Start With Why Part 3

In his 1961 story about the Sneetches, Dr. Seuss introduced us to two groups of Sneetches, one with stars on their bellies and the other with none. The ones without stars wanted desperately to get stars so they could feel like they fit in. They were willing to go to extreme lengths and pay larger and larger sums of money simply to feel like they were part of a group. But only Sylvester McMonkey McBean, the man whose machine puts "stars upon thars," profited from the Sneetches' desire to fit in.

As with so many things, Dr. Seuss explained it best. The Sneetches perfectly capture a very basic human need-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. As humans we crave the feeling and we seek it out.

Sometimes our feeling of belonging is incidental. We're not friends with everyone from our hometown, but travel across the state, and you may meet someone from your hometown and you instantly have a connection with them. We're not friends with everyone from our home state, but travel across the country, and you'll feel a special bond with someone you meet who is from your home state. Go abroad and you'll form instant bonds with other Americans you meet. I remember a trip I took to Australia. One day I was on a bus and heard an American accent. I turned and struck up a conversation. I immediately felt connected to them, we could speak the same language, understand the same slang. As a stranger in a strange city, for that brief moment, I felt like I belonged, and because of it, I trusted those strangers on the bus more than any other pa.s.sengers. In fact, we spent time together later. No matter where we go, we trust those with whom we are able to perceive common values or beliefs.

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. Like the Sneetches, 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 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. This is not because they are better, but because they become markers or symbols of the values and beliefs we hold dear. Those products and brands make us feel like we belong and we feel a kins.h.i.+p with others who buy the same things. Fan clubs, started by customers, are often formed without any help from the company itself. These people form communities, in person or online, not just to share their love of a product with others, but to be in the company of people like them. Their decisions have nothing to do with the company or its products; they have everything to do with the individuals themselves.

Our natural need to belong also makes us good at spotting things that don't belong. It's a sense we get. A feeling. Something deep inside us, something we can't put into words, allows us to feel how some things just fit and some things just don't. Dell selling mp3 players just doesn't feel right because Dell defines itself as a computer company, so the only things that belong are computers. Apple defines itself as a company on a mission and so anything they do that fits that definition feels like it belongs. In 2004, they produced a promotional iPod in partners.h.i.+p with the iconoclastic Irish rock band U2. That makes sense. They would never have produced a promotional iPod with Celine Dion, even though she's sold vastly more records than U2 and may have a bigger audience. U2 and Apple belong together because they share the same values and beliefs. They both push boundaries. It would not have made sense if Apple released a special iPod with Celine Dion. As big as her audience may be, the partners.h.i.+p just doesn't align.

Look no farther than Apple's TV commercials "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC" for a perfect representation of who a Mac user needs to be to feel like they belong. In the commercial, the Mac user is a young guy, always in jeans and a T-s.h.i.+rt, always relaxed and always having a sense of humor poking fun at "the system." The PC, as defined by Apple, is in a suit. Older. Stodgy. To fit in with Mac, you have to be like Mac. Microsoft responded to Apple with its own "I'm a PC" campaign, which depicts people from all walks of life identifying themselves as "PC." Microsoft included many more people in their ads-teachers, scientists, musicians and children. As one would expect from the company that supplies 95 percent of the computer operating systems, to belong to that crowd, you have to be everyone else. One is not better or worse; it depends on where you feel like you belong. Are you a rabble-rouser or are you with the majority?

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. Those whom we consider great leaders all have an ability to draw us close and to command our loyalty. And we feel a strong bond with those who are also drawn to the same leaders and organizations. Apple users feel a bond with each other. Harley riders are bonded to each other. Anyone who was drawn to hear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. give his "I Have a Dream" speech, regardless of race, religion or s.e.x, stood together in that crowd as brothers and sisters, bonded by their shared values and beliefs. They knew they belonged together because they could feel it in their gut.

