The reason Golden Circle works has roots in human biology. Humans want to belong, and the need is so powerful that we will often put incredible effort and money into achieving that feeling.
Organizations that start with WHY clearly define who they are and what they stand for, and as a result, their products or services come to represent those beliefs.
When those beliefs align with our own, it creates a sense of belonging and kinship. Buying their products makes us feel like we belong in the same group as other people who buy the same things and believe in the same ideals.
Like we mentioned in Chapter 3, it’s not about Mac or PC being better or worse. Instead, each company’s WHY appeals to different types of people.
Because we want to belong, we’re attracted to companies that communicate what they believe, and we bond with other people over the products and ideas that we value.
The reason The Golden Circle works is because the different levels (WHAT, HOW, and WHY) correspond with different levels of the brain: specifically, the neocortex and the limbic brain.
Because the limbic brain doesn’t use language, it makes it hard for us to put our feelings into words. It’s why we hard time talking about the decisions we make. When a choice “feels” right, when we make a decision based on a “gut feeling,” it’s because we’re using our limbic brain. Once the decision gets made, our neocortex swoops in to try and verbally articulate the way we feel.
To put it simply: decisions start in our limbic brain, and then we articulate and rationalize them using our neocortex. The WHY is how you win a customer’s “heart,” and afterward the WHAT and HOW is how you win their “mind.”
When you start with why, you target the emotional gut part of a person’s brain. While making decisions by gut may sound wishy-washy, the limbic brain is actually powerful. Studies suggest our gut instinct leads to better, faster decision making. That’s because when we use our neocortex to make decisions, we often end up overthinking them. We try to rationalize our decisions, which often leads to poorer choices.
Let’s compare rational and gut decision making with example scenarios:
So while we can make decisions with our rational brains only, we are often less confident in our choices. That happens when a company sells us on their WHAT.
But WHY connects to a deep, emotional part of ourselves. WHY leads people to make decisions based on their gut instinct, which in turn helps them feel more confident and satisfied with your choice.
Because gut decisions are hard to articulate, when your customers explain their decisions, they point to factors that might be misleading for you to act on.
For example, people explaining why they bought a Mac may point to the screen resolution and the features, but really it was a gut, emotional decision based around Apple’s mission.
This is a red herring for companies - just because people explain their decisions in terms of features doesn’t mean giving more features will sway them. In fact, often asking people what they want is misleading. As Henry Ford said, “if I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” This is the pitfall that WHAT companies compete on, and they commoditize their products by focusing on easy-to-replicate features.
Example: Laundry Detergent
Laundry detergent companies spent years competing on how clean they can get your clothes. Market research showed that people said they were looking for the detergent for the cleanest clothes. Built on this research, brands competed on how well they actually cleaned clothes, experimenting with proprietary additives.
But what people actually wanted was different. Later research showed that people weren’t interested in the detergent that literally got their clothes the cleanest. Instead, they wanted a product that made clothes feel the cleanest. The first action after taking laundry out of the dryer wasn’t to inspect it for cleanliness, it was to smell it. The feeling is stronger than the fact.
This revelation changed the grounds of competition for laundry detergent.
When you start with WHY, you don’t have to have the best, cheapest, most wonderful product. The sense of belonging is a powerful driver that can overcome minor differences in quality.
Loyal customers stick with companies, even when their products are more expensive than their competition (Apple) or take a long time to deliver (Harley-Davidson).
Great leaders and organizations start by winning people’s hearts, then appeal to their minds. They begin with WHY--the emotional, ideological draw--then focus on the WHAT and the HOW.
This can lead to counter-intuitive approaches. Visionaries see what most of us don’t see and have no idea to ask for. But when we see it, we know we want it.
For example, John F. Kennedy assumed the office of United States President during tough times. But instead of focusing on WHAT he planned to do, he famously started with WHY: serving the country.
Similarly, Southwest Airlines entered a crowded market where air travel was a luxury that was inaccessible to normal people. Instead of charging more for their tickets to make a profit, they decided to charge less. That’s because affordable, accessible air travel is their WHY.