This is Part 2/2 of my notes from Simon Sinek’s Start with Why.
You can read Part 1/2 here <to link>.
The Need to Belong
Our need to belong is not rational, but it is a constant that exists across all people in all cultures. It is a feeling we get when those around us share our values and beliefs.
When we feel like we belong, we feel connected and we feel safe. Our desire to feel like we belong is so powerful that we go to great lengths, do irrational things and often spend money to get that feeling. We want to be around people and organizations who are like us and share our beliefs.
When companies talk about WHAT they do and how advanced their products are, they may have appeal, but they do not necessarily represent something 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 extra-ordinary lengths to include those products or brands in our lives.
Our natural need to belong also makes us good at spotting things that don’t belong. It’s a sense we get. A feeling. Dell selling MP3 players just doesn’t feel right because Dell defines itself as a computer company.
We are drawn to leaders and organizations that are good at communicating what they believe. Their ability to make us feel like we belong, to make us feel special, safe and not alone is part of what gives them the ability to inspire us.
Products with a clear sense of WHY give people a way to tell the outside world who they are and what they believe. Remember, people don’t buy WHAT you do, they BUY why you do it. If a company does not have a clear sense of WHY then it is impossible for the outside world to perceive anything more than WHAT the company does. And when that happens, manipulations that rely on pushing price, features, service or quality become the primary currency of differentiator.
It’s what you can’t see that matters!
“Get your whites whiter and your brights brighter,” said the TV commercial for the newest laundry detergent. This was the value proposition for so many years in the laundry detergent business. That’s what the market research revealed customers wanted. The data was true, but the truth of what people wanted was different.
The makers of laundry detergents asked consumers WHAT they wanted from detergents, and consumers said whiter whites and brighter brights. Not such a remarkable finding. So brands attempted to differentiate HOW they got your whites whiter and brights brighter by trying to convince consumers that one additive was more effective than another. Protein, said one brand. Color enhancer, said another. No one asked customers WHY they wanted their clothes clean.
That little nugget wasn’t revealed until later by a group of anthropologists. They observed that when people took their washing out of the drier, no one held it up to the light to see how white it was or compared to newer items to see how bright it was. The first thing people did when they pulled their laundry out of the dryer was to smell it. This was an amazing discovery. Feeling clean was more important to people than being clean. Having their clothes smell fresh and clean mattered much more than the nuanced differences between which detergent actually made clothes measurably cleaner.
That a false assumption swayed an entire industry to follow the wrong direction is not unique to detergents. Cell phone companies believed people wanted more options and buttons until Apple introduced its iPhone with fewer options and only one button. The German automakers believed their engineering alone mattered to American car buyers — until they had to add cup holders. It was a feature that mattered a great deal to commuter-minded Americans, but was rarely mentioned in any research about what factors influenced purchase decisions. Cup holders may not make people loyal to BMWs. Even for rationally minded car buyers, there is more to decision making than meets the eye. Literally.
People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it
There are few people who choose to inspire rather than manipulate in order to motivate people. And it all starts from the inside out. It all starts with WHY.
WHAT: Every single company and organization on the planet knows WHAT they do. This is true no matter how big or small, no matter what industry. Everyone is easily able to describe the product or services a company sells or the job functions they have within that system. WHATs are easy to identify.
HOW: Some companies and people know HOW they do WHAT they do. Whether you call them a “differentiating value proposition,” “proprietary process” or “unique selling proposition,” HOWs are often given to explain how something is different or better.
WHY: Very few companies can articulate WHY they do WHAT they do. When I say WHY, I don’t mean to make money — that’s a result. By WHY I mean what is your purpose, cause or belief? WHY does your company exist? WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care?
When most organizations or people think, act or communicate they do so from the outside in, from WHAT to WHY. And for good reason, they go from the clearest thing to the fuzziest thing. But not the inspired companies. Not the inspired leaders. Every single one of them, regardless of their size or industry, thinks, acts and communicates from the inside out.
If Apple were like most companies, a marketing message from them would move from the outside in of this Golden Circle. It would start with some statement of WHAT the company does or makes, followed by HOW they think they are different or better than the competition, followed by some call to action. With that, the company would expect some behavior in return, in this case, a purchase.
We make great computers. They are beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. Wanna buy one?
That’s how most companies sell to us. But that’s not what the inspiring leaders and organizations do. Every one of them, regardless of size and industry, thinks, acts and communicates from the inside out. Lets re-write the Apple example.
Everything we do, 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. And we happen to make great computers. Wanna buy one?
