Start With Why

to a minimum. Productivity is high and turnover is low. Consider how much you get done the day before you go on vacation. Now imagine every day is like that. That’s what Dwayne Honoré figured out how to do. Because he figured out how to measure a value he holds dear, that value is embraced. Most importantly, because Honoré’s actions pass the Celery Test, others can clearly see what he believes.
    Money is a perfectly legitimate measurement of goods sold or services rendered. But it is no calculation of value. Just because somebody makes a lot of money does not mean that he necessarily provides a lot of value. Likewise, just because somebody makes a little money does not necessarily mean he provides only a little value. Simply by measuring the number of goods sold or the money brought in is no indication of value. Value is a feeling, not a calculation. It is perception. One could argue that a product with more bells and whistles that sells for less is the greater value. But by whose standard?
    My uncle used to make tennis rackets. His rackets were made in the exact same factory as a name-brand racket. They were made of the same material on the same machine. The only difference was that when my uncle’s rackets came off the assembly line, they didn’t put the well-known brand logo on the product. My uncle’s rackets sold for less money, in the same big-box retailer, next to the name-brand rackets. Month after month, the name-brand rackets outsold the generic-brand ones. Why? Because people perceived greater value from the name-brand rackets and felt just fine paying a premium for that feeling. On a strictly rational scale, the generic rackets offered better value. But again, value is a perception, not a calculation, which is the reason companies make such a big deal about investing in their brand. But a strong brand, like all other intangible factors that contribute to the perception of value, starts with a clear sense of WHY.
    If those outside the megaphone share your WHY and if you are able to clearly communicate that belief in everything you say and do, trust emerges and value is perceived. When that happens, loyal buyers will always rationalize the premium they pay or the inconvenience they suffer to get that feeling. To them, the sacrifice of time or money is worth it. They will try to explain that their feeling of value comes from quality or features or some other easy-to-point-to element, but it doesn’t. Those are external factors and the feeling they get comes completely from inside them. When people can point to a company and clearly articulate what the company believes and use words unrelated to price, quality, service and features, that is proof the company has successfully navigated the split. When people describe the value they perceive with visceral, excited words like “love,” that is a sure sign that a clear sense of WHY exists.

Good Successions Keep the WHY Alive
    There were three words missing from Bill Gates’s goodbye speech when he officially left Microsoft in June 2008. They are three words he probably doesn’t even realize need to be there.
    “I’ll be back.”
    Though Gates abdicated his role as CEO of Microsoft to Steve Ballmer in 2000 to lend more time and energy to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he still maintained a role and a presence at the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington. His plan was always to completely leave the company in the care of others, but like a lot of founders, Gates forgot to do one thing that would allow his plan to work. This one oversight could have a devastating impact on Microsoft and may even require him to come back someday to right the ship he built.
    Bill Gates is special. Not just because of his brain or his management style. Though important, those two things alone are not the formula for building a $60 billion corporation from scratch. Like all visionary leaders, Bill Gates is special because he embodies what he believes. He is the personification of Microsoft’s WHY. And for that reason, he serves as a physical beacon, a reminder of WHY everyone comes to work.
    When Gates founded Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1975, he did so to advance a higher cause: if you give people the right tools, and make them more productive, then everyone, no matter their lot in life, will have an opportunity to achieve their real potential. “A PC in every home and on every desk,” he envisioned; remarkable from a company that didn’t even make