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Recently, I was reminded of “The Why” by an industry colleague. “The Why” relates to a speech in 2009 by Simon Sinek, who has also written the book “Start with The Why”. In short, his research showed that successful companies and endeavors (Apple, Dr King, the Wright brothers) had one thing in common. The started with why instead of what. Why do you do what you do, not what do you do (as a business, as well as a person). Take a look now at his speech at TED to get the whole picture. Then try it yourself. What is your Why? If you are like most people, What is often much easier. I think that is because we are so used to the What. For most of us, our professional lives are almost all about the What. But that is slowly but surely changing. Can you feel it? It might not seem like it at first glance, since things look as starkly commercial – or more so – than ever. Bill Drayton, the founder of Ashoka, a global organization making investments in social entrepreneurship says that “Empathy is increasingly becoming our primary resource for dealing with the exponential rate of change the world is going through”. I think that is true. It definitely is for me. And I think that social business – that is, your business becoming social (and therefore transparent) – will eventually take you there or you will have no business. But there are also very personal benefits to finding out The Why. In this article in the HuffPost research shows that giving to others is a very powerful way to keep you healthy. Indicative of all of the above is the initiative of the HuffPost called “The Third Metric” in which they “redefine success beyond the first two metrics of money and power to include well-being, wisdom, and our ability to wonder and to give — all of which are boosted when we give our time and effort to something other than ourselves”. A sign of the times.