It’s a completely different message. It actually “feels” different from the first one. We’re much more eager to buy a computer from Apple after reading the second version — and all I did was reverse the order of information. There’s no trickery, no manipulation, no free stuff, no aspirational messages, no celebrities.
Now, simple copying WHAT Apple does or HOW it does won’t work. People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it. It’s Apple’s clarity of WHY that gives them a remarkable ability to innovate, often competing against companies seemingly more qualified than they, and succeed in industries outside their core business.
The same cannot be said for companies with a fuzzy sense of WHY. When an organization defines itself by WHAT it does, that’s all it will ever be able to do. When Apple changed their name from Apple Computers to just Apple, the change wasn’t practical, it was philosophical.
Those people who share Apple’s WHY believe that Apple’s products are objectively better, and any attempts to convince them otherwise is pointless. But what if a Apple was right for some people and a PC right for others? It’s not a debate about better or worse anymore, it’s a discussion about different needs. And before the discussion can even happen, the WHYs for each must be established first.
A simple claim of better, even with the rational evidence to back it up, can create desire and even motivate a decision to buy, but it doesn’t create loyalty. If a customer feels inspired to buy a product, rather than manipulated, they will be able to verbalize the reasons why they think what they bought is better. Good quality and features matter, but they are not enough to product the dogged loyalty that all the most inspiring leaders and companies are able to command.
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. When a WHY goes fuzzy, it becomes much more difficult to maintain the growth, loyalty and inspiration that helped drive the original success. By difficult, I mean the manipulation rather than inspiration fast becomes the strategy of choice to motivate behavior. This is effective in the short term but comes at a high cost in the long term.
Evolution of Human Behavior and it’s connection to “gut” decisions
The Principles of the Golden Circle are much more than a communication hierarchy. Its principles are deeply grounded in the evolution of human behavior. The newest area of our brain, our Homo Sapien brain, is the neocortex, which corresponds with the WHAT level. The neo-cortext is responsible for rational and analytical thought and language. The middle two sections comprise the limbic brain. The limbic brain is responsible for all our feelings, such as trust and loyalty. It is also responsible for all human behavior and all our decision making, but it has no capacity for language.
When we communicate from the outside in, when we communicate WHAT we do first, yes, people can understand vast amounts of complicated information, like facts and features, but it does not drive behavior. But when we communicate from the inside out, we’re talking directly to the part of the brain that controls decision making, and our language part of the brain allows us to rationalize those decisions.
The part of the brain that controls our feelings has no capacity for language, It is this disconnection that makes putting our feelings into words so hard. We have trouble, for example, explaining why we married the person we married. So, we talk around it or rationalize it.
The same is true for other decisions. When a decision feels right, we have a hard time explaining why we did what we did. Again, the part of the brain that controls decision making doesn’t control language, so we rationalise. This complicates the value of polls or market research. Asking people why they chose you over another may provide wonderful evidence of how they have rationalised the decision, but it does not shed much light on the true motivation for the decision. It’s not that people don’t know, it’s that they have trouble explaining why they do what they do. Decision-making and the ability to explain those decisions exist in different parts of the brain.
This is where “gut” decisions come from. They just feel right. Our limbic brain is powerful, powerful enough to drive behaviour that sometimes contradicts our rational and analytical understanding of a situation. We often trust our gut even if the decision flies in the face of all the facts and figures. When you force people to make decisions with only the rational part of their brain, they almost invariably end up over-thinking. These rational decisions tend to take longer to make, and can often be of lower quality. In contrast, decisions made with the limbic brain 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. We’re forced to make these less-than-inspiring decisions for one simple reason — companies don’t offer us anything else besides the facts and figures, features and benefits upon which to base our decisions. Companies don’t tell us WHY.
People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it. A failure to communicate WHY creates nothing but stress or doubt. In contrast, many people drawn to buy a Mac or a Harley, for example, don’t need to talk to anyone about which brand to choose. They feel the utmost confidence and the only question they ask is which Mac or which Harley. At that level, the rational features and benefits, facts and figures absolutely matter, but not to drive the decision to give money or loyalty to the company or brand. That decision is already made!
This is what we near when we talk about winning hearts and minds. The heart represents the limbic, feeling part of the brain, and the mind is the rational, language centre. Most companies are quiet 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. It’s a delicate balance of art and science (art before science, just like heart before mind!).
Henry Ford said “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” This is the genius of great leadership. Great leaders and great organizations are good at seeing what most of us can’t see. 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.
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