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TEDx Talks
Published: 2009-09-29
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA
so where do you start when you have a program that's about integrating lights passions well we start with why why and that kicks off for the first beaker tonight Simonsson cynic in his talk start with what I we assume even we know why we do what we do but then how do you explain and when things don't go as we assume or better how do you
explain when others are able to achieve things that seem to defy all of the assumptions for example wise apple so innovative year after year after year after year they're more innovative than all their competition and yet they're just a computer company they're just like everyone else they have the same access to the same talent missing agencies the same consultant the same media then why is it
that they seem to have something different why is it that Martin Luther king led the civil rights movement he wasn't the only man I suffered in a pre civil rights America and he certainly wasn't the only great order of the day why him and why is it that the right brothers were able to figure out troll powered manned flight when there were certainly other teams were
better qualified better funded and they didn't powered manned flight the Wright brothers beat them to it there's something else at play here about three and a half years ago I made a discovery and this discovery profoundly changed my view and how I thought the world worked and even profoundly change the way in which I operated as it turns out there's a pattern as it turns out
all the great and inspiring leaders and organizations in the world whether it's apple of Martin Luther king or the Wright brothers they will think act and communicate exact same way and it's the complete opposite to everyone else all I did was co defied and it's probably the world's simplest idea I call it the golden circle why how what this little idea explains why some organizations and
some leaders are able to inspire where others aren't let me define the terms really quickly every single person every single organization on the planet knows what they do one hundred percent some know how they do it would you call your differencing value proposition no your proprietary processor U. S. P. but very very few people organizations know why they do what they do and by why I
don't mean to make a profit that's a result it's always a result by why I mean what's your purpose which you because what you believe why does your organization this well as a result the way we think the way we act the way we communicate is from the outside and it's obvious we go from the clearest thing the funniest thing but the inspired leaders and inspire
or inspired organizations regardless of their size regardless of their industry all think acting communicate from the inside out let me give you an example I use apple because they're easy to understand and everybody gets it if apple were like everyone else a marketing message from them might sound like this we make great computers they're beautifully designed simple to use and user friendly one by one where
and that's how most of us communicate that's how most marketing is done that I'm a salesman and that's how most of us communicate and personally we say what we do we say how we're different how we better we expect some sort of behavior purchase about something like that here's our new law firm that we have the best lawyers with the biggest clients we have you know
we always perform for our clients do business with us here's our new car to get great gas mileage it has you know leather seats by our car but it's uninspiring here's how apple actually communicates 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 it's happened to make great computers one by one totally different right you're ready to buy computer from me all I did was reversed the order of the information people don't buy what you do people by why you do it people don't buy what you do they buy why you do it this explains why every single person in this room perfectly comfortable buying a computer
from apple but we're also perfectly comfortable buying an MP three player from apple or a phone from apple or DVR from apple but as I said before apple just a computer company this nothing that distinguishes them structurally for many of their competitors their competitors are all equally qualified to make all of these products in fact they tried a few years ago gate we came out with
flat screen TV's they're eminently qualified to make flat screen TV they've been making flat screen monitors for years nobody bought one Dale came out with MP three players and PDAs and they make great quality products and they can make perfectly well designed products and nobody bought one in fact talking about it now we can't even imagine buying an MP three player from dell why would you
mind MP three player from a computer company but we do it every day people don't buy what you do they buy why you do it the goal is not to do business with any but it with everybody who needs what you have the goal is to do business people who believe what you believe here's the best part none of what I'm telling you is my opinion
it'll grounded in the tenets of biology not psychology biology if you look at a cross section of the human brain looking from the top down what you see is the human brain is actually broken into three major components that Carly perfectly with the golden circle our newest brain are homo sapien brain our neocortex corresponds with the what level the neo cortex is responsible for all of
our rational and analytical thought and language the middle two sections makeup our limbic brains and our limbic brains responsible for all of our feelings trust and loyalty it's also responsible for all human behavior all decision making and it has no capacity for language in other words when we communicate from the outside in yes people can understand vast amounts of complicated information like teachers and benefit some
facts and figures just doesn't drive behavior we communicate from the inside out we're talking directly to the part of the brain that controls behavior and we allow people to rationalize it with the tangible things we say and do this is where god decisions come from you know sometimes you can give some to all the facts and figures and how I know what all the facts and
details a bit it just doesn't feel right why we use that verb it doesn't feel right because the part of the brain that controls decision making doesn't control language and the best we can muster up is I don't know it just doesn't feel right for sometimes you say you're leading with your heart to your leading with your soul were he to break it to you those
aren't other body parts controlling your behavior it's all happening here in your limbic brain the part of the brain that controls decision making and not language but if you don't know why you do what you do and people respond to why you do what you do and how anybody how you ever get people to to to to vote for your buy something for me or more
importantly be loyal and want to be a part of what it is what you that you do again the goal is not just a cell people who need what you have the goal is to sell to people who believe what you believe the goal is not just hire people who need a job hire people who believe what you believe I always say that you know this
