Start with Why - Simon Sinek at USI

I believe in people and I like people I'm struck also by the irony of an organization or an event like this where a bunch of technologists have come together to discuss largely the issues of people and that we're doing it even here together as a group what I find fascinating about all of this is that all of the content that you will hear today you could easily hear online we could videotape all of it I could get this exact same talk in front of my computer and you could sit at your desk in front of your computer and listen to it the difference is it's not quite the same all the communication of the information would be exactly the same but for the fact that you wouldn't be here and it's this it's this interaction it's that we're here together as a group that makes these kinds of events special in fact if for the rest of the day all of the speakers are absolutely awful you could go home and someone will say how was it you say well as speakers we're awful and they'll say you're going to go back again next year and I say of course I'm going to bang again next year because I had a wonderful time because I met all these wonderful people and this is where the ideas are exchanged it's the conversations in between 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 yeren listen to that that's a such as 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 and 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 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 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 its revenues or market share profit doesn't matter the metric went down and so they added a new product and the population when 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 are 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 what 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 you are 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 workout 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 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 an inspiration than manipulation and I'll talk about some of the bigger ones like Apple computers or Southwest air our Martin Luther King and you see it not only in organizations with 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 at three concentric circles or bull's eye in the middle is why 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 or 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 was 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 an example I use Apple frequently just because there 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 man 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 went 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 wanna buy one it actually feels different all I did was reverse the order of the information when 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 there every little bit qualified to make every single product that Apple makes and a few years ago they tried a few years ago at 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 but we do it everyday 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 - 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 were the strongest it's not even because with a 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 scrubs 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 or fall over and 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 trusts you know we all try and push each other out of the way because we got a win we got a we got to compete we got to live we got to survive this is what happened in 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 then 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 on 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 either have good chemistry with them or you won't you 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 out 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 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 on 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 above 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 with 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 in forming trust again if I told you that some footballer cheated on his wife and slept with a hundred women would you care no it's because we expected it's because it's authentic it's because it's because it's it's it's who they are but not with Tigers he chose to lie to us it's not actually the behavior that were 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 oh good number of you okay are you friends with everyone in Paris why not why not but when you go to Leone and you meet someone from parity like a ham 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 you're 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 - that's insane if that happened here if somebody done 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 fit to find those things into 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 in these human feelings 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 you nothing can recreate that sense of of human being of human coming together nothing I'm telling you is my opinion it's actually grounded in the tenants 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 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 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 and 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 means it means I have a left arm at 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 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 well 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 belonging and 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 a most valuable possession on the planet our children very good so let's suppose you want to go out with your wife or 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 ten years of babysitting experience who do you choose a 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 good red hat got red hat got red hat here and all the other people wearing red hats whether they know their own Y or not whether they can see their own red hat or not our 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 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 the 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 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 mosques 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 our 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 were drawn to it and we will volunteer to go with him maybe even take personal risk I don't know how to get to 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 we just conned was this all a big joke is this at all is this all for naught and we say to him where is the fishing village you said there was a fishing village as 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 factual factually speaking Mac's are substandard computers they're at least 25% 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 comparative competitive comparisons they're not comparing the prize in 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 that I can start to form strong bonds of trust because my own survival depends on it biologically that's what happens 