Gut Decisions Don't Happen in Your Stomach

The principles of The Golden Circle are much more than a communications hierarchy. Its principles are deeply grounded in the evolution of human behavior. The power of WHY is not opinion, it's biology. If you look at a cross section of the human brain, from the top down, you see that the levels of The Golden Circle correspond precisely with the three major levels of the brain.

The newest area of the brain, our h.o.m.o sapien brain, is the neocortex, which corresponds with the WHAT level. The neocortex is responsible for rational and a.n.a.lytical thought and language.

The middle two sections comprise the limbic brain. The limbic brain is responsible for all of 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. We struggle to put into words the real reasons why we love them, so we talk around it or rationalize it. "She's funny, she's smart," we start. But there are lots of funny and smart people in the world, but we don't love them and we don't want to marry them. There is obviously more to falling in love than just personality and competence. Rationally, we know our explanation isn't the real reason. It is how our loved ones make us feel, but those feelings are really hard to put into words. So when pushed, we start to talk around it. We may even say things that don't make any rational sense. "She completes me," we might say, for example. What does that mean and how do you look for someone who does that so you can marry them? That's the problem with love; we only know when we've found it because it "just feels right."

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 rationalize. 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 rationalized 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. There is no part of the stomach that controls decision-making, it all happens in the limbic brain. It's not an accident that we use that word "feel" to explain those decisions either. The reason gut decisions feel right is because the part of the brain that controls them also controls our feelings. Whether you defer to your gut or you're simply following your heart, no matter which part of the body you think is driving the decision, the reality is it's all in your limbic brain.

Our limbic brain is powerful, powerful enough to drive behavior that sometimes contradicts our rational and a.n.a.lytical understanding of a situation. We often trust our gut even if the decision flies in the face of all the facts and figures. Richard Restak, a well-known neuroscientist, talks about this in his book The Naked Brain. When you force people to make decisions with only the rational part of their brain, they almost invariably end up "overthinking." These rational decisions tend to take longer to make, says Restak, and can often be of lower quality. In contrast, decisions made with the limbic brain, gut decisions, tend to be faster, higher-quality decisions. This is one of the primary reasons why teachers tell students to go with their first instinct when taking a multiple-choice test, to trust their gut. The more time spent thinking about the answer, the bigger the risk that it maybe the wrong one. Our limbic brains are smart and often know the right thing to do. It is our inability to verbalize the reasons that may cause us to doubt ourselves or trust the empirical evidence when our gut tells us not to.

Consider the experience of buying a flat-screen TV at your local electronics store. You stand in the aisle listening to an expert explain to you the difference between LCD and plasma. The sales rep gives you all the rational differences and benefits, yet you are still none the wiser as to which one is best for you. After an hour, you still have no clue. Your mind is on overload because you're overthinking the decision. You eventually make a choice and walk out of the store, still not 100 percent convinced you chose the right one. Then you go to your friend's house and see that he bought the "other one." He goes on and on about how much he loves his TV. Suddenly you're jealous, even though you still don't know that his is any better than yours. You wonder, "Did I buy the wrong one?"

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 who are drawn to buy Macintosh computers or Harley-Davidson motorcycles, for example, don't need to talk to anyone about which brand to choose. They feel the utmost confidence in their decision 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. The tangible features are simply to help direct the choice of product that best fits our needs. In these cases, the decisions happened in the perfect inside-out order. Those decisions started with WHY-the emotional component of the decision-and then the rational components allowed the buyer to verbalize or rationalize the reasons for their decision.

This is what we mean 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 center. 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. Given the evidence of the natural order of decision-making, I can't help but wonder if the order of the expression "hearts and minds" is a coincidence. Why does no one set out to win "minds and hearts"?

The ability to win hearts before minds is not easy. It's a delicate balance of art and science-another coincidental grammatical construction. Why is it that things are not a balance of science and art, but always art before science? Perhaps it is a subtle clue our language-impaired limbic brain is sending us to help us see that the art of leading is about following your heart. Perhaps our brains are trying to tell us that WHY must come first.

