Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t

Simon Sinek defines abstraction as the process by which people themselves become a collective representational idea in the eyes of a company. Rather than seeing consumers as actual human beings, companies often reduce consumers to abstract ideas (for the sake of easier management). Sinek cautions against this type of generalization, emphasizing its dangers with a quote from Joseph Stalin: “The death of one man is a tragedy [...] the death of a million is a statistic” (136). When companies see their consumers as faceless, nameless members of the masses, they operate out of abstraction rather than careful consideration. The same can happen within the confines of a company depending on how big said company becomes. At major corporations like General Electric or Costco, their respective leaders had to decide—and continue to decide on a regular basis—whether to follow a paradigm of abstraction or humanization.

This term refers to the Baby Boomer generation of Americans born between 1946 and 1964, contributors to a “boom” in population growth post-World War II. As Boomers entered adulthood, historical events such as the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal made them more cynical. As a result, Boomers had—and continue to have—a tendency to act more selfishly, acting out of the belief that the government can’t be trusted—which exacerbates the fact that they became “a group that seemed to be more concerned about their own happiness and well-being than the happiness or well-being of those around them” (109).