How to Master the Art of Leadership | Simon Sinek’s Greatest Speech

and i'm fascinated about this idea i'm fascinated by how in a world where technology is remarkable the things that we can dream up and the things that we can do yet we still come together as groups to do things as people i was also struck by something that neil armstrong said that he was grateful to be led by people who inspired him to yearn for that place to yearn listen to that that's such this wonderful feeling and so it begs the question sort of what does it mean to lead you know why do people do what they do i'm fascinated by this idea of leadership and we i read the same books as everyone else i read the same books as all of you and you know learn your style of leadership and how to adjust your style of leadership to fit to the situation at hand etc etc that's not leadership that's management all leaders have one thing and one thing only followers that's it that's it if you're a leader it means you have followers it has nothing to do with rank it has nothing to do with intelligence it has nothing to do with seniority if people are willing to follow you you are a leader the question is what's a follower a follower is somebody who volunteers to go where you want to go someone who raises their hand and says i choose to follow you we can get people to do all kinds of things using authority that doesn't make you a leader a leader is when someone says i volunteer to go where you're going the question is why should anyone follow you there's only two ways to influence human behavior you can either manipulate people or you can inspire people examples of manipulation in the business world are things like dropping your price if you drop your price low enough people will buy from you we know this uh promotions two for one free toy inside or if you're in the business to business space we call it value added the concept is the same it's giving things away for free to reduce someone's risk so they'll choose you over the competition and it works innovation what organizations like to call innovation is really novelty innovation real innovation changes the course of industries if not the way we live our lives adding a camera to your cell phone is a wonderful feature but it is not an innovation it's the difference between steps and leaps the problem is what most organizations think is innovation is really novelty it's the latest shiny thing the example i love to give is an american example about colgate toothpaste the brand of toothpaste in the 1970s there are only two choices of colgate toothpaste do you know how many there are now 27 27 different choices of one brand of toothpaste because what happened was competition increased and the metric went down whether it's revenues or market share profit doesn't matter the metric went down and so they added a new product and the population went ooh shiny we're all drawn to it the problem is the competition copied this is one of the problems with competition you see they compete and then the metric went down again well it worked the first time so we'll do it again and they added another product and another product and another product and another product and before you know it you have 27 different line extensions which means that their competition is offering about the same number of products at about the same price about the same quality about the same service literally hundreds of choices of toothpaste to choose from and yet i have no data to show that people are brushing their teeth now more than they were before and the best part is what's what do these companies complain about now what's their biggest challenge how do we differentiate ourselves this is hilarious to me which is how do we how do we get out of a problem that we created for ourselves there are all kinds of other manipulations fear wonderful manipulator if any of your parents you know exactly what i'm talking about you can scare people into doing all sorts of things aspirational messages we're constantly being told you have to be aspirational give people something to aspire to you know you can get people to join the gym with an aspirational message but to get them to work out three days a week that requires a little bit of inspiration now i cannot dispute that these and many other manipulations work the problem is none of them breed loyalty the problem is none of them create trust and over the course of time they cost more money someone has to pay for it all and over the course of time it increases stress both for the buyer and for the seller it is stressful for us to make decisions today in a world in which manipulation is the norm where we are bombarded by manipulations from all sides from all people trying to get us to do any number of things whether it's vote for them or buy from them or do something the question is how do we choose what's right for us it's called stress we literally have trouble choosing these days but it's stressful for the sellers as well in a marketplace where manipulation is the norm how do we stand out how do we get hurt how do we find people to follow us the alternative is inspiration and there are only a few people and a few organizations that tend to rely vastly more on inspiration than manipulation and i'll talk about some of the bigger ones like apple computers or southwest airlines or martin luther king and you see it not only in organizations but great leaders as well like martin luther king or john f kennedy or nelson mandela and what i learned is that regardless of their size and regardless of their industry every single one of these leaders every single one of these organizations thinks acts and communicates the exact same way and it's the complete opposite to everyone else all i did was write it down and it's probably the world's simplest idea i call it the golden circle and it's three concentric