How to inspire people?
There are leaders and there are those who lead
Leaders hold a position of power of influence.
Those who lead inspire us.
whether individuals or organisations, we follow those who lead not because we have to, but because we want to.
We follow those who lead not for them, but for ourselves.
- Gary Keller's definition of leadership
Leadership is something which a person must have if he/she aspires to stand out in this world and make an impact through his/her work.
For many people a leader is someone who has a team of people working under his command and he/she is responsible for producing desired results from the team and that's true, but how do you inspire people to take actions? What makes a good leader great?
Consider the situation. An Organisation was working on its new products which promises to be a revolution in the market. A new team was needed to look after the development of the product, as a result the CEO decides to form a new team of people under the leadership of Ben. Ben is purposely chosen for this task as he has previously carried out such projects successfully. Ben has the freedom to choose the people in his team but all the people working in the organisation disliked Ben for a big reason - he cared only about the results and not the people. Nobody was ready to join his team, So Ben awarded special incentives to people joining his team such as taking the weekends off, increased salary and special increments and all such kinds of manipulation. And as a result the team was formed and they begin to work on the new project. Everything went well for the first three to four months but after that things begin to fall apart, people in the team not only hated Ben but also each other. The environment within the team slowly begin to pollute. The team members didn't know why they were working for Ben. The pressure of producing results was tremendous and hence most team members dropped out of the group despite knowing that they would have to say goodbye to all the incentive offered by Ben. As a result the project failed miserably and the organisation suffered heavy losses. Ben was unable to inspire his team to take action. He manipulated people into his team. People joined his team not because they wanted to but because they had to.
All the previous projects that Ben had handled successfully were small and short in duration as compared to this one and hence manipulating the team members worked in previous projects but not in this one because of the long duration of time required for the project. Manipulating works, but only for a short time.
"There are only two ways to influence human behaviour: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it."
The above illustration was based on manipulation but great leaders don't manipulate; they inspire.
The golden circle is an alternative perspective to existing assumptions about why some leaders and organisations have achieve such a disappropriate degree of influence.
Let's first define the terms, starting from the outside of the circle and moving in ward.
WHAT: Every single company and Organisation 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 function they have within that system. WHATs are easy to identify.
HOW: Some companies and people know how they do what they do. HOWs are often given to explain how something is different or better.
WHY: Very few people or companies can clearly 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 organisations or people think, act or communicate they do so from the outside in, from WHAT to WHY. We say WHAT we do, we sometimes say HOW we do it, but we rarely say WHY we do WHAT we do.
But not the inspired companies. Not the inspired leaders. Every single one of them, regardless of their size or their industry, thinks, acts and communicate from the inside out of the Golden Circle. Starting with WHY.
The human history is filled with great leaders like Steve Jobs, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Gandhi and other such who have inspired people. They have brought about a revolution in what they did. They have brought people together through their beliefs.
Mahatma Gandhi united all the fellow Indians through his belief in non-violence and brought about a revolution which ultimately helped India achieve freedom.
How to start with why? - an illustration.
A marketing message from Apple, if they were like everyone else, might sound like this: we make great computers. They're beautifully designed, simple to use and user-friendly. Wanna buy one?
It's not a very compelling sales pitch, but that's how most companies sell to us. First they start with WHAT they do, then they tell us how they do it or how they are better.
But that is not what the inspiring leaders and organisations do. Every one of them, regardless of size or industry, thinks, acts and communicate from the inside out.
Let's look at the Apple example again and rewrite the example in the order Apple actually communicates. This time, the example starts with WHY.
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 fells different from the first one. We're much more eager to buy a computer from Apple after reading the second version. All that happened because the order of information was reversed. There's no trickery, no manipulation, no free stuff, no aspirational messages, no celebrities.
Apple don't simply reverse the order of information, their message starts with WHY.
Steve Jobs knew why he built Apple - to make innovative and great quality products. Apple through their revolutionary products have completely changed how we consume content in digital age. He set a revolution in tech industry and owing to his belief people joined this revolution whole heartedly.
This pattern is found in nearly every leader that has gone out to make a difference.
"People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it."
- Simon Sinek
So the next time you are given a project and have a team to lead, address your team starting with why. Follow the Golden Circle. Always remember that manipulation works but, only for a short time. Don't manipulate, inspire people.
This Ted talk from Simon Sinek is worth checking out if you want to dive deeper into this topic.
Leaders hold a position of power of influence.
Those who lead inspire us.
whether individuals or organisations, we follow those who lead not because we have to, but because we want to.
