Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Start With Why is a book by Simon Sinek. After watching his TED talk, I decided to check out his book on the sample topic. That is, in this book, Sinek argues “How great leaders inspire everyone to take action”. Although I agree with the fundamental premise of this book though, I was not impressed with the presented argument.
In his book, Sinek provides a plethora of examples of people and companies who succeed, or not, and then provides an explanation that he ties to as their WHY (their purpose). My issue with the book is that every example is tied to Sinek’s perspective of the example, with what I found to be lacking concrete evidence supporting his claims.
For instance, possibly his most famous example is Apple computers. He claims that Apple markets their products from their why. That is, that in everything Apple does, they challenge the status quo. But I remain unconvinced that this is actually Apple’s WHY as opposed to something that Sinek sees in Apple (regardless of whether or not Apple recognizes the same thing or not). I may just be biased in this case especially since at the University of British Columbia, owning an Apple computer is not challenging the status quo: it is the status quo. Regardless, I had the same concern with most of the other examples.
All in all, I was unconvinced and unmoved by Sinek’s arguments in this book. Although I do agree with his claim on the importance of starting with WHY, I do not see this book as an effective argument supporting the claim. Perhaps a worthwhile read for people simply looking for an introduction to the idea, but not so worthwhile for those seeking a more critical or convincing argument in defence of WHY.
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