circles a bullseye in the middle is y the center ring is how and the outside ring is what why how what it's this little idea that distinguishes those with the capacity to inspire versus everyone else let me define the terms really quickly every single organization on the planet knows what they do these are the products you sell the services you offer everyone here knows what they do some know how they do it whether you call it your differentiating value proposition your usp your proprietary process these are the things that you think make you different or special or stand out from the competition from everyone else but very very few people and very few very very few organizations can clearly articulate why they do what they do and by why i don't mean to make money that's a result by why i mean what's your purpose what's your cause what's your belief why does your organization exist do we really need another company to do what you're doing do we really need another one why did you get out of bed this morning and why should anyone care as a result the way we think the way we act the way we communicate is from the outside in it's obvious we go from the clearest thing to the fuzziest thing we tell people what we do we tell them how we're different or how we're better or how we're special and we expect some sort of behavior a vote a purchase support whatever it is but not those leaders with the capacity to inspire regardless of their size regardless of their industry every single one of them thinks acts and communicates from the inside out let me give you an example i use apple frequently just because they're easy to understand and we all get it if apple were like everyone else a piece of communication would sound like this we make great computers they're beautifully designed simple to use and user friendly want to buy one that's normal here's our new car it's got you know great gas mileage leather seats tinted windows here's our law firm we went to all the best schools we've got all the best lawyers we win all of our cases we work with all of the biggest firms this is normal here's how apple actually communicates they start with why everything we do they say we believe in challenging the status quo we believe in thinking differently the way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed simple to use and user friendly we just happen to make great computers want to buy one it actually feels different all i did was reverse the order of the information what it starts to show us is that it's not what you do that matters it's why you do it and what you do simply serves as the tangible proof of what you believe people don't buy what you do they buy why you do it this is the reason why every single person in this room is perfectly comfortable with the idea that apple sells computers we're also perfectly comfortable with the idea that apple sells mp3 players and phones and dvrs apple is just a company that's all they are it's a corporate structure every single one of their competitors has equal and open access to the same resources the same agencies the same consultants the same talent the same media it is a zero-sum game the difference is all of their competitors have defined themselves by what they do we make computers apple has defined themselves by why they exist to challenge the status quo to give an individual the opportunity to stand up to big brother and choose a simple alternative everything they say and everything they do simply serves as proof dell makes perfectly good products they're every little bit qualified to make every single product that apple makes and a few years ago they tried a few years ago dell came out with mp3 players and pdas and nobody bought one doesn't make sense why would we buy an mp3 player from a computer company but we do it every day because it's not what you do that matters it's why you do it and people don't buy what you do they buy why you do it for this little idea to work we have to have three things one you have to know why you do what you do if you don't know why you do what you do how will anyone else you have to have clarity of why two you have to have discipline of how you have to hold yourself and your people accountable to your own guiding principles and your own values and thirdly you have to have consistency of what everything you say and everything you do has to prove what you believe this is the concept behind authenticity people are always telling us you have to be authentic people prefer to buy from the authentic brand they prefer to vote for the authentic candidate what does that mean how do you implement authenticity if i send you home to your to your work tomorrow and say please the next thing you do i want to make sure it's more authentic what's the first thing you're going to do no clue what authenticity means is the things you say and the things you do you actually believe this is caveman stuff the reason the human race is so successful is not because we're the strongest it's not even because we're the smartest it's because we're social animals it's because we have the ability to form communities and cultures what's a community what's a culture it's a group of people with a common set of values and beliefs what's a country it's a group of people with a common set of values and beliefs what's a company it should be a group of people with a common set of values and beliefs when we're surrounded by people who believe what we believe something remarkable happens trust emerges make no mistake of it trust is a feeling trust is a human experience simply doing everything you say you're going to do does not mean people will trust you it just means you're reliable and we all have friends who are total screw-ups and yet we still trust them trust is a feeling born out of a common set of values and beliefs and our very survival depends on our ability