that if you if you if you end hire people just because they can do a job that work for your money but he hire people who believe what you believe that working with blood sweat and tears and No Way Out no where else is there a better example of this than with the Wright brothers most people don't know about Samuel Pierpont Langley and back in the
early twentieth century a suit of powered manned flight was like the dot com of the day everybody was trying and Samuel Pierpont Langley had what we assume to be the recipe for success I mean even now you ask people why did your product or what your company fail and people would give you the permit same permutation of the same three things under capitalized the wrong people
bad market conditions it was the same three things so let's explore that Samuel Pierpont Langley was given fifty thousand dollars by the war department to figure out this flying machine money was no problem he held a seat at Harvard and worked at the Smithsonian and was extremely well connected he knew all the big minds of the day he hired the best minds money could find and
the market conditions were found the New York times followed him around everywhere and everyone was rooting for Langley and how come we've never heard of Samuel Pierpont Langley a few hundred miles away in Dayton Ohio Orville and Wilbur Wright they had none of what we consider to be the recipe for success they had no money they paid for their dream with the proceeds from their bicycles
not a single person on the right brothers team had a college education not even oral or Wilbur and The New York Times followed them around know where the difference was Orville and Wilbur driven by a cause by purpose by belief they believe that if they could figure out this flying machine it'll change the course of the war Samuel Pierpont Langley was different he wanted to be
rich and he want to be famous he was in pursuit of the result he was in pursuit of the riches and lo and behold look what happened the people who believed in the right brothers dream work with them from with blood and sweat and tears the others just work for the paycheck and they tell stories of how the time the Wright brothers went out they would
have to take five sets of parts because that's how many times they would crash before they came in for supper and eventually and December seventeenth nineteen oh three the Wright brothers took flight and no one was there to even experience that we found out about it a few days later and further proof that Langley was motivated by the wrong thing David Wright brothers took flight I
quit he could have said that's an amazing discovery guys now I will improve upon your technology but he didn't he wasn't first he didn't get rich hitting get famous a quick people don't buy what you do they buy why you do it need you talk about what you believe you will attract those who believe what you believe why is it important to attract those who believe
what you believe something called the law of diffusion of innovation and if you don't know the lawyer death we know the terminology the first two and a half percent of our population are are innovators the next thirteen and a half percent of our population our our early adopters the next thirty four percent are you early majority you're late majority and your laggards the only reason these
people by touch tone phones is could you come by rotary phones anymore we all sit at various places at various times on the scale of the law of diffusion of innovation tells us is that if you want mass market success or mass market acceptance of an idea you cannot have it into you achieve this tipping point between fifteen and eighteen percent market penetration and then the
system tips and I love asking businesses what's your conversion on new business and I love to tell you %HESITATION it's about ten percent proudly we can ship over ten percent of the customers will have about ten percent to just get it that's how we describe them by that like that got feeling though they just get it the problem is how do you find the ones that
just get it before you're doing business with them verse of the ones who don't get it so it's this here this little gap but you have to closes Jeffrey Moore because of cluck cluck crossing the chasm because you see the early majority will not try something until someone else tried it first and these guys the innovators in the early adopters they're comfortable making those got decisions
they're more comfortable making those intuitive decisions that are driven by what they believe about the world and not just what product is available these are the people who start online for six hours to buy an iPhone when they first came we could've just walked into the store the next week and bought one of the shelf these the people who spent forty thousand dollars on flat screen
TV's when they first came out even though the technology was substandard and by the way they didn't do it because the technology was so great they did it for themselves because they want to be first people don't buy what you do they buy why you do it and what you do simply proves what you believe in fact people do the things that prove what they believe
the reason that person bought the iPhone on the first in the first six hours a student sick in line for six hours was because what they believed about the world and how they wanted everybody to see them they were for well done by what you do they buy why you do it so let me give you a famous example of famous failure of him a success
of the low diffusion of innovation first the famous failure the commercial example as we said before second ago the recipe for success is money in the right people the right market conditions right you should success and TiVo from the time TiVo came out about eight or nine years ago to this current day they are the single highest quality product on the market hands down there is
no dispute they were extremely well funded market conditions were fantastic I mean we use TiVo is a verb like TiVo stuff on my piece of junk Time Warner DVR all the time Tito's commercial failure they've never made money and when they went IPO their stock was at about thirty or forty dollars then plummeted and it's never traded above ten in fact I don't think that you
can trade about six the per couple of little spikes because you see when people watch their product they told a soul what they had they said we have a product that pauses live TV skips commercials rewind live TV and memorizes your viewing habits without you even asking and the cynical majority said we don't believe you we don't need it we don't like it scaring us what
if they had said if you're the kind of person who likes to have total control over every aspect of your life boy do we have a product for you opposes LiveTV skip commercials memorizes your viewing habits it's at its center people don't buy what you do they buy why you do it and what you do simply serves as the proof of what you believe now let
me give you a successful example of the law of diffusion of innovation in the summer of nineteen sixty three two hundred fifty thousand people showed up on the mall in Washington to hear Dr king's speech they sent out no invitations and it was no website to check the date how you do that well doctor king wasn't the only man in America who's the who's a great
orator he was the only man America who suffered in a pre civil rights America in fact some of his ideas were bad but he had a gift he didn't go around telling people what needed to change America you know he went around and told people what you believe I believe I believe I believe he told people and people who believed what he believes took his because