Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action Paperback – December 27, 2011

THIS IS THE GREATEST BOOK EVER PUBLISHED IN THE LAST 10 YEARS!!!If I could give this book 10 stars, I would! This book beats many other books. This book is so exciting to read that I read it three times! The beginning of the book said it extremely well -- This book is about an unique kind of leadership that has the natural recurring pattern of inspiring, influencing and affecting people. It is about a very small group of leaders that achieve disproportionate amount of influences in their industries/areas compare to other leaders. The most prominent example is, of course, Steve Jobs who displayed a recurring pattern of changing one industry after another.(Of all the books that study Steve Jobs, this is probably the best one although it is not a book on Jobs' biography. However, this book offers the best angle to understand his motivation and influence.)The core of this book is about the kind of WHYs that a special kind of leaders has that enable them to have the natural recurring pattern of inspiring, influencing and changing people and industries. The prime examples of this kind of leaders quoted in this book are Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Wright Brothers.This book is revolutionary. All the top business schools should reevaluate their curriculum based on this book! All the top business consultants should reconsider their theories and recommendations based on this book! All the writers on leadership should read this book and revise their theories! All political leaders in the world should read this book! All board of directors of corporations should read this book and learn how to select the next CEOs! ...This book can be considered the MASTER book to be read before reading books like "From Good to Great", "Stall Points", "The Innovator's Dilemma" and the follow-on books, "Crossing the Chasm" ...The central theme of this book is WHY -- the essence, the core, the purpose of a person's life, of leadership, and the starting point of a corporation. Without the clarity of this WHY, the life of a person, the leadership, and the products and services offered by a corporation are all fuzzy and treated as commodities. This is so very true. Look around us: Though we (persons, organizations and corporations) are special in some ways, yet we are almost all commodities -- except the very few that display the recurring pattern of major changes and influences such as Jobs, Apple and Google. These are the ones that have the clarity of WHY and the discipline of diligently and strictly enforcing their HOWs (principles, methods, criteria) in producing the WHATs (behaviors, products and services).There are three views of WHY + HOW + WHAT presented in this book:1. Looking from the top -- the WHY in the center, the HOW in the middle and the WHAT in the outer layer form a GOLDEN CIRCLE.2. Looking from the side -- the WHY at the top layer, the HOW in the middle layer and the WHAT in the bottom layer form a cone.3. Viewing in three dimensions -- with the external world attached to the base of WHAT, the whole thing is a megaphone for the leader or corporation to sound out its WHY.These views are wonderful ways for us to look at leadership, to understand the life cycle of a corporation, and summarily see why companies thrived and why they died. These views can even be applied to our personal lives.Of course, this book has some blemishes. But these defects do not distract from its greatness.1. The grammar is terrible. The whole book should be reviewed by a competent editor.2. The WHYs are not strictly examined and evaluated. This book treats all WHYs from leaders, entrepreneurs and corporations as equal when in fact they are not. Probably most of the WHYs are the rewording of WHATs in disguise. Maybe a lot of WHYs are re-branded HOWs. Perhaps only a small number of WHYs can have the recurring pattern of inspiration and influence. I hope the future editions of this book can elucidate this point.3. The HOWs gets much less treatment than the WHYs and WHATs in the book. It would be great if this topic is covered in more detail.4. Maybe 60% of this book is about corporations and not on leadership as claimed in the beginning of the book. I hope the author can focus more on the recurring pattern of inspiration and influence of leadership.5. Not everything stated in this book is correct. The points discussed in this book about Jobs and Apple are good examples. Please read "Inside Apple" and Jobs biographies for more correct views on Jobs and Apple.At the first reading, the book seems repetitious. The WHY, HOW and WHAT get repeated over and over. However, on the 2nd and 3rd reading, this apparent repetition disappears and you can see the different points that the author was trying to emphasize.I would like to recommend some future topics or books for Simon Sinek:a) Qualify and rank levels of WHYs -- not all WHYs are equal. Probably some are top-notch while most are mediocre. Also, tell us how to construct best kinds of WHYs.b) Compare the WHYs to big tech companies, the WHYs of big Wall Street firms (if they have any???) and the WHYs of big retail companies.c) Compare the WHYs of big empires in historyd) Compare the WHYs of nations in WWI and WWIIe) Compare the WHYs of great leaders in historyf) Compare the WHYs of great geniusesg) Consider how WHYs can be incorporated into Teachers' College (Ed College). It is the teachers who educate our future generations. They need to be thoroughly immersed in the understanding of The Golden Circle, The Cone and The Megaphone.h) Consider how WHYs can be incorporated into the K-12 and the college educationg) Consider how WHYs can be incorporated into and how HOWs can be enforced in our political systems. We have far too many politicians and not enough true leadersi) Consider how WHYs can be incorporated into our law schools. Our lawyers really need a strong dose of treatment.In summary, this book is dynamic. It's a dynamite! It's the best book I have read in the last 10 years!

Brilliant Book.I recently read a book that had a simple message that basically could be told in half a page worth of words – and as it happens it actually was. But then the author kept on going and going and going and filled up a book in excess of 200 pages just on the very same idea seen from different angles and with different examples.In truth I found that book was boring indeed and found I’m, not a subscriber of a book that basically has just one idea.Now, Simon Sinek’s book “ Start With Why” is actually also about just one idea and like the other book that one idea is really told in less than half a page worth of words and yet this book too extends beyond 200 pages. But this book I loved. It’s a brilliant book indeed. Yes, possibly a little too labored and long at times, but with speed-reading, you are soon past those passages and back into the great stuff again.The difference is that the book uses so many great explorations of the importance and the applications of his idea. It brings anecdotes and references to stories of successful companies from their usage their “why” and how they turned not so successful when they swayed away from their “why”.The idea is greatly exemplified in the book by references to Apple and Steve Jobs, to Richard Branson and Virgin, to Helb Kelleher and SoutWest Airlines, to Bill Gates and Microsoft, Walt Disney and Disney, Martin Luther King and “I have a dream”, Howard Schultz and Starbucks, Michael Dell and Dell Computer and several more.You probably already know the stories of what happened to the companies when Steve Jobs left Apple (was ousted), when Howard Schultz left Starbucks and Michael Dell left Dell Computer – and then you probably know how these companies started to perform again once they came back.It contains great lessons for the rest of us who hold aspirations of leadership and entrepreneurial success and who are trying to build businesses. In other words this book is a great book along the lines of the best books on Mission and Visions. In addition, however, it also spells of the how and shows the importance of the people behind the visionary leader who have been instrumental in making the how work out for the companies – like Steve Wozniak of Apple and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft just to name two of them.Then there’s the “what” – which honestly I didn’t focus on too much when reading the book – or was it because the book didn’t focus much on it either? Either way, the why is the important and the interesting part (great to have a good “how” along the way too – as even I have experienced in at least one of my previous companies).There’s much more I could say about this book, but then I would rather just say: “Just go get it and read it for yourself”.Too much valuable stuff in there for you not to read it. Especially if you wish to lead people and/or if you wish to build a grand company, cause or spread a worthwhile idea.In closing, however, I must say, I also love the brutally honest way Simon Sinek shares his thoughts. He even calls Bill Gates a social misfit (but have no doubt, retains utmost respect for him and his brilliance).Mikkel Pitzner, Serial Entrepreneur, multiple best-selling author and author of forthcoming book: “The Automated Millionaire”.