to find those people so that we can form trust when we trust them and they trust us we're more willing we're more likely to take risks to explore to experiment which requires failure by the way all with the confidence that if we turn our backs or fall over or make a mistake that someone from within our community will come to our aid or watch our back or help us up absent trust we still have the will to survive the difference is it's every man for himself absent trust you know we all try and push each other out of the way because we gotta win we gotta we gotta compete we gotta live we gotta survive this is what happened at lehman brothers lehman brothers was very very good at what they did very very good at how they did it but there was no sense of purpose or cause or why that that bonded the company together and at the slightest shake the whole thing collapsed not in months not in weeks in days that company collapsed in days and that's because when stress started to show up all the individuals said i'm out of here gotta look after numero uno got mouths to feed got bills to pay they're not the first organization to go through hard times they're not the first organization to suffer financial scandal the difference is in great organizations in great cultures and in great communities when there is stress the organization comes together to solve the problem absent trust we back off and the thing collapses the most basic human desire on the planet is to feel like we belong again we are social animals and we all have the innate ability to do this if i ask you to go out in the street and find all the people who believe what you believe you know exactly what to do you're going to strike up a conversation with someone you'll either have good chemistry with them or you won't you'll either get along with them quickly or it'll take some time the point is you know how to do it our survival depends on it it's called dating it's called making friends it's called networking we know how to do it the problem is it's not scalable but if you know the symbols to look for it becomes much easier if i ask you to go on the street and find all the people wearing red hats it's easy there's one there's one there's one there's one there's one there's one they're easy to spot because you know what to look for this is what we do when we look for certain symbols and certain we read things about each other every single decision we make in our lives as individuals or as organizations is a piece of communication it's our way of saying something about who we are and what we believe in an attempt to track people so that they may form trust with us and we may form trust with them there are people who walk around with harley-davidson logos on their body right on tattoos this is a corporate logo some of them don't even own the product but it has nothing to do with the company it has to do with them because harley is so clear about what they believe because they're so disciplined in how they do it and they're so consistent in what they do it gets to the point that everything they say and everything they do now serves as a symbol of the of the person of who they are who they believe they are and the reason we want to put those symbols out is so that we may attract people who believe what we believe you can lie you could tell people what what they what we think they want to hear and they'll still be attracted to you except they'll be attracted to the lie and then when they realize that it's not true you'll have a hard time forming trust this is what tiger woods did to us he lied to us he told us what he thought we wanted to hear and we thought it was great the difference is we found out it was a lie and now he's having a very hard time informing trust again if i told you that some footballer cheated on his wife and slept with 100 women would you care no it's because we expect it it's because it's authentic it's because it's because it's it's who they are but not with tigers he chose to lie to us it's not actually the behavior that we're offended by it's that it's inconsistent with what our expectations are everything you say and everything you do has to prove what you believe like i said the most basic human desire is to feel like we belong and it's so remarkably powerful how many of you are from paris most of you right yeah a good number of you okay are you friends with everyone in paris why not why not but when you go to lyon and you meet someone from paris you're like hey i'm from paris and you're best friends and when you go to america and you're on holiday and you're standing there in new york and you're riding the subway and you happen to hear french being spoken behind you and you turn around and you say where are you from they say leon we say we're from paris and you're best friends because when you're in an environment where you don't feel like you belong you seek out anyone who may share the same values and beliefs as you so that you can start to form trusting relationships and the amazing thing is those relationships are real those relationships are real that other family will say to you have you eaten at this restaurant you've got to go to this restaurant and you will take your family to this restaurant because complete strangers on the subway told you to that's insane if that happened here if somebody on the metro just turned you and told you to go to some restaurant you'd go like this the most basic human desire on the planet is to feel like we belong and we have the innate ability to f to find those things and to sense that this is the reason why this could not be recreated over our computers it's because as human beings it's our biology that gives us this ability it's this ability to read each other you know the blogosphere gets very upset at me when i talk about this and how you know you cannot replace these human