We follow those who lead not for them, but for ourselves.
- Simon Sinek
"Teaching people how to think the way they need to think so they can do what they need to do when they need to do it, so they can get what they want when they want it."- Gary Keller's definition of leadership
Leadership is something which a person must have if he/she aspires to stand out in this world and make an impact through his/her work.
For many people a leader is someone who has a team of people working under his command and he/she is responsible for producing desired results from the team and that's true, but how do you inspire people to take actions? What makes a good leader great?
Consider the situation. An Organisation was working on its new products which promises to be a revolution in the market. A new team was needed to look after the development of the product, as a result the CEO decides to form a new team of people under the leadership of Ben. Ben is purposely chosen for this task as he has previously carried out such projects successfully. Ben has the freedom to choose the people in his team but all the people working in the organisation disliked Ben for a big reason - he cared only about the results and not the people. Nobody was ready to join his team, So Ben awarded special incentives to people joining his team such as taking the weekends off, increased salary and special increments and all such kinds of manipulation. And as a result the team was formed and they begin to work on the new project. Everything went well for the first three to four months but after that things begin to fall apart, people in the team not only hated Ben but also each other. The environment within the team slowly begin to pollute. The team members didn't know why they were working for Ben. The pressure of producing results was tremendous and hence most team members dropped out of the group despite knowing that they would have to say goodbye to all the incentive offered by Ben. As a result the project failed miserably and the organisation suffered heavy losses. Ben was unable to inspire his team to take action. He manipulated people into his team. People joined his team not because they wanted to but because they had to.
All the previous projects that Ben had handled successfully were small and short in duration as compared to this one and hence manipulating the team members worked in previous projects but not in this one because of the long duration of time required for the project. Manipulating works, but only for a short time.
"There are only two ways to influence human behaviour: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it."
The above illustration was based on manipulation but great leaders don't manipulate; they inspire.
The Golden Circle
The golden circle is an alternative perspective to existing assumptions about why some leaders and organisations have achieve such a disappropriate degree of influence.
Let's first define the terms, starting from the outside of the circle and moving in ward.
WHAT: Every single company and Organisation 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 function they have within that system. WHATs are easy to identify.
HOW: Some companies and people know how they do what they do. HOWs are often given to explain how something is different or better.
WHY: Very few people or companies can clearly 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 organisations or people think, act or communicate they do so from the outside in, from WHAT to WHY. We say WHAT we do, we sometimes say HOW we do it, but we rarely say WHY we do WHAT we do.
But not the inspired companies. Not the inspired leaders. Every single one of them, regardless of their size or their industry, thinks, acts and communicate from the inside out of the Golden Circle. Starting with WHY.
The human history is filled with great leaders like Steve Jobs, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Gandhi and other such who have inspired people. They have brought about a revolution in what they did. They have brought people together through their beliefs.
Mahatma Gandhi united all the fellow Indians through his belief in non-violence and brought about a revolution which ultimately helped India achieve freedom.
How to start with why? - an illustration.
A marketing message from Apple, if they were like everyone else, might sound like this: we make great computers. They're beautifully designed, simple to use and user-friendly. Wanna buy one?
It's not a very compelling sales pitch, but that's how most companies sell to us. First they start with WHAT they do, then they tell us how they do it or how they are better.
But that is not what the inspiring leaders and organisations do. Every one of them, regardless of size or industry, thinks, acts and communicate from the inside out.
Let's look at the Apple example again and rewrite the example in the order Apple actually communicates. This time, the example starts with WHY.
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 fells different from the first one. We're much more eager to buy a computer from Apple after reading the second version. All that happened because the order of information was reversed. There's no trickery, no manipulation, no free stuff, no aspirational messages, no celebrities.
Apple don't simply reverse the order of information, their message starts with WHY.
Steve Jobs knew why he built Apple - to make innovative and great quality products. Apple through their revolutionary products have completely changed how we consume content in digital age. He set a revolution in tech industry and owing to his belief people joined this revolution whole heartedly.
This pattern is found in nearly every leader that has gone out to make a difference.
"People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it."
- Simon Sinek
So the next time you are given a project and have a team to lead, address your team starting with why. Follow the Golden Circle. Always remember that manipulation works but, only for a short time. Don't manipulate, inspire people.
This Ted talk from Simon Sinek is worth checking out if you want to dive deeper into this topic.
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Source: This big idea about leadership was borrowed from one my favourite book 'Start With Why' by 'Simon Sinek'.
Start with Why...✌👍
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