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Most of the answers we get, when based on sound evidence, are perfectly valid. However, if we’re starting with the wrong questions, if we don’t understand the cause, then even the right answers will always steer us wrong … eventually.
Great leaders, in contrast, are able to inspire people to act. Those who are able to inspire give people a sense of purpose or belonging that has little to do with any external incentive or benefit to be gained.
Those who truly lead are able to create a following of people who act not because they were swayed, but because they were inspired.
our behavior is affected by our assumptions or our perceived truths. We make decisions based on what we think we know.
There is a wonderful story of a group of American car executives who went to Japan to see a Japanese assembly line. At the end of the line, the doors were put on the hinges, the same as in America. But something was missing. In the United States, a line worker would take a rubber mallet and tap the edges of the door to ensure that it fit perfectly. In Japan, that job didn’t seem to exist. Confused, the American auto executives asked at what point they made sure the door fit perfectly. Their Japanese guide looked at them and smiled sheepishly. “We make sure it fits when we design it.” In the
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Even though the outcome may look the same, great leaders understand the value in the things we cannot see.
There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it. When I mention manipulation, this is not necessarily pejorative; it’s a very common and fairly benign tactic.
From business to politics, manipulations run rampant in all forms of sales and marketing.
When companies or organizations do not have a clear sense of why their customers are their customers, they tend to rely on a disproportionate number of manipulations to get what they need.
Price always costs something. The question is, how much are you willing to pay for the money you make?
Fear, real or perceived, is arguably the most powerful manipulation of the lot.
I always joke that you can get someone to buy a gym membership with an aspirational message, but to get them to go three days a week requires a bit of inspiration.
“they never have the time or money to do it right the first time,” she said of her client, “but they always have the time and money to do it again.”
There is a big difference between repeat business and loyalty. Repeat business is when people do business with you multiple times. Loyalty is when people are willing to turn down a better product or a better price to continue doing business with you.
Manipulations Lead to Transactions, Not Loyalty
For transactions that occur an average of once, carrots and sticks are the best way to elicit the desired behavior.
Manipulations are a perfectly valid strategy for driving a transaction, or for any behavior that is only required once or on rare occasions.
In any circumstance in which a person or organization wants more than a single transaction, however, if there is a hope for a loyal, lasting relationship, manipulations do not help.
When manipulations are the norm, no one wins.
The short-term gains that drive business in America today are actually destroying our health.
Just Because It Works Doesn’t Make It Right
The danger of manipulations is that they work. And because manipulations work, they have become the norm, practiced by the vast majority of companies and organizations, regardless of size or industry. That fact alone creates a systemic peer pressure. With perfect...
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The Golden Circle finds order and predictability in human behavior. Put simply, it helps us understand why we do what we do. The Golden Circle provides compelling evidence of how much more we can achieve if we remind ourselves to start everything we do by first asking why.
We say WHAT we do, we sometimes say HOW we do it, but we rarely say WHY we do WHAT we do.
WHAT they do—the products they make, from computers to small electronics—no longer serves as the reason to buy, they serve as the tangible proof of their cause.
It’s worth repeating: people don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.
Companies try to sell us WHAT they do, but we buy WHY they do it.
Their products, unto themselves, are not the reason Apple is perceived as superior; their products, WHAT Apple makes, serve as the tangible proof of what they believe.
Given their history in digital sound, Creative was more qualified than Apple to introduce a digital music product. The problem was, they advertised their product as a “5GB mp3 player.”
It is exactly the same message as Apple’s “1,000 songs in your pocket.” The difference is Creative told us WHAT their product was and Apple told us WHY we needed it.
Apple, unlike its competitors, has defined itself by WHY it does things, not WHAT it does. It is not a computer company, but a company that challenges the status quo and offers individuals simpler alternatives.
Apple didn’t invent the lifestyle, nor does it sell a lifestyle. Apple is simply one of the brands that those who live a certain lifestyle are drawn to.
Good quality and features matter, but they are not enough to produce the dogged loyalty that all the most inspiring leaders and companies are able to command. It is the cause that is represented by the company, brand, product or person that inspires loyalty.
Knowing your WHY is not the only way to be successful, but it is the only way to maintain a lasting success and have a greater blend of innovation and flexibility.
question of the long-term survivability of so many other companies that have defined themselves and their industries by WHAT they do. They have been doing it the same way for so long that their ability to compete against a new technology or see a new perspective becomes a daunting task.
Our desire to feel like we belong is so powerful that we will go to great lengths, do irrational things and often spend money to get that feeling.
When companies talk about WHAT they do and how advanced their products are, they may have appeal, but they do not necessarily represent something to which we want to belong. But when a company clearly communicates their WHY, what they believe, and we believe what they believe, then we will sometimes go to extraordinary lengths to include those products or brands in our lives.
We are drawn to leaders and organizations that are good at communicating what they believe.
Gut Decisions Don’t Happen in Your Stomach
Decision-making and the ability to explain those decisions exist in different parts of the brain.
The reason gut decisions feel right is because the part of the brain that controls them also controls our feelings.
When you force people to make decisions with only the rational part of their brain, they almost invariably end up “overthinking.”
In contrast, decisions made with the limbic brain, gut decisions, tend to be faster, higher-quality decisions.
Companies that fail to communicate a sense of WHY force us to make decisions with only empirical evidence. This is why those decisions take more time, feel difficult or leave us uncertain. Under these conditions manipulative strategies that exploit our desires, fears, doubts or fantasies work very well.
Most companies are quite adept at winning minds; all that requires is a comparison of all the features and benefits. Winning hearts, however, takes more work.
The ability to win hearts before minds is not easy.
Great leaders and great organizations are good at seeing what most of us can’t see. They are good at giving us things we would never think of asking for.
Great leaders are those who trust their gut. They are those who understand the art before the science. They win hearts before minds. They are the ones who start with WHY.
It’s What You Can’t See That Matters
It is not logic or facts but our hopes and dreams, our hearts and our guts, that drive us to try new things.
