Start With Why (English)
Introduction
Start with why means start with a purpose. Why does your company exist? Why do you want to be a leader? What is your purpose in life? These are all important questions. You will find out that the multi-million companies succeed because they started with a purpose. They started with why.
The subtitle of this book is “How Great Leaders Inspire People to Take Action”. Great leaders do not only refer to politicians. It also refers to the leading companies of an industry. Apple is a leading computer brand. But it also entered the mobile phone industry and the small electronics industry. Later, we will know why.
“Inspire people to Take Action” is what Great leaders do. Good politicians do not only make people vote them. They inspire. Likewise, leading companies do not only make people buy. They give inspiration.
Great leaders have followers who are loyal to them. The people are willing to sacrifice or to go out of their way to follow what the leader says. That is because they are inspired.
Successful companies have loyal customers. The competitors may have a new or better product. But the loyal customers do not buy at once. They are loyal to one brand. How did this happen? This is because the company started with why.
Manipulation V.S. Inspiration
Motorola released its flip top model phone RAZR in 2004. Hollywood celebrities and prime ministers bought the new product. It was a huge success. Motorola sold 50 million RAZR units.
However, within 4 years, competitors have already copied the RAZR. They have created new phones with even better features. Motorola lost the spotlight.
The company used manipulation and not inspiration. That is why it lost the customers. Motorola released a new product. It has made people buy. But it did not make people become loyal to Motorola.
What Motorola did with RAZR is just a novelty. That is just one form of manipulation. Loyalty requires a higher cause. To inspire people is not that easy.
When you manipulate people, you just make them follow for a short time. You will make them take action but you will not have their loyalty. That is not what great leaders do.
What are the forms of manipulation? They are fear, peer pressure, aspirations, price, promotion and novelty. To gain votes, a politician may create fear. He may use peer pressure, give money or make promises. To increase sales, companies drop prices. They give promos and incentives or release new products. But these are not examples of good leadership.
Manipulations only make companies and organizations weaker. They make people follow but only for a short period of time. Manipulations cost a lot of money but they are not effective.
RAZR is not an innovation. And so, Motorola was not able to inspire people. The fax machine, the microwave oven, the light bulb and iTunes are all innovations. They are products which changed a whole industry. Even more so, they have changed the society.
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Think Different
“Think Different.” That is the motto of Apple since its foundation in 1984. It is evident in all of Apple’s products and advertisements. To think different is the reason behind everything that the company says and does. Apple has that strong purpose.
ITunes changed the music industry.In the early 2000s, people were burning music on their CDs. Piracy became a problem for the recording companies. With iTunes, Steve Jobs offeredan alternative. The music industry was saved because of iTunes and the iPod.
Did you know that it wasn’t actually Apple which invented the mp3 player? It was Creative Technology Ltd. from Singapore. But why did Apple led the market?
Creative advertised their product as “5gb mp3 player”. But Apple said the iPod is “1,000 songs in your pocket”. Creative told the market WHAT the product is. But Apple told the market WHY it needs to buy the iPod. “People don’t buy WHAT you do. They buy WHY you do it.”
Apple also made an innovation with the iPhone. It is not just a new product like Motorola’s RAZR. Because of iPhone, smart phones became a trend. Nokia, Erickson and Motorola also created their own touchscreen devices. The graphic interface of iPhone and its simple design changed the mobile phone industry.
Did you know that Dell released its own mp3 player year 2003? But it wasn’t a success. This is because everyone knows Dell is a company that makes computers. It would not feel right to buy an mp3 or even a mobile phone from Dell. After a few years, Dell decided to pull out the product.
How did Apple shifted from being just a computer company to a company that also makes mobile phones and gadgets? This is because for Apple, to think different comes first. The processes and products the company makes only follows.
Apple started with WHY. The company, first of all, has established a strong purpose and that is to think different. We know Apple “by WHY it does things, not WHAT it does”. The legal name of Apple when it was founded was Apple Computers Inc. But the company changed to just Apple Inc. in 2007. This is because Apple is “more than just a computer company”.
Apple became a leader not only in the computer industry but also in the small electronics industry and the mobile phone industry. This is because Apple’s purpose remains constant no matter WHAT they do.
Apple did what HP and Dell cannot. That is to enter other industries and make innovations.HP and Dell, meanwhile, tried but they became stuck with just making computers.