Simon Sinek: How to Build a Company That People Want to Work For | Inc. Magazine

hi everyone i'm diana ransom features editor here at ink and i'm pleased to welcome you all today to startup bootcamp live chat with a good friend simon Sinek all right um and well thank you he's an ethnographer by training he's an adjunct at the RAND Corporation and he also consults with organizations of all sizes from startups to the military and to top it off he's also delivered the third most viewed TED talk to date since it makes sense to start with why yeah you're both let's go ahead and go take it from there what is the basically can you speak about the importance of knowing why you do what you do rather than what you do sure every organization on the planet knows what they do some know how they do it but very few understand why and at the end of the day every single organization even our own career always functions on these same three levels it's a biological constant it's just how our brains take in information and we make decisions and so you have to know all three but the problem is most organizations don't know why and what I've learned and spoken about and written about is that those few organizations those few CEOs who truly understand why their company exists and this has nothing to do with making money that's a result but literally why do we need their company to exist because you can buy whatever they sell somewhere else usually those are the companies that tend to last longer and outperform their competition when an organization or in a company is just starting what how do they define why they do what they do well why at its core is a an origin story the best companies are ones where the founder or small group of founders personally suffered or something someone close to them suffered something they couldn't get something where they had to overcome something they couldn't find another market and so they produced it themselves the weakest companies are the ones where somebody reads a magazine sees a market opportunity and attempts to you know build a business around it and the reason is simple it's because there's no passion for something that we perceive a market opportunity around but when we personally suffer something or somebody around us personally suffer something or we can't get something this is the source of passion and so the ability to put that story into words the ability to truly understand why this has to exist on a very human level that goes way beyond the product or the service is what keeps the inspiration alive as the company continues to grow it's interesting Tony Hsieh is often sort of been quoted as saying how he isn't necessarily passionate about what he does or what he sells or what Zappos sells it's more or less he's passionate about customer service so there it strikes me as there are different aspects of business that people can be passionate about how do you suggest finding that passion so our passion comes from who we are not necessarily what we sell it's true Tony doesn't necessarily care about shoes you know what he cares about as human beings what he cares about is his employees and he cares that his employees take care of his customers and that's how it works he's really obsessed with having having a good time delivering happiness as he calls it and what he sells is incidentally could have sold anything and so ry comes from like I said who we are how we raised it's the sum total of our experiences when we were kids and our Y's are fully formed by the time we're 18 19 20 and the rest of our careers simply offer us opportunities to bring our cause to life to bring that purpose or colors to life and when we do something that is consistent with what we believe we feel passion when we will have to work hard for something we don't believe in it's called stress you work just as hard if not harder when you're passionate than you are when you're stressed the difference is one of them it feels good and the other one it doesn't so if you look at great organizations whether it's apple or virgin you know every company that virgins ever started is Richard Branson his personality as a human being is the personality of the companies his beliefs his values are imbued into the organization in other words they're the same thing his companies are one of the things that he's done in his life to bring who he is to life we know this is the case of small companies but it doesn't change when those companies get big so you talked about Apple you also mentioned Martin Luther King often in your speeches and in your book I wonder if you can kind of talk about why this organization Apple and why you know this person Martin Luther King was so successful because it strikes me as maybe is just a matter of good marketing remember civil rights problems existed long before Martin Luther King long before Martin Luther King I mean what happened to the whole for beginning of the 20th century you know there was there were issues and there was strife and there was uprising but how come there was no civil rights movement and what it did is it took a person to put the cause into words beyond what they wanted beyond how to do it into words so compelling we understood why we had to do it you know it was deeply deeply human it was about all men are created equal goes back to the very founding values of the United States and it resonated and it brought people together because we can disagree on how to do it but we can't but what we what we find alignment on is why we're doing it in the first place so what can companies and entrepreneurs take away from that experience the CEOs responsibility is to preach the cause not just sell the product but so that all the people who work to it and who joined the company understand that they're they're joining somewhat of a social movement Steve Jobs is really good at this I mean the people who work there really thought they were going to change the world you know and they still do he did and they did and this that was a credit to jobs preaching the cause and preaching the cause and if you go back to the origin story of Apple here was this new technology called the personal computer and job was a populist he believed in power to the people and he believed that this technology could really empower human being to stand up to a corporation but and that would never happen unless they made it simple to you so it wasn't just about simplicity and design it was about giving power to people and if you've noticed since the dawn of Apple to this current day they only have individuals in their advertising one person rising up that old 1984 commercial with one person running into this Orwellian scene it's one person dancing with an iPod it's I'm a Mac I'm a PC it's really about the individual and about empowerment had Apple started in in the 90s it would have been a dot-com it would have been an online it just happened to be the technology of the day it had nothing to do with the technology it had to do with his own personal beliefs and the technology was simply means to an end and this is what gave him the power to diversify their their portfolio as well which is it was never about the product in the first place it was always about the people so it sounds like it's it would be rather hard from the way you kind of put it to learn entrepreneurship or to learn how to be a leader leadership is a skill leadership is a practice' beware Lee taught unfortunately and when it is taught it's not taught well most of the MBA programs don't really teach leadership they call it leadership but they teach management leadership is this really really sort of sophisticated change in mindset when we're very junior the only thing we have to do is be good at our jobs and they teach us how to use the software or use the technology so that we can get good at our jobs they give us training some people get advanced degrees on how to do the job accounting or whatever you know and if you really good at your job they'll promote you and eventually you'll get promoted to a position where you're now responsible for people who do the job you used to do but nobody teaches us how to do that and this is why we get managers is because the people who are now put in charge of us are actually better at the job than we are that's what got them promoted they can't help themselves and so we have to do this through this transition some people make it slowly some people make it quickly and unfortunately without training some people will never make it we have to go this through this transition where we are no longer responsible for the results we now become responsible for the people who are responsible for the results we're no longer responsible for taking care of the customer we're now longer we're now response up with the people who are taking care of the customer this is what leadership is and it's a practice kill and it's the same thing as becoming a parent your lifestyle will what will change and now everything is centered around taking care of another human being that's what leadership is entrepreneurship is different you know I've had these discussions and debates with people whether you can teach entrepreneurship there's a huge difference between being an entrepreneur and being a small business owner not all small business owners are entrepreneurs and some entrepreneurs are owned huge businesses Richard Branson's an entrepreneur he owns 300 companies worth multiple billions of dollars he's an entrepreneur so let us not confuse small business owner and entrepreneur and a small business owner owns a small business and entrepreneurs is problem solver it's the way they see the world they see the world differently and I would debate whether we can teach that I think we can teach some of the skills of building a small business but I I'm I'm the jury's still out for me whether we can teach entrepreneurship I'm sure all the MBA programs across the country you're going to love that one okay so let's skip ahead to your your next book your latest book leaders eat last we

Channel: Inc.

Views: 200,688

Rating: 4.9310346 out of 5

Keywords: Inc. (Magazine), Inc.com, Small Business, Entrepreneurship, Business, News, Investment, Venture Capital, Capital, Markets, Entrepreneur (Profession), Startup, Leadership, Simon Sinek, Simon Sinek Inc., How to Build a Company That People Want to Work For

Id: INjECrw7YYs

Length: 8min 55sec (535 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 27 2016