What’s Your Mortgage WHY?

I recently finished a good book called Start with Why by Simon Sinek. He creates a golden circle that explains how great leaders focus their organizations.  It’s a good and quick read and I highly recommend it. And if you aren’t a reader, you can view the author speaking on the subject on TED.

The premise of the book is about the Golden Circle about how companies operate. The outermost circle is the WHAT.  Every company does something. That’s the WHAT. Usually the WHATs are easy to identify. We make widgets. We sell cars. We do remodeling work. All of these are WHATs.

Next comes the HOW. The HOW is HOW your company does the WHAT. Think of it as your value proposition or competitive advantage.  HOWs are often used as selling propositions to explain HOW something is better or different. We have a low cost advantage. We have great customer service. We use only the best materials. All are examples of HOW.

And the innermost (and most important) is the WHY. The WHY is the purpose of the company. The reason it exists. The reason people come to work for you. It’s what you believe in.

The golden circle concept can be applied to a company or even parts of a company. The best companies work from the inside to the outside of the Golden Circle. They start with WHY.

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