experiences and these human feelings on over the internet they get very mad at me and yet every single year 20 000 bloggers descend on las vegas to have a huge big conference they call blog sphere blog world my question is why couldn't i do it online it's because nothing can recreate that sense of of human being of human uh coming together nothing i'm telling you is my opinion it's actually grounded in the tenets of biology if you look at a cross-section of the human brain looking from the top down you see that the human brain evolved into three major areas that corresponds precisely with this little idea the outside area is our neocortex our homo sapien brain responsible for all of our rational and analytical thought and language the middle two sections make up our limbic brains and our limbic brains are responsible for all of our feelings like trust and loyalty it's also responsible for all human behavior all decision making and it has no capacity for language this is the reason you can't ask people why do you do business with us why do you like why do you like us they can't tell you the part of the brain that controls behavior doesn't control language and so they rationalize this is the reason why the question why do you love your husband or why do you love your wife is a difficult question why do you love your wife i don't know that's where most people start and then they start saying things they start rationalizing she's fun she's she's i've known her forever she's always there for me when i need her it sounds like the household pet and those aren't necessarily the qualities for marriage my sister says of my brother-in-law my sister says of my brother-in-law i never imagined i'd marry a guy like him right what she's saying is before i got married i had a list of all the attributes i wanted in my future husband and he's got none of them and yet i fell in love with him anyway i want to spend the rest of my life with him and raise a family with him it is a human experience that we have trouble putting into words and so we try we rationalize and then we say things that don't make sense she completes me i don't know what that means what does that mean it means i have a left arm and a left leg and i'm looking for someone with a right arm and a right leg and together we can make one i mean we it's nonsense what we're attempting to do is put into words the feelings we have towards another person or organization with the part of the brain that doesn't control language and so we rationalize or make things up we do the exact same thing at work we talk about people who get it and that guy no matter how much data i show him no matter how how much information i give him he just doesn't get it what's it what how do we find people who get it before we do business with them to realize they don't get it what we're attempting to do is put into words the feelings we have towards other people this common set of values and beliefs with the part of the brain that doesn't control language this sense of of belonging in the sense of community is so powerful the example i love to give and it freaks me out every time i talk about it what's our most valuable possession on the planet come on what's the most valuable possession on the planet our children very good so let's suppose you want to go out uh with your wife with your husband and you need a babysitter you have two options option number one is a 16 year old from just down the street with barely if any babysitting experience option number two is a 32 year old from you don't know from where she just moved into the neighborhood and she's got 10 years of babysitting experience who do you choose the 16 year old you choose the 16 year old you would rather trust your most valuable possession on the planet your children with somebody from within your community with no experience over somebody from outside from you don't know where with vast amounts of experience then why do we do it differently at work why are we so preoccupied with someone's cv and where they've worked and how long they've worked and how much money they made for our competitors and yet we never think to ask what they believe what they value can we trust you can you trust us leadership is the ability to stand on the street corner with your own red hat and simply talk about what you believe got red hat got red hat got red hat here and all the other people wearing red hats whether they know their own why or not whether they can see their own red hat or not are eerily drawn to you because what you're able to do is put into words the way they see themselves what you're able to do is put into words the values and beliefs that they hold dear and they're drawn to you because they feel that they can trust you and they can start to form community around you this is what leadership is leadership puts our own desires and our own values and our own beliefs into words there's an inextricable link between leadership and communication those who lead are the ones who can clearly talk about what they believe and those who can clearly talk about what they believe are the ones who lead let's imagine that we're out on a on a tour a three-hour tour on a boat and we get stranded on a desert island here we are all stranded on the desert island the question is how will we get off the island well one of us stands up and says i will lead we like that we're social animals we appreciate leadership and he stands up and says okay who's got ideas you you think we should build a fire i like it good you you think we should look for food good good good you you think we should build a boat good i like it okay let's take a vote at the same time someone else stands up and says as we were coming into the beach i saw some masts over on the west side of the island and i saw some smoke which means there's a fishing village over there and if we can