Simon Sinek

Simon Sinek is an unshakable optimist. He believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together. Described as “a visionary thinker with a rare intellect,” Simon has devoted his professional life to help advance a vision of the world that does not yet exist; a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. 

He shares his ideas through his books: 
‘Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action’, ‘Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull together and Others Don’t’ and ‘The Infinite Game.’

A trained ethnographer, Simon is fascinated by the people and organisations that make the greatest and longest lasting impact in the world. Over the years, he has discovered some remarkable patterns about how they think, act and communicate and the environments in which people operate at their natural best. He has devoted his life to sharing his thinking in order to help other leaders and organisations inspire action. Simon may be best known for popularising the concept of WHY, which he described in his first TED Talk in 2009. Please see link below:

How are we inspired at Hazeldown?

After watching the TED Talk and reading his book, we related the Golden Circle theory to education: realising that, much of the time, many people who work in the education sector focus on the WHAT (what we have to teach) before thinking about HOW we should do it and WHY we are doing it - In fact, a lot of the time, the WHY is missed altogether!

At Hazeldown, we work from the inside out, ensuring all our decisions start with WHY - giving the learning and our direction of travel a clear purpose; we then think about HOW best to achieve our goals and HOW our staff and pupils should approach the teaching and learning; the WHAT we do is subsequently of a higher standard, giving staff and pupils emotional connections to their everyday life within school.