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Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action Paperback – 7 November 2011

by Simon Sinek (Author)

4,989 ratings

in Business Ethics

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Why are some people and organisations more inventive, pioneering and successful than others? And why are they able to repeat their success again and again?

In business, it doesn't matter what you do, it matters WHY you do it.

Start with Why analyses leaders like Martin Luther King Jr and Steve Jobs and discovers that they all think in the same way - they all started with why.

Simon Sinek explains the framework needed for businesses to move past knowing what they do to how they do it, and then to ask the more important question-WHY?

Why do we do what we do? Why do we exist? Learning to ask these questions can unlock the secret to inspirational business. Sinek explains what it truly takes to lead and inspire and how anyone can learn how to do it.

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Product details

Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Penguin Press; 1 edition (7 November 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780241958223
ISBN-13: 978-0241958223
ASIN: 0241958229
Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 1.6 x 19.8 cm
Boxed-product Weight: 181 g
Customer Reviews: 4,989 customer ratings
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 42 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in History of Military Strategy
- #1 in Human Resources & Personnel Management (Books)
- #1 in Business Ethics (Books)

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Review

This book is so impactful, I consider it required reading -- Tony Robbins, bestselling author of Awaken The Giant Within

A deep, abiding understanding of what you want to inspire, and how you want to lead is the basis of this inspirational book, Forbes

One of the most useful and powerful books I have read in years. Simple and elegant, it shows us how leaders should lead -- William Ury, co-author of Getting to Yes

A powerful and penetrating exploration of what separates great companies and great leaders from the rest -- Polly LaBarre, co-author of Mavericks at Work

Book Description

Why are some people and organisations more inventive, pioneering and successful than others?And why are they able to repeat their success again and again?

Start With Why

Start With Why is for those who want to inspire others and for those who want to find someone to inspire them.

Simon's autograph comes on a removable bookplate that is mounted on the inside front cover, alongside a quote from Simon.

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5 star		73%
4 star		14%
3 star		7%
2 star		3%
1 star		3%

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Alessandro Berardi

a good idea, but unpolished and underdeveloped

Reviewed in Australia on 23 November 2017

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I think the idea at the centre of the book is interesting and corroborated by neuroscientific knowledge about decision making. Unfortunately I also think that the book struggles to go beyond intuition and convert the idea into a fact based theory. The book could have conveyed the idea with less repetition and more effort into fact finding and checking. The lack of fact checking is also evident in the incorrectness of some examples and quotes. I think the idea points to a more complex reality than the one suggested. To summarise, a good idea, but unpolished and underdeveloped.

13 people found this helpful

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Main topics underdeveloped but okay read

Reviewed in Australia on 25 June 2019

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The book started off well, and raised some interesting questions, unfortunately that was where it stopped and it seemed like the author was getting lost in his ranting about various company behaviours and strategies. Would have been good if he had developed the ideas he started with a little more at the beginning. Indeed, it left me asking myself Why? Still have 2/3 of the book left but don’t think I’ll be reading any more because of the above.

3 people found this helpful

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Tony

Repetitious. Repetitious. Repetitious.

Reviewed in Australia on 24 June 2018

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Content in and of itself is find. Nothing particularly ground-breaking. Wasn't a fan of all the capitalisations of 'WHAT', 'WHY', and 'HOW' although it got the point across.

By the end of it I thought I was just reading the same thing over and over again so if I had the choice, I wouldn't have bought it and left after reading the sample.

6 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Poor Grammar, Repetitive

Reviewed in Australia on 29 March 2020

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I wish I had read the reviews before purchasing. It's a great concept, but the same examples are used to reiterate the same thing over and over again. Plus there's so many grammatical errors throughout the book it isn't even funny. I usually don't pick up a new book until I finish my last and that was not the case with this one. Watch the TED talk instead.