get to that fishing village we can find help now we're going to have to get through this forest to get there and i don't know how to get through the forest i'm going to need some help but if you want to help i'll welcome it and if you don't want to help don't worry when we get help we'll come back and get you the question i have for you is who do you want to follow who do you want to follow we want to follow the second guy there's no data to show that that fishing village exists there's no photographs and no one else saw it the only thing we have is his conviction his absolute belief in the existence of that world that we cannot see and his ability to put that future state into words that we're drawn to and we will volunteer to go with him maybe even take personal risk i don't know how to get through the forest i don't know how to cut down trees but i will go because i believe it's important not for me but for the greater group the irony is our own survival depends on our ability to help each other this is the irony and here we go we rally together we choose to take the risk we choose to follow we volunteer to follow him and we go through these woods and it's hard and we have to cross rivers and go around boulders and chop down trees and eventually we come to where he said the fishing village is and there's no fishing village did he lie to us were we just conned was this all a big joke is this all is this all for naught and we say to him where is the fishing village you said there was a fishing village you said if we could get here we would survive and he turns to us and say i believe there was a fishing village but that doesn't matter because look what we were able to do we were able to get through that forest together that means that we can pick absolutely any direction on this island and we will be able to get there that's called leadership when people believe what you believe they will work for you with blood and sweat and tears when they don't believe what you believe they work for your money the goal is not to surround yourself with everybody who needs what you have the goal is to surround yourself with people who believe what you believe there are a million reasons why people will do business with you that have nothing to do with you you happen to meet some checklist that they have they happen to hate your competition more there's a difference between repeat business and loyalty you see repeat business means i'll do business with you over and over and over again loyalty means i'm willing to turn down a better product at a better price to continue to do business with you and it's the loyal ones those who feel like they belong those who doing business with you gives them some sense of identity or belonging those are the ones those are the ones who do great and the reason is it because it becomes personal it becomes personal we use these symbols we use these companies we use these leaders we use these organizations as tangible ways of saying something about who we are this is why people with macintosh computers love opening their computers in airports they love for us to see the computer they're using how many of you love your macintosh computer or know someone who loves their macintosh computer okay rationally speaking based on facts and figures data right factually speaking macs are sub-standard computers they're at least 25 percent more expensive sometimes double the price of their pc counterparts there's less software there's fewer peripherals and i know because i switched to a mac they're absolutely slower rationally speaking no one should ever buy one but they do over and over and over again and when they decide they're going to buy one they don't do any compatib comparative competitive comparisons they're not comparing the price and the data and the features from one product to another they simply decide that's the one i want and they go and choose it and if you ask somebody who loves their mac why do you love your mac they don't tell you well you see i see myself as somebody who likes to challenge the status quo and so it's very important for me to surround myself with all the people and the products and the brands to prove to the outside world who i am because i'm using these things as symbols to tell people about who i am in an attempt to attract people who believe what i believe so that i can start to form strong bonds of trust because my own survival depends on it biologically that's what happened in the part of the brain that controls behavior but not language and so they rationalize it's the user interface it's the simplicity it's the design and they say things that don't make sense i'm a creative person whatever that means at the end of the day what they're doing is they're using this symbol to say something about who they are which is why people with max will never put big stickers of their families over the tops of their computers it'll never happen cover up that beautiful glowing apple never never and have you ever seen a dirty macintosh that's because they clean them how many of you have broken out the glass cleaner simply to clean your hp it doesn't happen never the people with max will sit there and clean their computers right because we have to keep it clean because it is a symbol of who i am and when you tell them you know that you bought a substandard computer they start foaming at the mouth and they start getting angry and they'll probably call you an idiot and the reason they take it so personally is because you didn't insult their computer you insulted them because apple is so clear about what they believe so disciplined in how they do it and so consistent in what they do that symbol now serves as a representation of who i believe i am and if i surround myself with enough of these symbols if i'm consistent enough you'll know something about me it's the same thing as