Simon Sinek: Purpose should be prioritized over metrics

The traditional metrics will reflect purpose over time So having purpose and being purpose led is not the absence of metrics But it's prioritizing the purpose before the metrics And purpose led organizations over time will demonstrate better metrics So the companies that are purpose driven tend to be more profitable Have better tenure of their employees More loyalty over time, more loyalty from their customers And the traditional metrics tend to reflect that It's in a short term that the metrics are not very useful, right It's because sometimes we make purposeful sacrifices to do the right thing If you're a purpose driven or an infinite minded So I had a meeting at the Pentagon once And you know when you have a meeting and you wait in the foyer And then someone comes to get you and then you walk to the meeting, right. You walk to the hall And you have this hallway talk Because it's too uncomfortable to talk about nothing And it's too premature to start the meeting So we just like say: 'How's the weather? ' 'Did you have trouble finding it?

' 'Did you have trouble getting here? ' And we sort of have this nonsense hallway talk And then we walk in to the conference room It ends immediately and we start the meeting, right So I was at the Pentagon and this big general came to get me from the foyer And we're walking down the hall to his office for the meeting And so we're making hallway talk And he says: 'Hey Simon, I had everyone in my office read your book. ' And I said: 'My publisher thanks you.

' And he said: 'Tell them not to bother, I had them read my copy. ' Total book sales: 1 Total impact: huge Compared going to an event where they give out 500 free copies of my book Total book sales 500 but people use them as coasters and doorstops Total impact: 0 And so in the short term it looks better being at the event from 500 than selling one But if I wait over the course of time that will yield better book sales Because those people will tell their friends to read it and their friends will go buy a book Who'll tell a friend So the point is that if I wait overtime book sales absolutely help me recognize Is the movement growing? But not in any particular month I don't care about People say: ''How many books do you wanna sell per year?

' 'How many speeches do you want to do per year? ' I don't care It makes no difference to me whether it's this year, next year What I want is momentum The way I measure success with the metrics Is the momentum going like this? And the exact dates and the exact numbers It's like I want to lose a certain amount of weight by a certain date But what happens if you don't lose the weight by that date?

Well you're still way healthier than you were even though you missed the goal So the goals are good because they help drive us and motivate us But if you hit it or make it, it doesn't matter in the infinite game It's a guidance, not an absolute Finite views metrics as absolute Infinite views metrics as a measure of speed and distance They're guides We're going faster, we're going slower So yes, metrics are hugely important You can't run a marathon without metrics You need to know how fast and how far, right You need metrics But the question is how we view them So traditional metrics are perfectly fine But Simon what do I do with my sales target tomorrow? No there's nothing wrong with the sales targeting Where's that wonderful pad of paper? I want to know the sales target That was a nice story, thank you very much Simon But now the sales target, this is what you have to do I will just talk about it, that's fine.

We will use our imagination There's nothing wrong with sales targeting Like I said having goals gives us something specific If I said to you: 'You will get a bonus at the end of the year if you accomplish more. ' You're gonna say: 'How much more? ' And I'm gonna say: 'More' It's actually unnerving, right It's actually unnerving Give me a number, give me a date and I can work towards that There's nothing wrong with that So there's nothing wrong with targets Just like I said, if you say I want to lose a certain amount of weight by a certain date Like that's actually very helpful then I want to lose weight, right Like I want to lose five kilos by X date You can do that, right The question is how we get there I don't have a problem with the metrics So this is a traditional model, right I need everybody in the company to hit this number, I need your team to hit this number by the end of the year And it's usually annual because that's when we pay taxes, right Because if we pay taxes every 18 months, the targets would all be 18 months, right So here's one team: Team one Performances like this, morale is like this Like when we're doing well everybody's happy, when we're doing badly everybody's bad and sad People are quitting, people are getting fired There's layoffs you know, one quarter because we missed the numbers And at the end of the year we have a hard promotion and we hit the number on the date And that leader and that team is given a bonus, right Which sends a message to the rest of the company If this is how you do business, you'll do very well here Then there's another team, that's really well led Morale is really good all the time No one quits, no one's getting laid off, no one gets fired, everything's great, same target You know they love each other You ask the people, they all love their jobs, right And at the end of 12 months they miss the target We give that team and that leader nothing So basically what we're saying is If you run your business this way you won't do well at this company I don't have a problem with the target because clearly this team is going to hit the target in 14 months But they missed the arbitrary date and they missed the arbitrary projection And so we have to consider not just if they make it, but how they make it And this team should be respected more than this team Because this is good steady growth, this is what keeps companies healthy This is dangerous It looks good on paper but it's destroying the people and it's destroying the culture And it just can't last So I don't have any problem with targets and that's not a problem But the problem is are they absolute?

And are we considering the manner in which we achieve our goals? Other questions, who? So, it's kinda funny because I had exactly the same question as as the lady over there And I love your answer But still I really want to walk away today with which metric should we then be adding As of tomorrow next to the metrics that we have right now?