2 people found this helpful

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Adilson

I am giving one star because I can't give none

Reviewed in Australia on 6 August 2020

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This book a complete waste of time. The author keeps coming back to the same point, repeating himself ad nauseam and to be honest, it seems to me that while he wants to sell the WHY idea, his examples are so weak that the WHAT seems the only logical explanation for the companies that he used as an example. From the airline example to Apple and Disney's, he made a lot of rhetorical tricks to try to sustain his ideas. Don't waste your time and money on this one.

Audible has a better return policy than Kindle.

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Ashoka Gore

Simple yet profound

Reviewed in Australia on 13 December 2017

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We are all conditioned to focus on What, which drives competition and creates a sense of scarcity. If we started with Why, and focused on achieving our personal best every day, there would be a sense of abundance and collaboration.
How is all about competence, which is crucial and there are no short cuts.
A simple model, which if followed will deliver amazing results.

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RebeccaC

Seriously great book

Reviewed in Australia on 26 July 2018

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All time classic book, every person in business should read it. Understanding a company’s Why is fundamental to success. The book uses a lot of good examples to explain. Highly recommended.

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Stephen Merrett

Delivered the goods

Reviewed in Australia on 5 February 2019

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Very interesting from start to finish, clearly outlines what we each are looking for in business and life and invites us to open our minds to the possibilities

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Dave South UK

A lot of pages for which the message could be contained in five

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 November 2017

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I love Sinek's talks and although there is wisdom, points to take away and actions you can use in this book I did find that it was a lot of pages which can be condensed down into about five. I find the same thing with a lot of these books. Really, you can just watch the various YouTube videos to get the major points from this book and learnings. However, he does offer some interesting examples and working case studies. Like I said, it does contain a lot of unnecessary drool to get some simple points across and repetition of messages.

77 people found this helpful

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Brilliant insights hidden in tedious repetition.

Reviewed in India on 9 September 2017

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Loved the TED talk. And loved parts of this book. The only problem is - this book would have taken up less than 100 pages to convey its message clearly. WHY did it have to be 225 pages? I have no idea. Some sentences like, "People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it" are repeated so many times, I have lost count. If someone were to wake me from my sleep, I'd probably be repeating that sentence.

I find it funny that a book about WHY missed out on mentioning something called, "The theory of 5 Whys"- Look it up, it is something a lot of companies use to brainstorm problems. It also has no comment on Friedrich Nietzsche - "He who has a WHY to live for can bear almost any HOW." I believe what applies to life also eventually applies to business life.

And as it is a business book, its only focus is on the importance of WHY in businesses and large scale social movements. There is no example of how this concept affects and benefits an individual on a more personal scale - i.e. in relationships, health, etc. Chapter 13 - where the author shares his own story of arriving at this concept is the only place where he has touched on it in a lukewarm manner. Though, I believe there is another book follow-up book called 'Find Your Why' for the same purpose. If you are looking for a personal WHY, do read Stephen Covey's - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Should you read the book, if you have watched the TED talk?
- Yes, if you are looking for more detailed examples and studies and researches. Though a lot of it is focused on Apple and Southwest Airlines and Walmart.
- No, if you already have a clear sense of WHY in everything you think, say and do. (i.e. self-awareness)

[I bought a paperback version by Portfolio Penguin, and the fonts, binding and print are all okay]

211 people found this helpful

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Jose A

Not very realistic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 April 2018

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Although the book describes certainly positive approaches to leading any enterprise, in the line of having an intrinsic motivation, it fails by extracting them from a posteriori success stories. It is easy to fall in the fallacy that those who came to our days as successful leaders did it, overall, because of their personal traits or attitudes. The book even dismisses randomness or the complexities or real world events as the real cause of some of this success stories. But even figures like Bill Gates recognise how lucky they were with their life circumstances (e.g. having access to the first personal computers at school) in order to get where they were. But of course most people looking for success formulas won’t find so attractive a book that includes something out of their control as part of the education. But the truth is that being realistic is always the closets path to any kind of success. This book it isn’t.