a flag what's a flag a flag is just a logo a flag is just a symbol who cares about the flag but we don't we get angry when we see people burning our flag why do we get angry because you're attacking me what do you mean i'm attacking you i just burnt my own property no we get angry because it's a symbol of our values and beliefs and when you attack the flag it's the same as attacking me where do you think the mafia comes from you killed my cousin now i have to kill your whole family you didn't do anything to me it's because we're protective of those within our community we're protective of those who believe what we believe so much so that when you attack someone who believes what i believe it's as if you're attacking us it's as if you're attacking me and at the same time we will protect each other this is what great organizations are great organizations are communities cultures common sense of values and beliefs where we will go to bat for each other and work for each other and help each other even at great personal sacrifice because ironically my own survival depends on it what we need more of today is not talking just about the technology what technology can do that's all fine and good but the question is why does that technology exist in the first place why do you have the technology what's the point of it why should i care how are you helping me on a very very human level innovation doesn't come from telling people to come up with a better technology innovation comes from solving problems that are deeply deeply personal to me we hail apple as this great innovative organization the most innovative organization in the world blah blah blah where does it come from steve jobs by the way do you know how many of the ideas that apple currently sells how many steve jobs came up with zero none of them he didn't come up with apple steve wozniak came up with the apple he didn't come up with itunes or the ipod or iphone it was all people within his organization what jobs was able to do was put into words why they were coming to work what he was able to put into words was why the company exists he gave people something to build this is what they were looking for just as neil armstrong talked about that yearning give people some sort of yearning and they will solve the problem this is what entrepreneurship is entrepreneurship isn't starting a business entrepreneurship is solving a problem 35 years ago when apple before apple even existed steve jobs and steve wozniak were standing in a garage in cupertino california and they made something they called the little blue box it allowed people to avoid paying long distance rates on their phone bills in a day and age when there was only one long-distance phone company they were challenging marbell the existing status quo phone monopoly and then they started apple and they challenged big blue ibm the existing status quo monopoly computer platform and then they challenged microsoft and then they challenged the music industry and then they challenged the phone industry now they're trouble at challenging publishing and if you're in television or movies you're next it is just a repeating pattern it is other people in the organization who came to work and looked for things that restricted human opportunity looked for things that held the individual down and they gave people they used the technology as a way of people giving people to challenge that giving them an option it's remarkable and it's a repeating pattern even if you look at all of their advertising and all of their communications for the past decades it's all exactly the same that 1984 commercial that wonderful uh ridley scott commercial that woman runs into the the orwellian scene and throws the hammer through the screen it's one individual challenging the status quo and then you have hi i'm a mac hi i'm a pc an individual and you have one person standing there listening to their ipod it's always an individual it's always an individual it's always i and jobs is constantly talking about the revolution this and the revolution that it is a cause think different is a belief it is not a product differentiator what distinguishes one organization from another is not simply what you do it's why you do it and if people believe what you believe they'll be drawn to you as if you were their own the goal is not to surround yourself with people who need what you have the goal is to surround yourself with people who believe what you believe and the reason is because of something called the law of diffusion of innovations if you don't know the law you definitely know the terminology what the law of diffusion tells us standard deviation bell curve is that the first two and a half percent of our population are our innovators the next 13 and a half percent of our population are our early adopters the next 34 are your early majority then your late majority and the last 16 are your laggards the only reason these people buy touch tone phones is because you can't buy rotary phones anymore we all we all fit at various times at various reasons across this standard deviation what the law of diffusion tells us is that this population the innovator and the early adopter population are very comfortable trusting their guts they're very comfortable making intuitive decisions remember that biology the part of the brain that controls decision-making doesn't control language but it does control feelings this is where gut decisions come from there is no part of your stomach that controls decision-making and it's not in your blood and it's not in your bones and it's not in your soul and you're not following your heart you know let's win hearts and minds it's winning minds and minds this is the reason why we talk about decisions of feeling right we say it just feels right why would we use the verb to feel to describe a decision it's because the