Absent a WHY, a decision is harder to make. And when in doubt we look to science, to data, to guide decisions. Companies will tell you that the reason they start with WHAT they do or HOW they do it is because that's what their customers asked for. Quality. Service. Price. Features. That's what the data reported. But for the fact that the part of the brain that controls decision-making is different from the part of the brain that is able to report back that decision, it would be a perfectly valid conclusion to give people what they ask for. Unfortunately, there is more evidence that sales don't significantly increase and bonds of loyalty are not formed simply when companies say or do everything their customers want. Henry Ford summed it up best. "If I had asked people what they wanted," he said, "they would have said a faster horse."

This is the genius of great leaders.h.i.+p. 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. When the computer revolution was afoot, computer users couldn't ask for a graphical user interface. But that's what Apple gave us. In the face of expanding compet.i.tion in the airline industry, most air travelers would never have thought to ask for less instead of more. But that's what Southwest did. And in the face of hard times and overwhelming odds, few would have asked their country, what can I do for you over what can you do for me? The very cause upon which John F. Kennedy introduced his presidency. 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.

We make decisions all day long, and many of them are emotionally driven. Rarely do we sift through all the available information to ensure we know every fact. And we don't need to. It is all about degrees of certainty. "I can make a decision with 30 percent of the information," said former secretary of state Colin Powell. "Anything more than 80 percent is too much." There is always a level at which we trust ourselves or those around us to guide us, and don't always feel we need all the facts and figures. And sometimes we just may not trust ourselves to make a certain decision yet. This may explain why we feel (there's that word again) so uncomfortable when others twist our arm to make a decision that doesn't sit well in our gut. We trust our gut to help us decide whom to vote for or which shampoo to buy. Because our biology complicates our ability to verbalize the real reasons why we make the decisions we do, we rationalize based on more tangible factors, like the design or the service or the brand. This is the basis for the false a.s.sumption that price or features matter more than they do. Those things matter, they provide us the tangible things we can point to to rationalize our decision-making, but they don't set the course and they don't inspire behavior.

It's What You Can't See That Matters

"Gets 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. A perfectly legitimate claim. 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 detergent asked consumers WHAT they wanted from detergent, and consumers said whiter whites and brighter brights. Not such a remarkable finding, if you think about it, that people doing laundry wanted their detergent to help get their clothes not just clean, but very clean. 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 enhancers, said another. No one asked customers WHY they wanted their clothes clean. That little nugget wasn't revealed until many years later when a group of anthropologists hired by one of the packaged-goods companies revealed that all those additives weren't in fact driving behavior. They observed that when people took their was.h.i.+ng out of the dryer, no one held it up to the light to see how white it was or compared it 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. There was a presumption that all detergents get your clothes clean. That's what detergent is supposed to do. But 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 a.s.sumption swayed an entire industry to follow the wrong direction is not unique to detergents. Cell phone companies believed people wanted more options and b.u.t.tons until Apple introduced its iPhone with fewer options and only one b.u.t.ton. The German automakers believed their engineering alone mattered to American car buyers. They were stunned and perplexed when they learned that great engineering wasn't enough. One by one, the German luxury car makers begrudgingly added cup holders to their fine automobiles. 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. I am not, for a moment, proposing that cup holders make people loyal to BMWs. All I am proposing is that even for rationally minded car buyers, there is more to decision-making than meets the eye. Literally.

The power of the limbic brain is astounding. It not only controls our gut decisions, but it can influence us to do things that seem illogical or irrational. Leaving the safety of home to explore faraway places. Crossing oceans to see what's on the other side. Leaving a stable job to start a business out of your bas.e.m.e.nt with no money in the bank. Many of us look at these decisions and say, "That's stupid, you're crazy. You could lose everything. You could get yourself killed. What are you thinking?" It is not logic or facts but our hopes and dreams, our hearts and our guts, that drive us to try new things.

