If you opened this diary expecting some screed railing against tea partiers or the Obama Adminsitration or John Boehner, you're going to be disappointed.
I saw something recently - last Friday, in fact - that has changed how I view myself and how I discuss the things that I choose to do, be it in business, politics, animal rescue, or just my daily life.
This diary has everything to do with politics. If I've piqued your interest, please follow me over the fold.
What I saw is central to understanding why I'm writing this (if you're interested in that). Just a little context: I was shown the video below during a team meeting for my work. I work in high tech - and I work on strategic, enterprise-wide types of deals that are worth a great deal of money to the company and to myself personally. The video was shown to my management team - and they felt it instructive enough in a business setting to pass it along to the people who make or break the business generally. But as I watched - I realized that this applies to so much more than business. It applies in every facet of my life. So without further delay, here's the video. I'll extract parts of the transcript - but watching the entire 18 minutes is well worth your time (at least I believe so).
Sinek (the speaker) starts his talk with a simple question (transcript here):
Why is 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, the same agencies, the same consultants, 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 who suffered in a pre-civil rights America. And he certainly wasn't the only great orator of the day. Why him?
And why is it that the Wright brothers were able to figure out control-powered, manned flight when there were certainly other teams who were better qualified, better funded, and they didn't achieve powered man flight, and the Wright brothers beat them to it.
To understand how and why the answer to the questions Sinek poses is so powerful, you have to keep these three things in mind:
WHY
HOW
WHAT
Paint a visual picture in your mind for me. Draw a circle, and in that circle, put the word WHY. Now draw another larger circle around that first one. In that circle, put the word HOW. Finally, draw an even larger circle around the second one and in that circle, put the word WHAT (he draws this in the video itself). Sinek's central argument is that success or failure hinges on how you navigate that circle. Do you start with WHAT and work your way in, often never really getting to WHY? Or do you lead with WHY and move out from there? Sinek provides an example of "outside in" failure:
Look at 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 as verb. I TiVo stuff on my piece of junk Time Warner DVR all the time.
But TiVo's a commercial failure. They've never made money. And when they went IPO, their stock was at about 30 or 40 dollars and then plummeted, and it's never traded above 10. In fact, I don't even think it's traded above six, except for a couple of little spikes. Because you see, when TiVo launched their product, they told us all what they had. They said, "We have a product that pauses live TV, skips commercials, rewinds 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. You're 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. It pauses live TV, skips commercials, memorizes your viewing habits, etc., etc." 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.
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. So simple - so seemingly obviously. But for me, life changing.
Sinek goes on to give an example of success:
In the summer of 1963, 250,000 people showed up on the mall in Washington to hear Dr. King speak. They sent out no invitations, and there was no website to check the date. How do you do that? Well, Dr. King wasn't the only man in America who was a great orator. He wasn't the only man in 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 in America. He went around and told people what he believed. "I believe. I believe. I believe," he told people. And people who believed what he believed took his cause, and they made it their own, and they told people. And some of those people created structures to get the word out to even more people. And low and behold, 250,000 people showed up on the right day, at the right time, 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 that got them to travel in a bus for eight hours, to stand in the sun in Washington in the middle of August. It's what they believed, and it wasn't about black versus white. 25 percent of the audience was white. Dr. King believed that there are two types of laws in this world, those that are made by a higher authority and those that are made by man. And not until all the laws that are made by man are consistent with the laws that are made by the higher authority, will we live in a just world. It just so happened that the Civil Rights Movement was the perfect thing to help him bring his cause to life. We followed, not for him, but for ourselves. And, by the way, he gave the "I have a dream" speech, not the "I have a plan" speech.
I am convinced that great leaders - whether they lead a huge company, a movement, or a small group of people - are successful because they put the WHY out there, right up front, and the rest comes as a result of that WHY.
My WHY
So after watching the video and contemplating the revelation that it created for me, I started to think about my WHY. Here's what I came up with - and it is the common thread that runs through everything I do in my life: how I spend my time, why I care about what I care about, and how I conduct my life even when no one's watching:
I believe that an overwhelming majority of people generally and Americans specifically are compassionate.
