Why Do They Come?
David Freund, Chief Leadership Officer

I recently saw a post from Simon Sinek that read, “Give people a reason to come to work, not just a place to go to work.” I was struck by the truth in his statement. As companies, we have improved the facilities, improved the benefits, and created flexible work schedules—all in an effort to keep the employees we have happy and attract new employees. What we have been doing is giving them a better place to come to and forgetting the reason why they should come. Perhaps the missing piece to higher employee engagement that we have been searching for has been right before our eyes, and we’ve just been missing it.

Simon is famous for telling us, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” Therefore, it’s not surprising that people won’t work for us because of what we do, but rather why we do it. In his example of the golden circle, we have three concentric rings. The center ring is our “WHY,” the next ring out is our “HOW,” and the third or outer most ring is “WHAT.” So how can we translate this to our hiring and employee development?

According to Simon, “If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. If you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood, sweat, and tears.” If this is true, and I believe it is because I have seen it work, we need to start by understanding for ourselves why we do what we do. Why does our organization exist? While this may be a painful process, it is very liberating. Once you discover your organization’s why, you have the most powerful tool to determine the “best” hire, and a wonderful, almost endless tool for motivating your team. Oh, and by the way, it keeps you motivated as well.

Looking for more on this topic? Join Marisa and me on The Next Page podcast, Episode 113.

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