The Golden Circle of Innovative and Inspiring Leaders, Companies and Organizations
“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old” — Peter Drucker
In a TED Talk, Simon Sinek asked a simple question. Why are some companies, like Apple, so innovative? After all, they’re just a computer company, right?
It turns out, according to Sinek, truly innovative and inspiring leaders and organizations exhibit the same pattern. They all think, act and communicate the exact same way.
This discovery profoundly changed the way Sinek thought the world worked. He codified his discovery into a simple idea, or formula, he calls the “golden circle”. Sinek explains why some leaders and organizations are able to inspire. He says they know their purpose, or the “why” of their existence.
With the Golden Circle as a guide, Simon demonstrates how innovative leaders and organizations think, act, and communicate from the inside out.
For example, he says, if Apple communicated from the outside in, their marketing message might sound like: We make great computers. They’re beautifully designed and simple to use. Want to buy one? Pretty much the same message as every other computer company. However, Apple actually communicates from the inside out: We believe in challenging the status quo and think differently. The way we do it is by making our products beautifully designed and user friendly. We happen to make computers. Want to buy one?
Sinek says they’ve simply reversed the order of the information, proving people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Later in the talk he provides examples of failures and successes based on this principle. You can view the entire TED Talk here.
