Communication Is Not About Speaking, It’s About Listening

Put bluntly, the struggle that so many companies have to differentiate or communicate their true value to the outside world is not a business problem, it’s a biology problem. Just like a person struggling to put their emotions into words, we rely on metaphors, imagery and analogies to try to communicate how we feel.

Remember the biology of The Golden Circle. The WHY exists in the part of the brain that controls feelings and decision-making but not language. WHATs exist in the part of the brain that controls rational thought and language. Comparing the biology of the brain to the three-dimensional rendering of The Golden Circle reveals a profound insight.

Great founders understand that their role is not simply to run the company. Just as Martin Luther King Jr. was to his movement, they must become symbols of their cause.

What’s the difference between Steve Jobs the man and Apple the company? Nothing. What’s the difference between Sir Richard Branson’s personality and Virgin’s personality? Nothing. As a company grows, the CEO’s job is to personify the WHY. To ooze of it. To talk about it. To preach it. To be a symbol of what the company believes.

Again, people don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it, and if all the things happening at the WHAT level do not clearly represent WHY the company exists, then the ability to inspire is severely diminished.

A clear sense of WHY sets expectations. When we don’t know an organization’s WHY, we don’t know what to expect, so we expect the minimum—price, quality, service, features—the commodity stuff.

WHY-types have the power to change the course of industries or even the world…if only they knew HOW.

The pessimists are usually right, to paraphrase author Thomas Friedman, but it’s the optimists who change the world.