Thursday, November 11, 2010

The Why in Your Family

The It Takes a Village to Create Change Conference in San Diego over the weekend was phenomenal. Organized by the Indigo Village Educational Foundation, the one-day event was presented with immense love and grace. I felt privileged to be a speaker on the program, particularly after listening to Simon Sinek speak about Start with WHY, which is also the title of his new book.

Simon drew a target – which he calls The Golden Circle – with three parts. The bull’s eye at dead center is the WHY. The next layer surrounding the center is the HOW and the outside ring of the target is the WHAT.

The WHY is your purpose, your passion and your dream. The WHY is about leadership. “There are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or influence. Those who lead inspire us. Whether individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead, not for them but for ourselves.”

The HOW is the strategy. It consists of “guiding principles or actions that inform the path you will take in pursuit of your WHY. They are the road map or the code of conduct to start to move a Why into something useful and tangible. They are, quite literally, the actions you take or the environment in which you work best.”

The WHAT is the execution. Simon quoted Edison who said, “Vision without execution is hallucination.”

The principles of The Golden Circle can be applied to any organization, and they can be highly beneficial to our first organization, our family. Just as we teach the value of disciplining our children so they develop their own inner direction in Redirecting Children’s Behavior™, Simon said to start from the WHY, from the center and from the heart. If we are clear on our WHY as a family, clear on our purpose as parents, centered as family members, nothing can lead us off course.

More on how Simon’s principles apply to families and parenting to come!

No comments:

Post a Comment