I just finished training our incredible new batch of Collegewise counselors. Before the last day of training, they had a homework assignment–watch Simon Sinek's 18-minute Ted talk. Sinek argues that the great leaders and organizations of the world, like Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright Brothers, all think, act and communicate in the exact same way, but do it in the complete opposite of how most people would expect. These great leaders didn't talk about what they wanted to do; they talked about why they wanted to do it. And people followed them.
The Ted talk hit home with all of us, and on the plane back home to Seattle last night, I watched a few more of Simon's talks, including, If You Don't Understand People, You Don't Understand Business. My favorite part:
"If you go to one of your friends and you say, 'How would you like me to dress so that you'll like me better? How do you want me to address you, how do you want me to speak so that you'll like me more?'…your friends are going to tell you, 'Just be yourself. That's why I like you.'…Now think about what we do in industry…We do market research. We get up and we ask the customers, 'What style should we speak to you? How should we decorate ourselves? What kind of things are you drawn to so that we can do those things so you'll like us more?' It's just as ridiculous. Organizations should say and do the things they actually believe, and they will attract people who believe what they believe. Or they can choose to lie and at the slightest hint that they might be lying, cynicism sets in. People to start say, 'I'm not sure I can trust these guys because there's not a lot of consistency in all the things that they say and do, which means they can't have a very strong believe study, or they're lying to me.' And we call them inauthentic. The entire process of asking people who we should be is inauthentic."
Turns out it's true. The best way to get a customer, or get a promotion, or make a new friend, or get into college is to just be yourself.