part of the brain that controls feelings controls decision-making that's why it just doesn't control language and so we ascribe it to different parts of the body these people are very comfortable trusting their guts and making those intuitive decisions this population the majority is more cynical more practical they absolutely care about things like price and quality and service and features the problem is is that they will not try something until someone else has tried it first these are the people we have to drop our price offer value add and come up with promotions we have to reduce their risk to try something unfamiliar these people happily try new things that have never been tried before simply to reflect something what they believe the problem is is that you cannot achieve mass market success or mass market acceptance for an idea until you achieve between 15 and 18 market penetration this is the tipping point it's a social phenomenon the problem is is that it's hard to get there when i talk about 15 to 18 i don't mean of the mass population i mean 15 18 of people who believe what you believe it's easy to get 10 if you ignore everything i'm telling you today i promise you you can get about 10 loyalty you have about 10 of your customers who love you not like you like is rational love you it's emotional now you ask somebody do you like your job i really like my job i get paid well i like the people i work with i like the challenge do you love your job i wouldn't go that far like we know there's a hierarchy like is rational love is emotional right it's easy to get about 10 percent low of averages will say you have about 10 but it's hard to get this tipping point this is what jeffrey moore in his book crossing the chasm talks about this is the chasm so the question is how do you get those people and this is where leadership matters this is when you talk about what you believe i'll give you two examples i'll give you a business example and a social example in the united states we have a brand called tivo which is a brand of dvr tevo basically invented the category and has been around for about 11 or 12 years now when you you ask any company why did your company fail or why did your product fail they will usually give you some combination of four reasons they'll either tell you that it was under capitalized didn't have enough money that's very popular um poorly executed that's common one you know we didn't have a good product we had bad people had the wrong people or bad market conditions that pretty much explains absolutely every failure there is tevo had the recipe for success they had everything that we consider what we need for success um when their product was introduced about 11 years ago to this current day it is the single highest quality product on the market no one will dispute that it's incredibly fantastic product so execution flawless uh people they hired the best engineers money could buy market conditions the unaided awareness of tivo is through the roof we use it like a verb i tivo things and they had venture capital up the wazoo so money no problem money was no problem tivo is a commercial and financial failure they've never made money and when their company went public the stock launched at about 40 or 50 and then very quickly plummeted and except for a couple of little blips has never traded above 10 and the reason is because they took they took this brilliant product this brilliant piece of technology and they attempted to tell the mass market what the product does they attempted to convince with facts and figures what the product does they said to the mass market we have a product that pauses live tv skips commercials memorizes your viewing habits and records on your behalf without you even asking and the cynical practical majority said i don't need it i don't like it i don't want it you're scaring me and they didn't buy one there were a few who did a few early adopters who did but it didn't make a difference and the company has done very poorly imagine if they told this population why the product exists imagine if they had said if you're the kind of person who wants to have total control over every aspect of your life boy do we have a product for you it pauses live tv it skips commercials it memorizes your viewing habits and records on your behalf without you even asking in this instant what the product does serves as the tangible reasons to believe it they're not the reasons you use to convince somebody to choose you of the competition in the first place it's not what you do that matters it's why you do it and people don't buy what you do they buy why you do it i'll give you my favorite example it's a social example in the summer of 1963 250 000 people showed up on the mall in washington dc to hear martin luther king give his famous i have a dream speech there were no invitations sent out and there was no website to check the date how do you do that how many emails did you get to be here today and there's only what a few hundred people 250 000 dr king was not the only man in that country who knew what had to change to bring about civil rights over there he wasn't the only great orator he wasn't the only man who suffered in a pre-civil rights america in fact he wasn't even the perfect man he had his complexities we just don't talk about those things the difference is he didn't go around telling people what we need to do what we need to do what we need to do he went around and told people i believe i believe i believe and people who believe what he believed took his cause and made it their own and they told people what they believed and those people took that cause and made it their own and they told people what they believed and lo and behold on the right day on the right time a quarter of a million people showed up to hear him speak how many of them showed up for him zero