---
title: "Step Twelve"
description: "Sinek's recovery path for organisations addicted to performance, modelled on Alcoholics Anonymous."
canonical: https://tomsharman.com/bookshelf/leaders-eat-last/step-twelve/
updated: 2026-11-03
---

# Step Twelve

> Sinek's recovery path for organisations addicted to performance, modelled on Alcoholics Anonymous.

Simon Sinek's framework, from Leaders Eat Last, pp. 201 to 240.

Framework 6 of 6 from [Leaders Eat Last](https://tomsharman.com/bookshelf/leaders-eat-last/index.md) by Simon Sinek. Category: Growth and strategy.

## The steps

1. **Admit the addiction.** Admit that many cultures are addicted to performance and making the numbers (p. 226).
2. **Recover with real people.** Build connections that are real and in person, as AA does in church basements and by phone and not in chat rooms (p. 227).
3. **Serve other people.** Complete Step Twelve by giving time and energy to real, knowable people you work with each day (p. 227).
4. **Make small, steady changes.** Apply small experiments over time instead of one large reorganisation, as Chapman, Kim and Marquet did (p. 239).

## Where it comes from

From chapter: THE ABYSS, pp. 201–240

Parts 7 and 8 argue that the real danger sits inside organisations and starts with us. Using the puerperal fever epidemic as a parable, Sinek says managers of metrics must admit they are part of the problem, and he describes cultures addicted to dopamine from performance, with the deregulation of broadcasting and banking as symptoms. He sees a distracted younger generation using phones and social media to cope, with rising loneliness. His remedy is Step Twelve, which is service to real people, supported by oxytocin and by shared struggle. He closes by asking leaders to frame challenges that outsize their resources, to serve a cause bigger than the company, and to make small changes every day.

## The animation

24 seconds, 4:5, no sound.

- MP4: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/leaders-eat-last/step-twelve.mp4
- MP4, dark: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/leaders-eat-last/step-twelve-dark.mp4
- Still: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/leaders-eat-last/step-twelve.png
- Still, dark: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/leaders-eat-last/step-twelve-dark.png