Start With Why

of success. Everyone got their $65 when the airline did well and no one got it when the airline missed its targets. Bethune even insisted that a separate check be sent out. It wasn’t just added to their salary check. This was different. This was a symbol of winning. And on every check a message reminded them WHY they came to work: “Thank you for helping make Continental one of the best.”
    “We measured things the employees could truly control,” Bethune said. “We made the stakes something the employees would win or lose on together, not separately.”
    Everything they did made people feel like they were in it together. And they were.

The Only Difference Between You and a Caveman Is the Car You Drive
    The reason the human race has been so successful is not because we’re the strongest animals—far from it. Size and might alone do not guarantee success. We’ve succeeded as a species because of our ability to form cultures. Cultures are groups of people who come together around a common set of values and beliefs. When we share values and beliefs with others, we form trust. Trust of others allows us to rely on others to help protect our children and ensure our personal survival. The ability to leave the den to hunt or explore with confidence that the community will protect your family and your stuff until you return is one of the most important factors in the survival of an individual and the advancement of our species.
    That we trust people with common values and beliefs is not, in itself, a profound assertion. There is a reason we’re not friends with everyone we meet. We’re friends with people who see the world the way we see it, who share our views and our belief set. No matter how good a match someone looks on paper, that doesn’t guarantee a friendship. You can think of it on a macro scale also. The world is filled with different cultures. Being American is not better than being French. They are just different cultures—not better or worse, just different. American culture strongly values ideals of entrepreneurship, independence and self-reliance. We call our WHY—the American Dream. French culture strongly values ideals of unified identity, group reliance and joie de vivre. (Notice that we use the French word to describe the joy-of-life lifestyle. Coincidence? Perhaps.) Some people are good fits in French culture and some people are good fits in American culture. It is not a matter of better or worse, they are just different.
    Most people who are born and raised in one culture will, for obvious reasons, end up being a reasonably good fit in that culture, but not always. There are people who grew up in France who never quite felt like they belonged; they were misfits in their own culture. So they moved, maybe to America. Drawn to the feelings they had for America’s WHY, they followed the American Dream and emigrated.
    It is always said that America is fueled in large part by immigrants. But it is completely false that all immigrants make productive members of a society. It’s not true that all immigrants have an entrepreneurial spirit—just the ones that are viscerally drawn to America. That’s what a WHY does. When it is clearly understood, it attracts people who believe the same thing. And assuming they are good fits for what Americans believe and how they do things, those immigrants will say of America, “I love it here,” or “I love this country.” This visceral reaction has less to do with America and more to do with them. It’s how they feel about their own opportunity and their own ability to thrive in a culture in which they feel like they belong versus the one they came from.
    And within the big WHY that is America, it breaks down even further. Some people are better fits in New York and some are better fits in Minneapolis. One culture is not better or worse than the other, they are just different. Many people dream of moving to New York, for example, attracted to the glamour or the perception of opportunity. They arrive with aspirations of making it big, but they fail to consider whether they will fit into the culture before they make their move. Some make it. But so many don’t. Over and over, I’ve seen people come to New York with big hopes and dreams, but either couldn’t find the job they wanted or they found it but couldn’t take the pressure. They are not dumb or bad or poor workers. They were just bad fits. They either stay in New York and exert more effort than