leaders start with WHY we need to do things. Leaders inspire action.”
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we seek to inspire action in each student, helping them on their journey of discovering the unique talent and giftedness they possess and seeking to develop it to its fullest potential.
Prioritization of interrogatives is a successful way of thinking. Asking the right questions in life will provide the right results, and asking the most important questions will ultimately produce the most important results.