If we were all rational, there would be no small businesses, there would be no exploration, there would be very little innovation and there would be no great leaders to inspire all those things. It is the undying belief in something bigger and better that drives that kind of behavior. But it can also control behavior born out of other emotions, like hate or fear. Why else would someone plot to hurt someone they had never met?

The amount of market research that reveals that people want to do business with the company that offers them the best-quality products, with the most features, the best service and all at a good price is astounding. But consider the companies with the greatest loyalty-they rarely have all those things. If you wanted to buy a custom Harley-Davidson, you used to wait six months for delivery (to give them credit, they've got it down from a year). That's bad service! Apple's computers are at least 25 percent more expensive than a comparable PC. There is less software available for their operating system. They have fewer peripherals. The machines themselves are sometimes slower than a comparable PC. If people made only rational decisions, and did all the research before making a purchase, no one would ever buy a Mac. But of course people do buy Macs. And some don't just buy them-they love them, a feeling that comes straight from the heart. Or the limbic brain.

We all know someone who is a die-hard Mac lover. Ask them WHY they love their Mac. They won't tell you, "Well, I see myself as someone who likes to challenge the status quo, and it's important for me to surround myself with the people, products and brands that prove to the outside world who I believe I am." Biologically, that's what happened. But that decision was made in the part of the brain that controls behavior but not language. So they will provide a rationalization: "It's the user interface. It's the simplicity. It's the design. It's the high quality. They're the best computers. I'm a creative person." In reality, their purchase decision and their loyalty are deeply personal. They don't really care about Apple; it's all about them.

The same can even be said for the people who love to work at Apple. Even employees can't put it into words. In their case, their job is one of the WHATs to their WHY. They too are convinced it's the quality of the products alone that is behind Apple's success. But deep inside, they all love being a part of something bigger than themselves. The most loyal Apple employees, like the most loyal Apple customers, all love a good revolution. A great raise and added benefits couldn't convince a loyal Apple employee to work for Dell, and no amount of cash-back incentives and rebates could convince a loyal Mac user to switch to a PC (many are already paying double the price). This is beyond rational. This is a belief. It's no accident that the culture at Apple is often described as a cult. It's more than just products, it's a cause to support. It's a matter of faith.

Remember the Honda and the Ferrari? Products are not just symbols of what the company believes, they also serve as symbols of what the loyal buyers believe. People with Apple laptop computers, for example, love opening them up while sitting in an airport. They like that everyone knows they are using a Mac. It's an emblem, a symbol of who they are. That glowing Apple logo speaks to something about them and how they see the world. Does anyone notice when someone pops open the lid of their HP or Dell computer? No! Not even the people using the computers care. HP and Dell have a fuzzy sense of WHY, so their products and their brands don't symbolize anything about the users. To the Dell or HP user, their computer, no matter how fast or sleek, is not a symbol of a higher purpose, cause or belief. It's just a computer. In fact, for the longest time, the logo on the lid of a Dell computer faced the user so when they opened it, it would be upside down for everyone else.

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 pus.h.i.+ng price, features, service or quality become the primary currency of differentiation.

5.

CLARITY, DISCIPLINE AND CONSISTENCY.

Nature abhors a vacuum. In order to promote life, Mother Nature attempts to find balance whenever possible. When life is destroyed because of a forest fire, for example, nature will introduce new life to replace it. The existence of a food chain in any ecosystem, in which each animal exists as food for another, is a way of maintaining balance. The Golden Circle, grounded in natural principles of biology, obeys the need for balance as well. As I've discussed, when the WHY is absent, imbalance is produced and manipulations thrive. And when manipulations thrive, uncertainty increases for buyers, instability increases for sellers and stress increases for all.

Starting with WHY is just the beginning. There is still work to be done before a person or an organization earns the right or ability to inspire. For The Golden Circle to work, each of the pieces must be in balance and in the right order.