40 people found this helpful

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Sparkly Sal

Disappointing.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 January 2017

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The concept is valid, the examples are interesting but the book is so repetitive. There's enough content for a book one third of the size; the rest is padding. Watch the TED talk and you'll get the point.

54 people found this helpful

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S. Ahrens

Viel heiße Luft

Reviewed in Germany on 15 January 2019

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Warum alle diese doch recht einfachen Gedankengang des "Why" so abfeiern, erschließ sich mir nicht. Der Gedankengang, dass Marken sich über andere Faktoren außer dem Preis und vermeintlicher Benefits abgrenzen müssen, ist allgemein klar und wird im Buch etwas zu ausführlich (eigentlich durchgehend) erklärt. Und ein "Why" kann dabei helfen. Seine Thesen stützt er – wie so viele andere Markentheoretiker – im wesentlichen auf den Erfolg von Apple. Wie viele Bücher schon den Erfolg von Apple analysiert haben und ihre eigene These dazu nützen, ist mittlerweile unüberschaubar. Aber nur weil Apple den Kunden ein "Why" bietet, sind sie nicht erfolgreich, das ist zu kurz gedacht und das sollte absolut jedem bekannt sein. Dann könnte ja jeder den einfach Erfolg kopieren.
Ärgerlich ist, dass der Inhalt des Buches auf 20 Seiten gepasst hätte und dass es keinerlei Anleitung gibt, wie der Leser, denn für sich selbst das Why/How/What definieren kann. Dafür muss man wohl einen überteuerten Workshop von Sinek buchen. Fazit: 20% interessante Gedanken, 80% aufgeblasene Zeitverschwendung.

34 people found this helpful

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Ted

Over-written and based on half-baked science

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 October 2019

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This book is average at best. It's rambling at times, and goes off on tangents to the main thesis of the book. Whilst he's a gifted public speaker, this book has a distinct amateurish self-published feel to it. The 'scientific basis' for many of his points is so simplistic as to be comical. Sinek has no scientific training and it shows. He cherry picks from neuroscience, and doesn't seem to understand the subject he's quoting from. It reads as though he read a Wikipedia entry on neuroscience and made some inferences from that. I would not recommend this book, although I do recommend his public speaking, which can be found on YouTube and on TEDTalks.

8 people found this helpful

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Jamie N

Brilliant insight and alternative view on success

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 July 2018

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Wow. Wow. Wow. I cannot rate this book highly enough to take a different, positive approach to life and work.

Like others, I have watched Sinek's Ted Talk on this, and questionned whether the book would add anything more - and boy yes it did. Imagine the Ted Talk expanded to 2 hours long, with more depth, intrigue and examples.

What I like most about the book compared to the Ted Talk is that it delves more in to how Starting With Why can influence home life not just work. It's definitely made me a think, and I'm even finding myself taking a different approach around my team at work and the way I explain my actions.

I agree, a lot of the examples are repeated (a lot) throughout the book, in particular Apple. I'm not against Apple, and found it useful how the different topics are explained using the same companies as examples - it helps provide the fuller picture. However, let me assure any potential readers that there are also plenty of new examples given too.

I'm literally buying my colleagues at work a copy of this book for Christmas (I know, I'll definitely win the "best present of the year" award lol) as I think it's the sort of mindset that everyone needs to be on the same page for. Thankfully my boss is also a fan of Sinek so it shouldn't be too hard.

I'd strongly recommend anyone interested in really understanding how to drive yourself or your business forward, should buy this book immediately and read it at least twice (once to read, the second time to take notes as there is so much content!).

8 people found this helpful

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Stiven Skyrah

Gain the ability to question and communicate why

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 September 2019

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Simon Sinek describes in his book "Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action" how leaders and companies should work as a series of circles, i.e. "The Golden Circle" - the why, how, and what. This idea explains why organisations and leaders inspire the others. Everybody knows what they do, some know how they do it, very few people know why they do what they do. The way we communicate, think and act is very easy: we go from the clear things we know to the more fuzzy ones. The WHY theory gives us the ability to communicate why we are doing certain things, helps entrepreneurs take better decisions, as well as individuals in the every day life.