Am I wearing rose-colored glasses? Maybe. But I have plenty of observational evidence to back up my WHY. I see it every day when I'm devoting time to animal rescue - people who will go out of their way to give their time and money to transport a blind cat out of a kill shelter to give it a second chance at life. People who envision a shelter for a nonprofit rescue that will enable them to save more cats from the death row that is a public shelter. I saw it just the other day as I was thinking about this very subject: I was looking out of my fourth floor office window over the busy street below. A man who was clearly going the other way stopped what he was doing and helped an elderly lady with a walker get across the street. See, there was no way she was going to make it safely in the time allotted for the walk signal. He took her elbow and as she crossed the first two lanes, he stood on her left, between her and facing traffic. When she was crossing the last two lanes, he switched and stood on her right, between her and facing traffic. He saw her safely to the curb and then he went back to where he was originally headed.
I see it here and here and here and here.
It's my WHY. It's central to who I am and who I strive to be. It leads all of my major decisions. It's why I'm a Democrat and a progressive, why I give tons of time, money and effort to animal rescue and grassroots political activism, and how I try to conduct myself both in business and my individual relationships in life. My WHY defines me.
Without realizing that it's what I've been doing for years, it occurred to me as well that I've been communicating my WHY to other people for a long time. I'm proud of it. For the majority that I referenced in my WHY, I think it allows me to be very persuasive. It's how I was successful in talking to people in the 2008 election, for whatever that was worth in terms of votes. It's the reason people in my everyday life listen to me, I believe - because I truly wear my WHY on my sleeve.
When I disagree with you here on Daily Kos - when we don't see eye to eye on a particular policy idea or how it's being implemented (success or failure), it's all grounded in my WHY. I believe firmly that, eventually (and never fast enough, obviously), the compassionate nature of people - which I've witnessed on a daily basis time and time again - will win out.
If people aren't following that message, that WHY - it's because I'm failing to articulate it clearly enough.
After watching that video, I had a conversation with my co-worker. I was basically trying to apply that principle - lead with WHY - to a large opportunity that my company is pursuing and that I am leading. The conversation morphed to politics - it was Friday, the debt ceiling argument was looming in my mind, and I was holding forth on the odd phenomenon of tea partiers - the average voting types - following their leaders in defiance of their own self-interest. I told him that I just think we haven't been good at putting our WHY forward.
We want "shared sacrifice" and no decrease in benefits to those who need it because we are compassionate and because we believe that America should and can be a place where we take the needs of the least among us to heart.
The WHAT is raise taxes on the wealthy and roll back Corporate welfare policies. But isn't it really the WHY that matters? [Note: I do realize that I was really generalizing on the WHY.]
And here's the eight million dollar question: at the end of the day, do you believe that each person here has a WHY that is very similar?
I do. It's what keeps me going.
Interpersonal issues at Daily Kos
There's LOTS of anti- pro-Obama drama here these days. For the most part, I've really avoided it. It's like that argument I got into with the Birther - I'd do it again on principle, but at the end of the day, I didn't do anything to change that Birther's point of view.
But unlike the Birther - I believe the WHY for each of us here is so much more similar than dissimilar. All of our WHYs are likely positive in nature - our WHY isn't "because Muslims are untrustworthy and shouldn't be here" or "because our President isn't a US citizen" or any of the other dreck the extreme minority of non-compassionate people believes and forms into their WHY.
We are here because of our WHYs. We get pissed because of our WHYs.
At the end of the day, it is my belief that the leaders I choose to follow - even when I disagree with them and when they disappoint me - fundamentally share my WHY.
So - what's your WHY?
[UPDATE] GussieFN provided this comment, which I think really, really crystallizes what I was struggling to say in the diary itself:
Seems to me that the argument isn't (6+ / 0-)
that the WHY is more important, really, or even that it's more foundational, but that it's the engine that drives the WHAT.
All too abstract, maybe.
I'm for equal marriage rights for gays. That's a WHAT. That's very important. I've knocked on doors, gone to rallies, phone-banked. All very important HOWs.
But why? I'm not gay. I'm not close to any gays. I don't really give a particular shit about gay issues. So my WHY is: equal rights. I reject the notion that this is a 'gay' issue. For me, it's a civil rights issue, and that is WHY. Because people deserve the same rights.
That WHY informs how I think about the WHAT. It tells me how to talk to people about gay marriage in a way I believe, it tells me I've gotta knock on doors and make phone calls.
Without that, just with the WHAT--I'm pro marriage--I'm adrift. I'm right, but I'm not focused.
So in that way, I think the WHY kinda trumps the WHAT.
(Just thinking aloud--hope that makes sense.)
"Gussie, a glutton for punishment, stared at himself in the mirror."