Even ‘Starting with Why’ Needs Your Leadership Team Change-Fitness

Bernie Kelly  » Available articles »  Even ‘Starting with Why’ Needs Your Leadership Team Change-Fitness
0 Comments

Remaining true to a powerful ‘Why” is not easy.  It requires looking at the next horizon and being fit for what that takes.

Many organisations, across Not for Profit, Public Sector, and the Profit Sector, have been founded on a purposeful ‘why’. 

Reflecting for a moment most leadership teams can connect their organisations with a founding or inherited strong ‘Why’.

  • Care for the sick, the aged, the frail, the homeless
  • Feed humanity
  • Educate our future generations
  • Help people be a better version of themselves
  • Provide safe energy, water, transport, shelter etc

However, along the way 100% of organisations are confronted with income and cost pressures; recruiting and retaining the right talent; succession planning; integrating new technologies; following changing legislations; external events such as floods, fires, and pandemics; as well as longer term changing trends at the societal, economic, and technology levels.

I am sure if we were chatting together now, we could get on a roll and add a few more to this list!

“Once you find and know your

“Why”, the hardest part is to remain true to it.”

~     Simon Sinek

The case for ‘Start with Why’ is articulated well be Simon Sinek and The Golden Circle Model.

No alt text provided for this image

The famous example he gives in his 2009 Ted Talk is of Apple, who at that time where transforming our global view of mobile, social, and communications technology. 

Simon Sinek cites the example of Apple. In his opinion, Apple is technically no different from its competitors. But Apple communicates from the “Why.” Apple’s “Why” is to challenge the status quo and empower the individual. And their challenging the status quo is a pattern repeating in all they say and do, which is the reason why people perceive Apple as authentic.

Simon Sinek also cites the First Mover Advantage when “Why” is in the picture. Take the case of Creative versus Apple. Creative was far more capable of producing an mp3 player, and they were the first. But they marketed their offering as a “5GB mp3 player”, more like a “What.” Instead, Apple marketed the iPod as “1000 songs in your pocket” giving us the “Why” that we need.

For many years I researched Organisational Excellence, particularly enquiring in to the ideal of ‘Reliable Excellence’. There are many insights to be taken from industry leading organisations. However, a recurring theme that we found difficult to swallow was that past success did not guarantee future success. That while starting with why for example is so powerful, yet organisations could still not follow through on commitments, leaders have blind spots, people get caught in routines rather than deep understanding, so many new and better paths open up that we do not see, or take.

Remaining true to a powerful ‘Why” is not easy. 

It requires looking at the next horizon and being fit for what it takes.

Not just individually, but as a collective – as the team, as an organisation, as a value chain of organisations integrating people/ process/ technology delivering to the customer/ citizen/ client/ patient.

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress;

working together is success.”

 – Henry Ford

Self Awareness – to surface blind-spots

Self-Accountability – to follow through

Curiosity – to deeply understand and avoid pre-judging/ pre-determining

Perspectives – to see and create different paths

So much learning and development as individual leaders, and as leadership teams where the dimensions of understanding each other make this all the more complex.

Like fitness, the theory is useful but not meaningful if not applied. Like fitness, we all have different strengths and weaknesses. Also like fitness practising exercises can help us build the attributes.

Through research and plenty of reflection on hits and misses, the practices of Expose, Explore, Expand, and Exert become clearer as an essential and complementary factor with the strategy and purpose work.

No alt text provided for this image

The leadership work to remain true to your Why also moves at different stages of organisational progress and as Change-fit catalysts and senior sponsors being aware of this is also critical to maintaining traction, and not drifting from being the leaders and the organisation we set out to be.

No alt text provided for this image

What has been your experience?

Bernie