Whom Simon Senik left out.
Starting with WHY is the bomb but ending with WHOM is even bombier.
If you’re here, I probably don’t have to tell you who Simon Sinek is. Or what his Golden Circle represents. But let’s pause for a hot second to level set …
The Golden Circle
Sinek’s Golden Circle. The use of blue is foreshadowing. (Illustration by the author)
Discovered in 2006 by advertising executive, author, and motivational speaker Simon Sinek—and popularized in his TED Talk and book Start With Why—the Golden Circle is built on the premise that every single organization on the planet, or even in our careers, functions on three levels:
WHY we do something (e.g. why does your organization exist, why do you get out of bed in the morning, and why should anyone care)
HOW we do something (e.g. how are we unique, how are those products made, how are those services delivered, or how you go about your job)
WHAT we do (e.g. what products are sold, what services are offered, or what your role is at work)
As popularized, the Golden Circle can be represented simply and concentrically.
Sinek argues that most of us can easily describe the organizations we’re a part of from the outside in (a WHAT-centric approach): We know what our organizations do and we might even know how these organizations do it, but rarely can we say why.
This is a problem.
When these three elements are aligned—taking a WHY-centric approach—“it gives us a filter through which to make decisions. It provides a foundation for innovation and for building trust.” But when a WHAT-centric approach is taken, we might make sense, but we do so without inspiring action. And this approach doesn’t explain why anyone — even ourselves — should care, much less spend valuable time or money.
Famously, Sinek uses two computer companies to illustrate the inherent weakness of an organization without a WHY and the fundamental strength of an organization with one:
The Gateway COMPUTERS (a WHAT-centric approach) example
WHAT: We make good computers
HOW: They’re beautiful, cheap, and have lots of features
WHY: … (profit is the implicit WHY)?
The Apple COMPUTERS (a WHY-centric approach) example
WHY: Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo and thinking differently
HOW: We do this by making beautiful, friendly products
WHAT: We happen to make good computers (and phones and MP3 players and TVs and …)
The Golden Circle as a tool.
Simon Senik rhapsodizing about leadership and Marine dietary habits. (Photo by James Duncan Davidson, at ted.com)
Many consultants—myself included—use the Golden Circle as a tool to get stakeholders talking and to elicit the real motivations within an organization. Rooms full of stakeholders can agree quickly on the WHAT and the HOW of their organizations, but they’re often at a loss to articulate the WHY—especially if they’re hierarchically or generationally separated from the organization’s founders.
But asking business and project leaders to recontextualize their work using a WHY-centered perspective can be profoundly eye-opening and powerfully aligning. And it parallels other business literature (notably, Oren Klaff’s Pitch Anything, which I often use in concert with Sinek’s Golden Circle), empowering stakeholders to use their newly discovered WHY to boost internal culture or to multiply external marketing.
But wait… something’s missing…
As a user-experience designer using Sinek’s Golden Circle, though, I’ve often been left one step short of a breakthrough. In workshops, I’ve seen rooms full of business leaders electrified by the eureka of capturing their WHY. But when it comes to aligning this newly discovered vision with their immediate project or product requirements, a disconnect remains.
We know WHY we’re doing it. And HOW we’re doing it. And WHAT the result is. But not for WHOM.
A person-centric approach to the Golden Circle.
The Golden Circle becomes the Blue Circle—and completes the circuit from the person who does to the person it’s done for. (Illustration by the author)
Sinek’s omission of the end-user of our labor is surprising in light of the overwhelming people-focus of his work—especially Leaders Eat Last, which champions a people-centric approach to leadership and culture.
But adding a people-centric component to the Golden Circle changes it in two critical ways.
Firstly, it adds a fourth layer to the Golden Circle as a rhetorical tool, recontextualizing the introspective WHY-HOW-WHAT to include the WHOM.
WHY we do something (e.g. why does your organization exist, why do you get out of bed in the morning, and why should anyone care)
HOW we do something (e.g. how are we unique, how are those products made, how are those services delivered, or how you go about your job)
WHAT we do (e.g. what products are sold, what services are offered, or what your role is at work)
WHOM are we doing something for (e.g. who benefits from our organization, who is the end-user/consumer of our products or services, or whose life we are making better because of our WHY)
Secondly, it completes the human circuit at the heart of commerce. The associate who is inspired by the organization’s WHY is now connected through the HOW and the WHAT to the person on the other end of the process.
The user, the customer, another associate—it doesn’t matter. The Golden Circle is transformed into a person-to-person interaction. Into a link between two people. Into a Blue Circle.
The value of this eureka can hardly be overstated. Like any tool that humanizes the output of work (e.g. user personae, user profiles, MVP clients, focus groups, etc) it’s a focus-change that emphasizes the person at the other end of our labor. Suddenly, our WHY doesn’t result in a product, but on what the customer does with it. It doesn’t result in a service, but on how the user benefits from it. It doesn’t even result in your job description, but it results in how you influence the life of another person.
That’s some powerful sh*t.
Revisiting the Apple example.
In Sinek’s TED Talk, he uses Apple as an example of a company that has a clear WHY-HOW-WHAT approach to business and to talking about their business:
…the example starts with why: ‘Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use, and user-friendly. And we happen to make great computers.
Wanna buy one?
But WHOM is Apple doing any of this for?
The temptation is to turn toward market segmentation. Which might look like:
iPhone, iPad, Mac, iPod target customers: US and international high-earning middle- and upper-class urban men and women, aged 20- 45, with emphases on professionals, managers, and executives who are looking for a sense of achievement, belonging, self-expression, and products with advanced features and capabilities.
Apple Music, App Store, iCloud, Apple Pay target customers: US and international high-earning middle- and upper-class urban men and women, aged 18-30, with emphases on students and professionals who are looking for speed of service and efficiency.
Apple Watch, Apple TV, and related accessories target customers: US and international high-earning upper-class urban men and women, aged 20-45, with emphases on professionals and managers who are looking for recreation and self-expression. (adapted from source: research-methodology.net)
Bleh.
This marketing approach gives us demographic details but not a real WHOM. What we need is something more universal while simultaneously literal enough to be envisioned by the business person using the Blue Circle.
Personae for the win.
Person-centered design processes—often shorthanded as UX processes—offer a solution. Instead of market segmentation data and its inherent… segmentation… we can lean into the univeral needs, pain points, and opportunies typically collected in user personae.
User personae are design-thinking tools that synthesize user or customer research into an aggregate view of the end-user of a product or service. The purpose of this exercise is the humanization of the end-user and the alignment of business people, designers, and developers around a common understanding of those user’s needs.
A divorcee persona for a family law firm, combining detailed demographic data and universal needs, pain points, and opportunities that transcend segmentation. (Persona by the author)
And by condensing this personae down to a simple WHOM statement, we can take a broader and more inclusive view of the person we’re working for. This synthesis rounds out the story of WHY we’re doing what we’re doing. And precisely WHO should care.
Thus, the new WHY-HOW-WHAT-WHOM approach goes…
At Apple, we believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use, and user-friendly. And we happen to make great computers for people who need easy-to-use, reliable devices that help them express their unique selves.
Wanna buy one?
Now, that’s some powerful sh*t.
Innovation is our only business.
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