Roughly speaking, there are three ways to start a business. You can start with What, How, or Why. And since leading a business is basically a continual process of starting, how you start is how you lead.

Disclaimer: if you’re already an evangelical member of the Start-With-Why Church, this article might rub you the wrong way. 

I’ve come full circle on this question since getting indoctrinated at business school. My first introduction to the theory of entrepreneurship was through the standard model: starting with a product and reverse engineering the supply chain.

The second was via Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle – starting with Why. This framework turned tradition on its head. Sinek argued that the Wright Brothers succeeded because they had a purpose in mind, not a goal.

The third was in a 1962 sociology paper by Floyd Allport – starting with How. Titled “A Structuronomic Conception of Behavior… [blah, blah, blah]” the research found that people converge on means before ends. A shared goal or purpose, if it ever presents itself, comes after people agree on means. 

When a group of people is organizing, they do a few things. Set goals, find purpose, choose methods, recruit members, and use resources. At its inception, an organization requires its members to converge their focus. This is the glue that holds a young business together. So, where do you start, and what kind of leader does that make you?

Every starting point has its virtues and weaknesses. My ears have calluses from debates about which form of convergence is king. The point of this article is not about the best way to start, but to give you ways to build momentum. Each phenotype can be a winner. I think it’s more important to play to your strengths than trying to keep up with the meta.1 Less risk of paralysis analysis.

The Storyteller

Narrative is your friend. The Storyteller approach means following the Simon Sinek framework of “Start with Why”. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is supplying people with a unifying raison d’etre. From what I’ve seen, this involves setting a big, ambitious goal that people are proud about working towards. 

This has dual utility. First, it’s motivating to team members. Second, it’s kind of a great marketing strategy. Clients or customers feel good about you serving them because they’re part of the vision. A lot of companies follow this model of going from making products to “making culture”.2 

The Operator

Process optimization and project management gurus are Operators. So are agencies and collectives. These groups organize around a shared method, like advertising or research, rather than around a shared goal. Floyd Allport made the case that means convergence – how to do things – always comes before agreement about goals.3 This is a really convenient way to organize, because it simplifies the process of adding members. 

Spotting people that share your methods is much easier than finding people that align with your purpose. For one, a how is easier to communicate than a why. And it is easier to test, because a how can be measured. “Is this person a talented content marketer?” is easier to determine than “Do they believe in the vision, and to what extent?”

The Engineer

This style should really be called The Reverse Engineer. This is the de facto approach by my estimation. You come up with a product or service, then reverse engineer the steps to get there. To borrow an example from Simon Wardley: If you want to start a tea shop, you need tea, cups, and hot water. Hot water requires cold water and a kettle. You also need a store, which requires significant capital. For that, you’ll need financing.

This is a brass tacks, goals-based approach. The main goal is broken into sub goals, which have criteria like cost and quality. Goal convergence can be monolithic, as is the case in big budget projects like infrastructure. Or it can be iterative, with a team crushing one small goal at a time then reorienting. 

The Bricoleur

The French word bricolage means a construction made of diverse, available things. This is the junker approach to leadership. Take what you have and combine it in interesting ways to make something valuable. 

Like other means-based forms of convergence, this approach can receive flak for being a “solution looking for a problem” or “a hammer looking for a nail”. It might, for the same reason, appear to be rather directionless. In reality, however, a lot of people feel that constraints improve performance. The pragmatism required from bricoleurs tends to breed creativity and efficiency. 

The Coach

The playbook of “Start with Who” is epitomized by the management classic Good to Great. Jim Collins uses the analogy of a bus. Business success is about getting the right people on the bus and the wrong people off of it. Everything else will flow naturally from a great team. 

A strategy of people convergence is, on paper, straightforward. You don’t hire someone for a role. You create a role for a great person. Then you help them grow into an even better, more competent person and expand their role accordingly. 

I’ll probably expand on this idea more over the next couple months, so if you have any ideas don’t hesitate to chime in.

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1

 The meta is whatever leadership style is in vogue, most well understood, or most well-adapted for the current environment. META = Most Effective Tactic Available.

2

 https://subpixel.space/entries/life-after-lifestyle/

3

 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1963-02969-001