Concept
Split Happens
Split happens is Simon Sinek's name for the point in an organisation's growth when What it does keeps expanding while its sense of Why it exists quietly flattens, so success begins to erase the cause that created it.
Sinek draws two lines on a chart. Early on they rise together. A small team sits close to the founder, and the cause is felt in every decision without anyone writing it down. Growth changes that. Products, hires and revenue multiply, but the Why now lives in fewer and fewer people who remember why it all began. New staff learn the What: targets, processes, the product. They inherit nothing of the Why unless someone deliberately passes it on. Nothing visibly breaks, and sales can keep climbing for years. The cost shows up later. Decisions get made on metrics alone, a "just hit the number" culture takes hold, and customers can no longer say why they choose you over a cheaper rival. The split is not a failure of growth. It is the default outcome of growth without routines that carry the cause.
A real-life example
A coffee roaster starts with six people determined to pay farmers fairly. Five years later it has 80 staff and three cafés. Purchasing switches to a cheaper bean supplier to protect margin, and nobody objects. The new buyer was hired against a cost target and never heard the founding story. Revenue rises that quarter. A year later two loyal wholesale clients leave, saying the brand "feels like everyone else now."
How to use it
- 1Ask five people hired in the last year why the organisation exists. If the answers are vague or only describe products, the split has already started.
- 2Build the Why into routines, not speeches. Have early staff tell the founding story during onboarding, and add one line to every major decision memo on how the decision serves the cause.
- 3Give the Why an owner. Name one senior person whose explicit job is guarding the cause while others drive the What.