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 Macs 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 broken out the glass cleaner simply to clean your HP it doesn't happen never the people with Macs will sit there and clean their computers right because we have to keep it clean we 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 discipline and 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 and 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 we 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 can 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 is as if you're attacking us so 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 sets 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 for 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 as 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 yearn and 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 we're 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 Ma Bell 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 their trouble it 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 look for things held the individual down and they gave people they use 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 Ridley Scott commercial that woman runs into 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 AI 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 differentiate err 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 thirteen and a half percent of our population are our early adopters the next thirty four percent are your early majority then your late majority and the last 16% are your laggards the only reason these people by 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 feeling right we say 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 all the promotion's 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 percent 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 saw about 15 to 18 percent I don't mean of the mass population I mean 15 to 18 percent of people who believe what you believe it's easy to get 10 percent if you ignore everything I'm telling you today I promise you you can get about 10 percent loyalty you have about 10 percent of your customers who love you not like you like is rational love you it's emotional 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 as rational love is emotional right it's easy to get about 10 percent the law of averages will say you have about 10 percent 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 in a social example in the United States we have a brand called TiVo which is a brand of DVR TiVo basically invented the category and been around for about 11 or 12 years now when 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 undercapitalized didn't have enough money that's very popular poorly executed that's common one no we didn't have a good product with we had bad people I had the wrong people or bad market conditions that pretty much explains absolutely every failure there is TiVo had the recipe for success they had everything that we consider what we need for success when their product was introduced about eleven 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 people they hire the best engineer as money could buy market conditions the unaided awareness of TiVo is through the roof we use it like a verb by TiVo things and they had venture capital up the wazoo so money no problem money was no problem Tebow is a commercial and financial failure they've never made money and when their company went public the stock launched about 40 or 50 dollars 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 are 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 ho 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 in your behalf without you even ask it in this instant what the product does serves 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 invitation 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 two hundred and fifty thousand 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 believed 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 and that inspired them to get on a bus travel 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 planned 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 helped 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 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 there are 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 you 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 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 Paris social 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 there 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 in 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 it towards 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 for 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 organisations 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 thank you very much thank you thank you very much we've left some time for questions so you have any questions I'm happy to feel anything yes okay you think why has to evolve at some point already done this is CT and my second question is going to be what you haven't talked a lot about how yeah she's more important than what in your diagram yeah so can you sure so I'll answer the questions in the reverse order how is about process and structure it's how we do things and in the business world today you know this is tactics and this is strategy you know or we set a goal and we figure out the strategy to get there and if we miss the goal we either change the goal we change the strategy and then that's business right but in reality what makes the great organizations go is that they understand this fishing village this place far from the future this vision of the future why this purpose or cause and the structures and the processes that they build how they're going to do that what they're going to do you know in terms of actions is all driven by that not by the goals right the goals are the Waypoint and so I have a sort of a very different read on on waypoints I don't believe by the way that any one of these pieces is more or less important than each other they're all equally important the difference is lots of people talk about process and lots of people talk about product right we don't even have a word for this like I said strategy tactics we don't even have a word for this the point is that every organization on the planet functions on all three levels but most of us are only even aware of two of them and so the reason I talk primarily about this one is because that's the missing piece and you need to have all three for the system to be in balance but they're all how is not more important than what what did Thomas Eddins Edison say vision without execution is hallucination right you can have all the vision in the world but if you don't execute who cares right it's like that fishing village example you know somebody could have stood up in with the same vision of that village and just walked away no ability to communicate it then there's no value you know he's a visionary he's not a leader you know there are plenty of people who are great communicators you know but no vision so they're great communicators but