All in all, the most important fact Simon Sinek is trying to point out is that the way something is communicated must be believed in, explained, and people accept it for themselves, because THEY believe in it. It is a very inspiring, enlightening and insightful book that I would recommend to anyone

4 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Starting With Why, reviewed by Tevin Gongo.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 February 2019

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I'm a big fan of Simon Sinek. That is the third time I read "Start With Why" and think more and more this book is one of those I should read at least three times a year. The way Simon explains the concept of the Golden Circle (efficient communication) is just spot on: the concept is simply explained and illustrated with clear examples. So not only be makes it clear to understand the concept but he also, thanks to those examples, shows us what it effective communication looks like. Great book to read

3 people found this helpful

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A. J. Melville

Well worth a read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 November 2018

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I’m late to the party on this one as it’s been out for some time - Great book. The content discusses examples of repositioning thought on how to approach marketing from the viewpoint of customer motivation and business mission vision and values. Yes it’s mostly business focused but is still interesting to read even if you’re not involved in business or strategy decisions. It can still open your eyes to the psychology behind advertising and marketing and what motivates us to make purchasing decisions. Sinek has a way of making adry and complex topic entertaining and relatable in an easily digestible and lively format using plenty of examples and illustrative descriptions that doesn’t leave the reader feeling like they’re wading through the dusty annals of academia. I’d say absolutely vital reading for the savvy consumer, the modern marketer or enterprising business owner/entrepreneur.

Bought second hand - Quality below what I expected - dog eared pages, worn cover, creases on cover and some pages, bit dirty - otherwise fine for a quick read on a topic I’m interested in.

Overall worth getting

One person found this helpful

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@Timothy_Hughes

If you work in sales, marketing or have a position in business today, you must read this book!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 January 2020

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If you are going to read one book this year, this is it! If you are going to read one sales or one marketing or one business book this year, this is it.

Must admit, I have come to this book “late”, I had heard a lot about it and the fact it’s a “must read” but somehow or other it never seem to get purchased by me. Anyway, it lives up to the hype. Yes there are many books and many books that are supposed to change things, but this really hits the mark. As you read it, there is a real “aha” moment … you can look at companies and see why they are failing, or just not filling their potential.

If you work in sales, marketing or have a position in business today, you must read this book!

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S. Walton

Dull

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 November 2018

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I got about 20 pages in and realised you can just watch the Ted talk and get everything you need. This is a pretty boring read with a fake air of authority that the author hasn’t earned.

7 people found this helpful

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kirsty Thompson

A must read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 September 2017

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An absolute must read. Simon is so inspirational, I love the way he uses real history to bring his ideas to life. The book while a little repetitive at times is a constantly changing message of inspiration & positivity. Beautifully written for anyone to comprehend. I personally downloaded the audio book & read along as Simon reads it. You just can't beat his passion & enthusiasm.

4 people found this helpful

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James

Poorly written!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 August 2019

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There is definitely a message in this book. But the piece is terribly written, repetitive and no depth in supporting findings.
The author and the editors didn't do justice to the message. The examples could have been more creative with breadth of choice. Having said that Simon Sinek is a good inspirational speaker, when featured on ted talks and other podcasts you can really grasp the message. I am glad though I didn't order more than one of his books.

4 people found this helpful

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Mike

Over rated common sense

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 January 2020

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My hats off to Simon Sinek, he truly is a master of marketing. Even I was suckered into his compelling style of speaking.

But this book could really be condensed to less than 10 pages, it's a lot of waffle. You are better off just Googling his Ted Talk and saving your money.

Most frustrating he didn't even explain his process of finding a why.

Why?

So he could sell the sequel...

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