The Big Why:
Why We Do What We Do
Simon Sinek, author of the book,Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, explained that the most engaging and successful people and organizations worked from the inside out. In other words, they began with the central idea—the why of their work. And then the components of their work—the how and what—flowed from that Big Why. Many, if not most, people and companies work erroneously from the outside in—they know what they do and how to do it, but the Big Why is unclear or missing altogether. They might conclude perhaps that making money is their Why, not realizing that a profit is simply a by-product of good business. It takes more than a desire for profit to be an enduring success.
It takes a nobler motive to create and sustain personal and professional excellence. I founded Epignosys IT Advantage because I believe it takes a core reality—a core desire—that drives what you do and how you do it. There is in me the common desire, I admit, to provide for my family, a worthy aspiration in itself. But even more significant than that is my desire that my company provide more personal, attentive IT services to each of our clients. For me, the Big Why has always been clear: every service my company provides should be excellent because it is essentially service to our fellow man and woman and for God. As such, our services ought to be characterized by an apparent concern for our client’s needs and a desire to honor God.
In my prior IT experience in other businesses, I often grew dissatisfied with the company’s misplaced or absent motivation. The organization and people within it would often know precisely what to do and how to do it, but they lacked knowledge of and commitment to a Big Why. I became convinced that I must live out my Big Why, and I was willing to brave the uncertainties of entrepreneurship to reach that goal. It was with this focus that I named my company, calling it after the Greek word epignosis (ep-ig’-no-sis), which denotes not just general knowledge, but an intimate, firsthand, caring knowledge. And that’s exactly what I desire to give to my company’s clients—the Big Why from which flows the excellence of what we do and how we do it.