they're not leaders they give a great speech about how we need to work together but then we don't have to get off the island so I don't think that it's more important but there are lots of people who talk about these things and much more about these things than I do so it's all three pieces and in terms of your first question does the why evolve and the answer is no you only have one why each individual only has one Y and your Y is born from from your upbringing you know we are products of our childhood you know who we are who we are which is the sum total of all these three things my beliefs my values and what I do to the outside world who we are comes from our teachers our parents and experiences we had when we were young our Y's are fully formed probably by the time we're you know 18 or 19 and it never changes the rest of our lives our opportunities to either live in balance or not to either feel fulfilled by the work that we do or not and we sometimes make right decisions and run and with companies it's the same which is the why of a company is born at the founding of that company you know at the founding that the company is one of the things that an entrepreneur has done to bring to life something they believe the great companies usually solve a real human problem the companies that really struggle to survive are the ones who are just looking for some market opportunity and they pour money into it because they can't rally people to commit to anything they can't rally people to set to sacrifice the best they can do is offer them a big bonus and that doesn't really appeal to everyone there's a great story from the space program it was November of 1963 sorry November of 1969 and it was Apollo 12 so Apollo 11 had already landed on the moon in July and this was the second lunar mission and so obviously the press was all there and everybody was excited and it was all wonderful and a journalist was walking through NASA and she finds somebody wearing a NASA badge and she says can I talk to you he said absolutely and she starts asking him questions and he knew everything about the Saturn 5 program and he was excited and it was amazing and and he talked about how they're putting a man on the moon and we're gonna do it again and and he knew everything and after about half an hour 45 minutes she said so what specifically do you do for NASA and he said oh I'm the janitor the point is is when the when the cause is clear everyone inside the organization is equally emotionally committed to it and most of us we talk about superior technology the only people who think that's cool are the engineers what about if your receptionist isn't as emotionally involved in it then you don't have a clear why the CEO and the receptionist and everyone in between need to be committed to this they all have different jobs they all have different responsibilities you know the CEOs job is not to control it the CEOs job is to keep talking about the fishing village and remind people why they come to work then they have the the CEO or the CFO who's the operator the one who figures out how we're going to bring that vision to life we do ourselves a great disservice in business by making one line of leadership we say CEO is number one and CFO or CEO is number two and all these guys think that they're in line for this job right it's not true it's one and a it's parallel and this job is about very very far in the future and this job is about now how we're going to build that you know these how types can do very well in the world but they'll never change the world and they'll never build billion-euro businesses these guys they can change the world or build billion-euro businesses if only they knew how right and you see you see always in great organizations any any any social organization that ever achieved anything big is always a partnership between the why and the how you know Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak Bill Gates Paul Allen and it was Bill Gates who had the vision to put a PC on every desk but it was Paul Allen who built the company Walt Disney Roy Disney Walt Disney was the one who talked about good clean family fun but was Roy Disney who built the fad built the company he came up with Buena Vista he came up with a licensing and it goes on and on and on and you see these these kinds of partnerships everywhere what's amazing is when you look at the history of the partnership Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak grew up together in height in high school in California Bill Gates and Paul Allen grew up together in Seattle and dropped out of Harvard together Roy Disney and Walt Disney were brothers JFK RFK you they just go on and on and on and what you see is that these great partnerships they're always either childhood friends or family that doesn't mean you have to go into business with childhood friends or family but it means the quality of the relationship and the trust and the fact that you share common values and beliefs is much higher if you grew up the same way so we're all products of our upbringing including a company a company comes from its founders you know Richard Branson has over 300 companies every single one of those companies is his why we when you see the word virgin we know virgin Cola Virgin Trains virgin weddings we know what to expect and it's a reflection of his own personality because what his company is is one of the things that he's done in his own life to say something about who he is go listen to Bill Gates's TED talk when he talks about the bill and gate bill Melinda Gates Foundation he talked about he's an optimist he talks about productivity and human potential and if you replace the word mosquito nets with a PC it's the exact speech he gave in the 1970s what he's doing is different why he's doing it is exactly the same a company is born of the companies why is born at the beginning whether it stays clear or not is a different story but it comes from the founding of the organization and it never never changes it can collapse and have to be rebuilt into collapses but it never changes it's silent you describe a lot of your company to the why and you identify them with one founder on one guy yeah are those company survives the founders mean a lot to do I'm is great to the white board as a that's a very good question you know the biggest challenge that any organization has is its own success right listen because when a company is founded it exists on some sort of metric you know euros or money or any kind of other metric or yen or dollars or whatever or time right all organizations exist on these two planes and when they're founded what they do and why they do it are inextricably linked and that's because the company's small and you know the visionary founder or founders you know they they have this crazy an idea and they take a huge amount of risk and passion alone is what drives them because the likelihood of failure is very high and they're crazy and they're mad and they inspire their friends to come join them which is also crazy and everybody gets it because we all kind of hang out together and you know and it goes the big challenge is its own success when it starts selling more and doing very well and what they're doing starts to