they showed up for themselves it's what they believed about america it's the america that they wanted to live in it was the country that they wanted to raise their children in that inspired them to get on a bus travel for eight hours and stand in the sun in washington in august simply to hear him speak showing up was one of the things that they did to prove what they believed and by the way he gave the i have a dream speech not the i have a plan speech nobody was inspired by any plan ever the goal is not to talk about what you do the goal is to talk about what you believe and people who believe what you believe are drawn to you as if you are their own because you help them put into words the way they see themselves and the things you say and the things you do give them the ability to tell others what they believe to make tangible because those symbols and those products and those services say something about who they are and they will say with pride i love working with that company this is why we talk about in sales it's about relationships i love my guy we always talk about when we have a good relationship with a company because it's a human experience it's a human experience make no mistake of it all of these things we're talking about like trust and loyalty are human experiences technology and the internet are wonderful things to speed up transactions they're wonderful things to connect people to spread information absolutely but it's very very difficult to form strong human bonds through the internet just like we talked about with blog world the internet can live alongside and technology can live alongside the human experience but it cannot replace the human experience your friends are not on facebook you know and your your network isn't on linkedin and you're not having any conversations on a blog and you're not having a dialogue on twitter those aren't human experiences if you compare the way we actually have conversations where we interrupt each other we advance ideas versus the way people communicate online it's sort of my idea my idea my idea hey that's a good idea steve that agrees with my idea my idea my idea hey you're an idiot my idea my idea and if you ask any retailer on the planet who's ever come out with a blog for their customers to give feedback the number of innovations that have come out of the feedback from those blogs the answer is zero none because people just use it to complain and moan and there's no vulnerability and there's no risk in doing things online which is the reason we put ourselves out there like that risk requires this vulnerability requires this and when you feel that someone's willing to tell you something genuinely about who they are you can start to form strong bonds of trust there's something called a parasocial relationship a real relationship is when we know a lot about each other we start to learn about each other a parasocial relationship is one person knows more about the other person than they know about you and you start to form a strong bond except it's one-sided this is what happens with fame with celebrities we know all about them but they don't know even that we exist and we know about their lives we know about their social lives we know who they're dating we know about their careers and we follow them as if they're our friends and we we call them on we're on first name basis with them right we call them by their first names as if we know them it's a parasocial relationship where we feel that we know them but they don't know us the problem is all those feelings associated are absolutely real they feel absolutely real the opportunity for innovation is not to just tell people in the outside world you know do this do that the opportunities to bring people together so the feeling is mutual so we work together to advance a problem so we work together to get to that fishing village because our own survival depends on it if people don't feel that you're in it as well with them if they don't believe that you believe what they believe then there's not going to be any strong human bond the opportunity is to articulate your vision of the future that does not yet exist yet what is your vision what is your fishing village and are you putting into words so clearly that other people can understand it as clearly as you can and they can tell others about it and they want to go there and they will risk blood and sweat and tears to help you get there not for you but before themselves and they will watch your back and help you explore just like that 16 year old that you hired to babysit your children because they get you they understand you they know that you're the same they know you believe what you believe this is the goal human relationships real trust real loyalty that is not born out of products and services but born out of beliefs and values there are leaders and there are those who lead leaders hold a position of power or influence but those who lead inspire us and whether they're individuals or organizations we follow those who lead not because we have to but because we want to we follow those who lead not for them but for ourselves this is for those who want to find someone to inspire them this is for those who want to inspire those around them

Channel: Inspirational Ideas

Views: 1,247,609

Keywords: simon sinek, simon sinek leadership, leadership, how to master the art of leadership, motivational speech, master the art of leadership, simon sinek motivation, best of simon sinek, best motivational speech, one of the best speeches ever by simon sinek, simon sinek motivational speech, speech, one of the best motivational speech, how to become a leader, leadership motivation, simon sinek millennials, simon sinek ted talk, simon sinek leaders eat last

Id: iu7nwbFm8Os

Length: 44min 16sec (2656 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 19 2022