Why do great people inspire us through their action? A behavioral approach

What doesn’t drive us for accomplishing the things as we assumed? Or better, what ignites other people to achieve the things that seem to defy all of the assumptions? 

For example, why was Steve Jobs a pioneer in developing advanced, attractive, user-friendly personal computers than the existing high-profile companies like IBM and INTEL? He was like everyone else. He had access to the same talent, same agencies, same consultants, and the same media. Why is it that Mahatma Gandhi led the freedom movement? He wasn’t the only man who struggled for the freedom from British.  And why is that Swami Vivekananda is being called as one of the great religious leaders? He certainly wasn’t the only saint of the day. Why him? We stand in a proper awe of men, whose achievements can be measured only by the few who are able to follow their actions and challenge their ideals.

Over the period of time, I incessantly analysed and interpreted under intensive readings of the biographies, autobiographies and related stuffs. And this interpretation profoundly changed my view on how I thought the inspiring people worked and lived. As it turns out, there’s a pattern, all the great inspiring personalities and organisations in the world, they think, act and communicate the exact same way and it’s the complete opposite to everyone else. All I did was just codify in three words.

WHY? HOW? WHAT?

Every single person, every single organisation in the world knows WHAT they do, 100 per cent. Some know HOW they do it. But very few people /organisations know WHY they do what they do. And WHY, I don’t mean to make profit in the monetary terms. It’s not the result. It’s not quantified but qualified. By WHY, I mean: what’s your purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your belief? Why does your organisation exist? And HOW is the process, steps taken to realize WHY. And WHAT represents the results. WHAT do you do? The result of WHY, Proof. As a result, the way we think, we act, we communicate is from outside-in.

It’s obvious! We go from the clearest thing to the fuzziest thing. We don’t want to risk ourselves at any level. 

But the inspired personalities and organisations – regardless of their size and industry, all think, act and communicate from inside-out.

They’re largely independent of the opinions, habits and judgements of other people who are not concerned. Feeling and desire are the motive forces behind all human endeavour and human creation.

Here's the best part: None of what I'm telling you is my opinion. It's all grounded in the tenets of biology. Not psychology, but biology. If you look at a cross-section of the human brain, from the top down, the human brain is actually broken into three major components that correlate with this approach. Our newest brain, our Homo sapiens brain has neo-cortex, corresponds with the WHAT level. The neo-cortex is responsible for all of our rational and analytical thought and language. The middle two sections make up our limbic brains, and our limbic brains are responsible for all of our feelings, like trust and loyalty. It's also responsible for all human behaviour, all decision-making, and it has no capacity for language. They represents HOW and WHY levels.

Let me give you an example. Why most of the people like Apple products? 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. Want to buy one?" "Meh."That's how most of us communicate. That's how most marketing and sales are done, that's how we communicate inter personally. We say what we do, we say how we're different or better and we expect some sort of a behavior, a purchase, a vote, something like that. Here's our new car: It gets great gas mileage, it has leather seats. Buy 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. We just happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?" Totally different, right? You're ready to buy a computer from me. I just reversed the order of the information. What it proves to us is that people don't buy what you do; people buy why you do it.

This explains why every single person in this room is perfectly comfortable buying a computer from Apple. But we're also perfectly comfortable buying an MP3 player from Apple, or a phone from Apple. As I said before, Apple's just a computer company. Nothing distinguishes them structurally from any of their competitors. Their competitors are equally qualified to make all of these products. In fact, they tried. Dell came out with MP3 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 MP3 player from Dell. Why would you buy one 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 everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.

In other words, when we communicate from the outside-in, yes! People can understand vast amounts of complicated information like features and benefits and facts and figures. It just doesn't drive behaviour. When we can communicate from the inside-out, we're directly speaking to the part of the brain that controls behaviour, and then we allow people to rationalize it with the tangible things we say and do. This is where gut decisions come from. Sometimes you can give somebody all the facts and figures, and they say, "I know what all the facts and details, but it just doesn't feel right." Why would we use that verb, it doesn't "feel" right? Because the part of the brain that controls decision-making doesn't control language. The best we can muster up is, "I don't know. It just doesn't feel right." Or sometimes you say you're leading with your heart or soul. It's all happening here in your limbic brain, the part of the brain that controls decision-making and not language.

If things don’t go as expected, it’s probably because we have missed one. More data, however, doesn’t always help. There are other factors that must be considered, factors that exist outside our rational; analytical-information.

But if you don't know why you do what you do, and people respond to why you do what you do, then how will you ever get people to vote for you, or buy something from you, or, more importantly, be loyal and want to be a part of what it is that you do. The goal is not just to sell to people who need what you have; the goal is to sell to people who believe what you believe. The goal is not just to hire people who need a job; it's to hire people who believe what you believe. I always say that, you know, if you hire people just because they can do a job, they'll work for your money, but if they believe what you believe,they'll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.

But why is it important to attract those who believe what you believe? Something called the law of diffusion of innovation, if you don't know the law, you know the terminology. The first 2.5% of our population are our innovators. The next 13.5% of our population are our early adopters. The next 34% are your early majority, your late majority and your laggards. We all sit at various places at various times on this scale, but what 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 until you achieve this tipping point between 15 and 18 percent market penetration.

The early majority will not try something until someone else has tried it first. And these guys, the innovators and the early adopters, they're comfortable making those gut 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 stood in line for six hours to buy an iPhone when they first came out, when you could have bought one off the shelf the next week.And, by the way, they didn't do it because the technology was so great; they did it for themselves. It's because they wanted 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 will do the things that prove what they believe. The reason that person bought the iPhone in the first six hours, stood in line for six hours, was because of what they believed about the world, and how they wanted everybody to see them: They were first.

So let me give you an example, What if a DTH maker approaches you this way "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 might say, "We don't believe you. We don't need it. We don't like it."  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.

What if we could all learn to think, act and communicate like those who inspire with Clarity of WHY, Discipline of HOW and Consistency of WHAT?

Regards,

Mr. Shylesh, D.P
B.Sc. Agriclultural Marketing & Co-operation,
Dept. of AgMaco & BM,
University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bengaluru - 65