go like this and you have to hire somebody who hire somebody who hire somebody who hires somebody who has to make a decision based on what based on what and then the Y starts to go like this we were just talking about it before we were talking about Dunbar's number you know we know that that humans can manage successful 150 relationships and beyond that it's very difficult and even online they found that Dunbar's number is clean where people still can only manage 150 relationships online so it raises the philosophical question does this start to happen at 150 I don't know but this but this is called the split and symptoms of the split is when you start to become more obsessed with what your competition is doing versus what you are doing small companies don't obsess about their competition they can't afford to and the more successful company does they literally become obsessed with the competitors every single morning everyone at Microsoft is worrying what Apple is doing every single morning everyone at Apple doesn't care what Microsoft is doing it's true they don't you know how much market research Apple does before they come out with a product zero because they don't care because what they're doing is they're taking their vision of the world their beliefs about the world and they're bringing it to life in the products they believe reflect that and those who are drawn to those products are drawn are drawn to them viscerally and the whole concept of asking our customers what they want that whole process is inauthentic you know it's either what you believe so when you start becoming more obsessed with the competition when you start asking others more about who you should be when the old-timers the people who've been there a while start saying yeah it's not like it used to be well I mean I know we're making more money than we used to and I know we're growing faster than ever but ya know I don't know just not the same you know the young ones don't get no no they can't put it into words but it feels different these are simply symptoms of the Split stress goes up passion goes down symptoms of the split and so if you look at there's a lot of organizations where that have gone through the split you know Steve Jobs was thrown out of his own company in 1985 the company went like this and then Steve Jobs came back and Mike Dell left Dell and Mike Devils forced to come back and Howard Schultz les Starbucks and Howard Schultz was forced to come back and it's not that these guys are God's gift to management it's that as they're the founders simply being there reminds people why they come to work whether they're able to put it into words or not as a different problem and so the greatest challenge that most companies have in succession not finding somebody to manage the company which is its to lead the people you know you can't lead nobody leads a company you lead people you manage a company a company is nothing more than a structure and the funny thing is when companies start to have financial problems they hire somebody to fix this but it's this that went fuzzy and so the opportunity for succession is is not to hire the brilliant engineer but to hire somebody who doesn't want to reinvent the Y but simply take the torch that was already lit and say now I will carry it into the next generation it's not lost on me that the average lifespan of a company on the Fortune 1000 list is about 40 years and it's not lost on me that 80% of the DAO index are companies that are 35 years or younger in other words it's about the lifespan of a career you know about 40 years it's not lost on me that that companies do go through the split and things start to break up in other words very very few companies have have gotten succession down and the reason is because they take these visionary CEOs and they replace themselves with the CEO or the CFO they take a visionary and replace it with a structure builder and they always do that even even at Apple they're talking about it you know the talk about Tim Cook taking over and that makes me nervous and jobs will say ah but he's been around forever and he knows the business as well as I do and I rely on him and it's true because of that partnership the problem is the guy is not a visionary in the way he thinks it sees the world and so yes he understands the company but he can only think steps ahead not leaps ahead and as soon as I hear a CFO or CEO oh if they were good at their job is taking over the company it's going through a split I can promise interestingly out just a quick aside about Steve Jobs you know what why is that this one guy is so special you know he can't really be the most amazing leader in the world like Dell is a pretty remarkable guy and you know Gates is a pretty remarkable guy and they're all visionaries and they all built remarkable organizations they all change the way we live our lives every one of those guys so what is it about this one man Steve Jobs that he seems to continue to do it where the others have lost it Steve Jobs has won thing that none of the others have he's dying serious he's dying think about the people who take the big risks in the world young people take big risks because they're oblivious of the risks ahead right this is why entrepreneurs you know have that youthful spirit or they tend to be young and if you want to get advice you always ask an old man because old man's no men don't care right so they'll tell you exactly what they think and so there's this thing that comes with youth or age where you're oblivious or you're at peace with your own mortality it's this piece in the middle where we worry about what our friends will think what the magazine's will think what the press will think what our colleagues will think what our employers will think what I think this is insecurity I got to provide for my family Steve Jobs doesn't have that because he's dying and so he still acts like a little boy or an old man asked you know what is what what will Wall Street think he doesn't care what Wall Street things just like somebody young or somebody old doesn't care what Wall Street thinks so that's I believe might might my theory one of the reasons that Steve Jobs is such a remarkable executive is not because he's a genius it's because he's dying seriously I mean we're always told what would you do if you would die tomorrow right and when when we have earth-shattering events like I went I lived through September 11th I watched those buildings fall down and it changes you for a short time and then we go back to the way things were and we come to terms of their mortality and realize we only have one life to live and why am I doing this I should just risk it all and have fun and I should take three months off and go on a holiday because we'll imagine having that every day it's like why do we get so much done the week before we go on holiday because there's a deadline a deadline I never thought about that thank you very much

Channel: USI Events

Views: 568,010

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Keywords: Simon Sinek (Author), start with why, USIEvents, innovation, success, talk, conference, sinek

Id: nokBj14p4Mc

Length: 60min 51sec (3651 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 06 2013