Clarity of WHY

It all starts with clarity. You have to know WHY you do WHAT you do. If people don't buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it, so it follows that if you don't know WHY you do WHAT you do, how will anyone else? If the leader of the organization can't clearly articulate WHY the organization exists in terms beyond its products or services, then how does he expect the employees to know WHY to come to work? If a politician can't articulate WHY she seeks public office beyond the standard "to serve the people" (the minimum rational standard for all politicians), then how will the voters know whom to follow? Manipulations can motivate the outcome of an election, but they don't help choose who should lead. To lead requires those who willingly follow. It requires those who believe in something bigger than a single issue. To inspire starts with the clarity of WHY.

Discipline of HOW

Once you know WHY you do what you do, the question is HOW will you do it? HOWs are your values or principles that guide HOW to bring your cause to life. HOW we do things manifests in the systems and processes within an organization and the culture. Understanding HOW you do things and, more importantly, having the discipline to hold the organization and all its employees accountable to those guiding principles enhances an organization's ability to work to its natural strengths. Understanding HOW gives greater ability, for example, to hire people or find partners who will naturally thrive when working with you.

Ironically, the most important question with the most elusive answer-WHY do you do what you do?-is actually quite simple and efficient to discover (and I'll share it in later chapters). It's the discipline to never veer from your cause, to hold yourself accountable to HOW you do things; that's the hardest part. Making it even more difficult for ourselves, we remind ourselves of our values by writing them on the wall . . . as nouns. Integrity. Honesty. Innovation. Communication, for example. But nouns are not actionable. They are things. You can't build systems or develop incentives around those things. It's nearly impossible to hold people accountable to nouns. "A little more innovation today if you would please, Bob." And if you have to write "honesty" on your wall to remind you to do it, then you probably have bigger problems anyway.

For values or guiding principles to be truly effective they have to be verbs. It's not "integrity," it's "always do the right thing." It's not "innovation," it's "look at the problem from a different angle." Articulating our values as verbs gives us a clear idea . . . we have a clear idea of how to act in any situation. We can hold each other accountable to them measure them or even build incentives around them. Telling people to have integrity doesn't guarantee that their decisions will always keep customers' or clients' best interest in mind; telling them to always do the right thing does. I wonder what values Samsung had written on the wall when they developed that rebate that wasn't applicable to people living in apartment buildings.

The Golden Circle offers an explanation for long-term success, but the inherent nature of doing things for the long term often includes investments or short-term costs. This is the reason the discipline to stay focused on the WHY and remain true to your values matters so much.

Consistency of WHAT

Everything you say and everything you do has to prove what you believe. A WHY is just a belief. That's all it is. HOWs are the actions you take to realize that belief. And WHATs are the results of those actions-everything you say and do: your products, services, marketing, PR, culture and whom you hire. If people don't buy WHAT you do but WHY you do it, then all these things must be consistent. With consistency people will see and hear, without a shadow of a doubt, what you believe. After all, we live in a tangible world. The only way people will know what you believe is by the things you say and do, and if you're not consistent in the things you say and do, no one will know what you believe.

It is at the WHAT level that authenticity happens. "Authenticity" is that word so often bandied about in the corporate and political worlds. Everyone talks about the importance of being authentic. "You must be authentic," experts say. "All the trend data shows that people prefer to do business with authentic brands." "People vote for the authentic candidate." The problem is, that instruction is totally unactionable.

How do you go into somebody's office and say, "From now on, please, a little more authenticity." "That marketing piece you're working on," a CEO might instruct, "please make it a little more authentic." What do companies do to make their marketing or their sales or whatever they're doing authentic?

The common solution is hilarious to me. They go out and do customer research and they ask the customers, what would we have to tell you for us to be authentic? This entirely misses the point. You can't ask others what you have to do to be authentic. Being authentic means that you already know. What does a politician say when told to be "more authentic"? How does a leader act more "authentically"? Without a clear understanding of WHY, the instruction is completely useless.

