God dang this is a good book. I have to say, Sinek NAILED IT!
Sinek is a Brit, and therefor different than an American in an absolutely crucial way.
Like other British intellectuals, he's not afraid to integrate the evolutionary perspective into his theory and analysis.
Maybe it's because Charles Darwin is British. Maybe it's because all of the super psycho religious fanatics came over here (America) circa 300 years ago. Probably a little of both.
What ever the reason. British intellectuals demonstrate a kind of ease when referring to evolution where as Americans tend to feel at least a little self conscious about dropping the E bomb in public.
If you're an American you know how polarizing Darwin's dangerous idea can be. We sort of have to tip toe around the subject (if we go there at all) for fear of alienating someone in the audience.
Trying to navigate the stultifying, anti-intellectual culture of American christianity is a little bit like how I imagine being an intellectual in communist Russia must've been like.
You know, the walls have ears, we have to be carful about what we say and how we say it. That sort of thing.
Of course, there is no equivalent Gulag or anything like it. But suffice it to say, in a country where conservative estimates report somewhere between 50-70 percent of Americans believe in the literal existence of angels, there is a lot of pressure on our intellectuals to steer clear the evolutionary perspective (at least in public discourse) if you want your career to survive and reproduce (if you catch my drift).
Anyway, Sinek comes large with the Darwin.
In fact, the evolutionary perspective is essentially the foundation of his analysis and theory of effective leadership and more broadly, of human behavior.
And for good reason. evolutionary psychology has clarity and profound explanatory and predictive power. Why wouldn't you apply it to managerial and leadership theory.
Sinek also sprinkles in some neurobiology. Although he paints in broad strokes and his science is a little soft. He achieves his important mission of grounding human behavior in biology.
He even attributes corporate short sidedness and greed to an addiction to dopaminergic activation. Not unlike other behavioral addictions, like for instance ummmm...gambling?
Maybe he's going out on a limb with this one but I'm willing to be generous with him here ;-)
Sinek also utilizes the findings experimental psychology quite effectively. Again he paints in broad strokes, but he nails his intention of supporting his hypothesis with some very relatable, very dramatic experimental data.
While the scientific method isn't precisely a British export. British dudes like Newton have been using it for years with some pretty neat results. That Karl Popper dude is from the U.K. too. I'm pretty sure he contributed a coupe of important things to the philosophy of science.
Sinek is also a really good storyteller. Another classically British trait. He is charismatic and impassioned, just a bit of a bullshitter and really entertaining. I bet he could rock a pub if he was so inclined.
It's really one of the BIG strengths of this book. It's very informal, fun, inspirational and engaging.
You get the feeling that it's almost too easy for Sinek. He brings just a little Darwin and a little neuroscience to the land of the Jesus barbarians and wows em'. At least the smart ones anyway. It's probably like taking candy from a baby.
In the end, it's Sinek's humanistic values (yet another highly British trait) that really shine through and make the message literally irresistible.
In a nutshell, Sinek's message is great leadership is all about putting people and relationships first. And demonstrating a willingness to sacrifice your individual comfort for the good of the team.
In the end, Sinek is expounding the real, tangible, dollars and cents benefits of prioritizing cooperation over strictly self interested competition in the name of longterm benefit. Maximizing nonzero-sum gains if you will. A very neo-Darwinian insight.
Not only does it feel good to put people before profits, it's also (ironically) more profitable. Furthermore, the reason it feels good to lead by example, to put your people first, and for that matter to follow a leader who does so, is because we're hard wired to survive in this way. And all of our happy chemicals squirt when we're in this type of social environment.
Human beings are wired to win via cooperating. Chimpanzees lead via domination. Effective human leadership emerges from environments of empathetic cooperation. That's (ironically) why were the dominant primate species on the planet and not chimpanzees.