Start With Why

part of the event. Worse, the stunt didn't do anything to reinforce 
some purpose, cause or belief that Pontiac represents. We had no 
idea what Pontiac's WHY was before the stunt, so it’s hard for the 
publicity stunt to do much more than, well, be a stunt to get some 
publicity. With no sense of WHY, there is nothing else it's doing.
For a message to have real impact, to affect behavior and seed 
loyalty, it needs more than publicity. It needs to publicize some 
higher purpose, cause or belief to which those with similar values 
and beliefs can relate. Only then can the message create any lasting 
mass-market success. For a stunt to appeal to the left side of the 
curve of the Law of Diffusion, WHY the stunt is being performed, 
beyond the desire to generate press, must be clear. Though there 
may be short-term benefits without clarity, loud is nothing more 
than excessive volume. Or in business vernacular: clutter. And 
companies wonder why differentiation is such a challenge these 
days. Have you heard the volume coming from some of them?1
In contrast, what would have been the impact of Dr. King’s 
speech had he not had a microphone and loudspeakers? His vision 
would have been no less clear. His words would have been no less 
inspiring. He knew what he believed and he spoke with passion and 
charisma about that belief. But only the few people with front-row 
seats would have been inspired by those words. A leader with a 
cause, whether it be an individual or an organization, must have a 

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megaphone through which to deliver his message. And it must be 
clear and loud to work. Clarity of purpose, cause or belief is 
important, but it is equally important that people hear you. For a 
WHY to have the power to move people it must not only be clear, it 
must be amplified to reach enough people to tip the scale.
It's no coincidence that the three-dimensional Golden Circle is a 
cone. It is, in practice, a megaphone. An organization effectively 
becomes the vessel through which a person with a clear purpose, 
cause or belief can speak to the outside world. But for a megaphone 
to work, clarity must come first. Without a clear message, what will 
you amplify?
Say It Only If You Believe It
Dr. King used his megaphone to rally throngs of people to follow 
him in pursuit of social justice. The Wright brothers used their 
megaphone to rally their local community to help them build the 
technology that could change the world. Thousands of people heard 
John F. Kennedy's belief in service and rallied to put a man on the 
moon in less than a decade. The ability to excite and inspire people 
to go out of their way to contribute to something bigger than 
themselves is not unique to social causes. Any organization is 
capable of building a megaphone that can achieve a huge impact. In 
fact, it is one of the defining factors that makes an organization 
great. Great organizations don't just drive profits, they lead people, 
and they change the course of industries and sometimes our lives in 
the process.
A clear sense of WHY sets expectations. When we don't know an 
organization's WHY, we don't know what to expect, so we expect 
the minimum—price, quality, service, features—the commodity 
stuff. But when we do have a sense for the WHY, we expect more. 
For those not comfortable being held to a higher standard, I strongly 
advise against trying to learn your WHY or keeping your Golden 

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Circle in balance. Higher standards are hard to maintain. It requires 
the discipline to constantly talk about and remind everyone WHY 
the organization exists in the first place. It requires that everyone in 
the organization be held accountable to HOW you do things—to 
your values and guiding principles. And it takes time and effort to 
ensure that everything you say and do is consistent with your 
WHY. But for those willing to put in the effort, there are some great 
advantages.
Richard Branson first built Virgin Records into a multibillion- 
dollar retail music brand. Then he started a successful record label.
Later he started an airline that is today considered one of the pre-
mier airlines in the world. He then started a soda brand, wedding- 
planning company, insurance company and mobile phone service. 
And the list goes on. Likewise, Apple sells us computers, mobile 
phones, DVRs and mp3 players, and has replicated their capacity 
for innovation again and again. The ability of some companies not 
to just succeed but to repeat their success is due to the loyal 
followings they command, the throngs of people who root for their 
success. In the business world, they say Apple is a lifestyle brand. 
They underestimate Apple's power. Gucci is a lifestyle brand—
Apple changes the course of industries. By any definition these few 
companies don't function like corporate entities. They exist as social 
movements.
Repeating Greatness
Ron Bruder is not a household name, but he is a great leader. In 
1985, he stood at a crosswalk with his two daughters waiting for the 
light to change so they could cross the street. A perfect opportunity, 
he thought, to teach the young girls a valuable life lesson. He 
pointed across the street to the red glow of the "Do Not Walk" signal 
and asked them what they thought that sign meant. "It means we 

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have to stand here," they replied. "Are you sure?" he asked 
rhetorically. "How do you know it's not telling us to run?"
Soft-spoken and almost always wearing a well-tailored three- piece 
suit when he comes to work, Bruder looks like you would imagine a 
conservative executive to look like. But don't assume you know how 
things work simply based on what you see. Bruder is anything but a 
stereotype. Though he has enjoyed the trappings of success, he is not 
motivated by them. They have always been the unintended by-
product of his work. Bruder is driven by a clear sense of WHY. He 
sees a world in which people accept the lives they live and do the 
things they do not because they have to, but because no one ever 
showed them an alternative. This is the lesson he was teaching his 
daughters that day at the crosswalk—there is always another 
perspective to be considered. That Bruder always starts with WHY 
has enabled him to achieve great things for himself. But more 
significantly, it is his ability to share his WHY through the things he 
does that inspires those around him to do great things for 
themselves.
Like most of us, the career path Bruder has followed is incidental. 
But WHY he does things has never changed. Everything Bruder has 
ever done starts with his WHY, his unyielding belief that if you can 
simply show someone that an alternative route is possible, it can 
open the possibility that such a route can be followed. Though the 
work he is doing today is world-altering, Bruder hasn't always been 
in the world peace business. Like many inspiring leaders, he has 
changed the course of an industry. But Ron Bruder is no one-hit 
wonder. He has been able to repeat his success and change the 
course of multiple industries, multiple times.
A senior executive at a large food conglomerate that sold vege-
tables, canned goods and meats decided to buy a travel agency for 
his nephew. He asked Bruder, as the chief financial officer of the 
company at the time, to take a look at the financials of the agency 

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165 
before he went through with the purchase. Seeing an opportunity 
others didn't, Bruder decided to join the small travel agency to help 
lead it. Once there, he saw how all the other travel agencies worked 
and took an alternative course. Greenwell became the first travel 
agency on the eastern seaboard to take advantage of new technolo-
gies and fully computerize their operations. Not only did they be-
come one of the most successful companies in the region, but after 
only a year, their business model became a standard for the whole 
industry. Then Bruder did it again.
A former client of Bruder's, Sam Rosengarten, was in some dirty 
businesses—coal, oil and gas; all industries that created brown- 
fields, land that had been contaminated by their operations. Little 
could be done with brownfields. They were too polluted to develop, 
and the liability to clean them up was so high that the insurance 
premiums alone made it too prohibitive to even try. But Bruder 
doesn't see challenges the same way as everyone else. Most avoided 
brownfields because they could only see the cost to clean them up. 
Bruder focused instead on the actual cleaning. His alternative 
perspective revealed the perfect solution.
Bruder had already formed his real estate development 
company, Brookhill, and with eighteen employees, he was doing 
quite well. Knowing what he needed to do to seize the opportunity, 
he approached Dames & Moore, one of the largest environmental 
engineering companies in the world, and shared his new 
perspective with them. They loved his idea and formed a