What authenticity means is that your Golden Circle is in balance. It means that everything you say and everything you do you actually believe. This goes for management as well as the employees. Only when that happens can the things you say and do be viewed as authentic. Apple believed that its original Apple computer and its Macintosh challenged the dominant IBM DOS platforms. Apple believes its iPod and iTunes products are challenging the status quo in the music industry. And we all understand WHY Apple does what it does. It is because of that mutual understanding that we view those Apple products as authentic. Dell introduced mp3 players and PDAs in an attempt to enter the small electronics business. We don't know what Dell's WHY is, we have no certainty about what the company believes or WHY it produced those products beyond self-gain and a desire to capitalize on a new market segment. Those products are not authentic. It's not that Dell couldn't enter other markets-it certainly has the knowledge and ability to make good products-but its ability to do so without a clear understanding of WHY is what makes it much harder and much more expensive. Just producing high-quality products and marketing them does not guarantee success. Authenticity cannot be achieved without clarity of WHY. And authenticity matters.

Ask the best salesmen what it takes to be a great salesman. They will always tell you that it helps when you really believe in the product you're selling. What does belief have to do with a sales job? Simple. When salesmen actually believe in the thing they are selling, then the words that come out of their mouths are authentic. When belief enters the equation, pa.s.sion exudes from the salesman. It is this authenticity that produces the relations.h.i.+ps upon which all the best sales organizations are based. Relations.h.i.+ps also build trust. And with trust comes loyalty. Absent a balanced Golden Circle means no authenticity, which means no strong relations.h.i.+ps, which means no trust. And you're back at square one selling on price, service, quality or features. You are back to being like everyone else. Worse, without that authenticity, companies resort to manipulation: pricing, promotions, peer pressure, fear, take your pick. Effective? Of course, but only for the short term.

Being authentic is not a requirement for success, but it is if you want that success to be a lasting success. Again, it goes back to WHY. Authenticity is when you say and do the things you actually believe. But if you don't know WHY the organization or the products exist on a level beyond WHAT you do, then it is impossible to know if the things you say or do are consistent with your WHY. Without WHY, any attempt at authenticity will almost always be inauthentic.

The Right Order

After you have clarity of WHY, are disciplined and accountable to your own values and guiding principles, and are consistent in all you say and do, the final step is to keep it all in the right order. Just like that little Apple marketing example I used earlier, simply changing the order of the information, starting with WHY, changed the impact of the message. The WHATs are important-they provide the tangible proof of the WHY-but WHY must come first. The WHY provides the context for everything else. As you will see over and over in all the cases and examples in this book, whether in leaders.h.i.+p, decision-making or communication, starting with WHY has a profound and long-lasting impact on the result. Starting with WHY is what inspires people to act.

If You Don't Know WHY, You Can't Know HOW

Rollin King, a San Antonio businessman, hatched the idea to take what Pacific Southwest was doing in California and bring it to Texas-to start an airline that flew short-haul flights between Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. He had recently gone through a long and messy divorce and turned to the one man he trusted to help him get his idea off the ground. His Wild Turkeydrinking, chain-smoking divorce lawyer, Herb Kelleher.

In nearly every way, King and Kelleher were opposites. King, a numbers guy, was notoriously gruff and awkward, while Kelleher was gregarious and likable. At first Kelleher called King's idea a dumb one, but by the end of the evening King had successfully inspired him with his vision and Kelleher agreed to consider coming on board. It would take four years, however, before Southwest Airlines would make its first flight from Dallas's Love Field to Houston.

Southwest did not invent the concept of a low-cost airline. Pacific Southwest Airlines pioneered the industry-Southwest even copied their name. Southwest had no first mover's advantage-Braniff International Airways, Texas International Airlines and Continental Airlines were already serving the Texas market, and none was eager to give up any ground. But Southwest was not built to be an airline. It was built to champion a cause. They just happened to use an airline to do it.

