I spend several days a month facilitating retreats in high intensity, high energy rooms with executives of my clients’ organizations getting to the “core” of their business. Jim Collins pioneered much of this work of Core Purpose, Core Values, and Brand Promise in his 2001 book Good to Great. While others over the years have built on the foundations built by Collins, the basis of building an organizations core ideology has remained relatively unchanged.

Over the past few weeks, I read Simon Sinek’s Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. While Sinek points at many of the same basic tenets as Collins, the ease of his explanation, works very well to explain the need for the core purpose, or as he says “the why.” Take a few minutes to see Sinek’s TED talk.