I like the question of what metrics are we adding, that's very interesting So performance metrics as we've already agreed are perfectly valid over time So what metrics are missing, right? So I had the opportunity to meet with somebody from the SEAL Teams And few would debate that the SEALs are one of the highest performing organizations on the planet Right? And I asked them: 'How do you choose?

' This is like SEAL Team, six kind stuff, right Like they take people from the SEALs and they put them in SEAL Team six How do you choose? And he says we look at two - this is the head of training This is the head of training, who told me this We look at two metrics, the two axes We look at performance and we look at trust And the way we define those terms is this is performance on the battlefield And this is how you are off the battlefield So this is how good you are at your job Do you make the metrics? Do you make the numbers?

Do you hit the revenue targets? But this is the kind of person you are When it's not the meeting, right So I may trust going to a meeting with you, but I may not want to hang out with you when I'm stuck in an airport The way they put it is I trust you with my life, but I don't trust you with my money or my wife That's how they put it Clearly nobody wants this person on their team, a low performer of low trusts, clearly Clearly everybody wants this person, the high performer of high trust, on their team Clearly This is what they learned This person over here, the high performer of low trust, is a toxic team member Which eventually becomes a toxic leader if we keep promoting them That's a toxic team member and they would rather have a medium performer of high trust Sometimes even a low performer of high trust, it's a relative scale, over this person We have a million metrics at work for performance And we have negligible to know metrics for trust So it's not that we don't care about these things It's we don't know how to recognize these things We don't know who these people are And sometimes we do and we say: 'Why do you let that person to be in a team? ' And we go: 'Ah, their numbers are so good .

' In other words we allow these people to stay Even though they're pulling down the performance of everybody else Now that doesn't mean we should immediately fire them, right Just Iike I don't believe you should immediately fire a low performer You should coach them and help them get their performance up If somebody is of low trust we should coach them But if they prove to be uncoachable, the cause is bigger than any of us And so it's time to find someplace where you'll be happier Because clearly if we're not happy I can guarantee you're not happy So here's the joke, it is unbelievably easy to find these people Just go to any team and ask who's the asshole and they'll all point to the same person So to answer your question, the thing that we're missing is peer review We don't have peer reviews Our bosses tell us how well we're doing So we're all working for one person's approval If you have a great boss, great If you're unlucky and you don't, then you're screwed Because it's one person's approval that determines my entire career, right So peer review i think should be not the only, but one of Because I think both are important, right And it should never be used - it should be used as an evaluation tool In other words 360 reviews So we took 360 reviews and the one of the ways that we did it, we made our own And I'll tell you how we do it Which is we take a team, which is defined by a group people who work together Not to do with the hierarchy So it's not just marketing and sales Like if you're an engineer and I'm a marketer and I talk to you every single day We're on the same team, right So the team is defined as a group of people who work together on a regular basis, right We take a team and every single team member has to take a piece of paper and write What are my top three weaknesses or places I need the most help? With three specific examples Three specific examples of my biggest weaknesses are things I need to improve And then three specific examples of my biggest strengths or the places that I believe I've grown the most All of those pieces of paper are collated and shared amongst the whole team And then we all get together in a room And one by one each person gets to start and they pull out their paper And the first thing they do is read out their top three weaknesses with their examples And then everyone in the room is allowed to add more And the only thing they're allowed to say is thank you No excuses, no explanations Just thank you And the reason is because we tell them, there's a little speech we give at the beginning That what we're asking each other to do is really really uncomfortable It is really uncomfortable to tell people I work with, sometimes people more senior than me Where they're hurting me, where they suck, right And they would rather not tell you But they're gonna tell you, because they want to see you grow and become a better version of yourself So when they give you this information, say thank you If you have an emotional reaction: anger It's probably because what they're telling you is true That's what we tell, that's what we say And we also say if they're telling you something that's just wrong No emotional reaction, you're just thinking: 'Yeah, no' Then ignore it, say thank you for the feedback and move on It's not all gospel, it's feedback, right Then when we're done with the top three weaknesses, we do the exact same thing with the top three strengths You read your own and then anyone at the table can add to it And what you start to discover is that you are actually having a positive influence in people's lives That you didn't even realize So it ends on an amazing high Then we have to have the ability to coach to those weaknesses and strengths So it's not over, now over the course of the year we now have data That shows us where you can grow in your weaknesses Grow your strengths, because we want you to get even better And mitigate your weaknesses and we're gonna coach each other or have outside coaches to help But we have data now And then at the end of the year what we want to see Or actually I don't like annual reviews, I like quarterly reviews That's a whole separate thing Because I want to see growth Because when you do an annual review really you're only getting reviewed on the past three months Because nobody can remember what happened six months ago You know you've been amazing for nine months and the past three months you sucked And that's what your review says you know So quarterly you can show growth, but then what we want to do is we want to see that people are growing Not just performing, we want to see them growing So that's one thing you can do Start implementing some sort of peer review and if you identify these people, coach them And if they prove to be uncoachable Do you have the courage to ask these people to go help another company? Is that a little bit of an answer?