In the early 1970s, only 15 percent of the traveling population traveled by air. At that rate, the market was small enough to scare off most would-be compet.i.tors to the big airlines. But Southwest wasn't interested in competing against everyone else for 15 percent of the traveling population. Southwest cared about the other 85 percent. Back then, if you asked Southwest whom their compet.i.tion was, they would have told you, "We compete against the car and the bus." But what they meant was, "We're the champion for the common man." That was WHY they started the airline. That was their cause, their purpose, their reason for existing. HOW they went about building their company was not a strategy developed by a high-priced management consultancy. It wasn't a collection of best practices that they saw other companies doing. Their guiding principles and values stemmed directly from their WHY and were more common sense than anything else.

In the 1970s, air travel was expensive, and if Southwest was going to be the champion for the common man, they had to be cheap. It was an imperative. And in a day and age when air travel was elitist-back then people wore ties on planes-as the champion for the common man, Southwest had to be fun. It was an imperative. In a time when air travel was complicated, with different prices depending on when you booked, Southwest had to be simple. If they were to be accessible to the other 85 percent, then simplicity was an imperative. At the time, Southwest had two price categories: nights/weekends and daytime. That was it.

Cheap, fun and simple. That's HOW they did it. That's how they were to champion the cause of the common man. The result of their actions was made tangible in the things they said and did-their product, the people they hired, their culture and their marketing. "You are now free to move about the country," they said in their advertising. That's much more than a tagline. That's a cause. And it's a cause looking for followers. Those who could relate to Southwest, those who saw themselves as average Joes, now had an alternative to the big airlines. And those who believed what Southwest believed became fiercely loyal to the company. They felt Southwest was a company that spoke directly to them and directly for them. More importantly, they felt that flying Southwest said something about who they were as people. The loyalty that developed with their customers had nothing to do with price. Price was simply one of the ways the airline brought their cause to life.

Howard Putnam, one of the former presidents of Southwest, likes to tell a story of a senior executive of a large company who approached him after an event. The executive said he always flew one of the big airlines when he traveled on business. He had to, it was a company mandate. And although he had acc.u.mulated many frequent flier miles on the other airline and money was no object, when he flew for himself or with his family, he always flew Southwest. "He loves Southwest," Putnam says with a grin when he tells the story. Just because Southwest is cheap doesn't mean it only appeals to those with less money. Cheap is just one of the things Southwest does that helps us understand what they believe.

What Southwest has achieved is the stuff of business folklore. As a result of WHY they do what they do, and because they are highly disciplined in HOW they do it, they are the most profitable airline in history. There has never been a year that they didn't turn a profit, including after September 11 and during the oil crises of the 1970s and early 2000s. Everything Southwest says and does is authentic. Everything about them reflects the original cause King and Kelleher set out to champion decades earlier. It has never veered.

Fast-forward about thirty years. United Airlines and Delta Airlines looked at the success of Southwest and decided they needed a low-cost product to compete and share in Southwest's success. "We got to get us one of those," they thought. In April 2003, Delta launched their low-cost alternative, Song. Less than a year later United launched Ted. In both cases, they copied HOW Southwest did it. They made Ted and Song cheap, fun and simple. And for anyone who ever flew Ted or Song, they were cheap, they were fun and they were simple. But both failed.

United and Delta were both old hands in the airline business and were every bit qualified to add whatever products they wanted to adapt to market conditions or seize opportunities. The problem was not with WHAT they did, the problem was, no one knew WHY Song or Ted existed. They may have even been better than Southwest. But it didn't matter. Sure, people flew them, but there are always reasons people do business with you that have nothing to do with you. That people can be motivated to use your product is not the issue; the problem was that too few were loyal to the brands. Without a sense of WHY, Song and Ted were just another couple of airlines. Without a clear sense of WHY, all that people had to judge them on was price or convenience. They were commodities that had to rely on manipulations to build their businesses, an expensive proposition. United abandoned its entry into the low-cost airline business just four years after it began, and Delta's Song also took its last flight only four years after it launched.