Start with why

10
COMMUNICATION IS NOT ABOUT SPEAKING, IT’S ABOUT
LISTENING
Martin Luther King Jr., a man who would become a symbol of the entire civil
rights movement, chose to deliver his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in front
of another symbol: the Lincoln Memorial. Like King, Lincoln stands (or in the
case of the memorial, sits) as a symbol of the American value of freedom for all.
Great societies understand the importance of symbols as a way of reinforcing
their values, of capturing their beliefs. Dictators understand the importance of
symbols all too well. But in their case, the symbols are usually of them and not
of a larger belief. Symbols help us make tangible that which is intangible. And
the only reason symbols have meaning is because we infuse them with meaning.
That meaning lives in our minds, not in the item itself. Only when the purpose,
cause or belief is clear can a symbol command great power.
The flag, for example, is nothing more than a symbol of our nation’s values
and beliefs. And we follow the flag into battle. That’s some serious power. Ever
notice the patch of the American flag on a soldier’s right arm? It’s backward.
There was no mistake made, it’s like that on purpose. A flag flying on a staff, as
an army was rushing into battle, would appear backward if viewed from the right
side. To put it the other way around on the right shoulder would appear as if the
soldier were in retreat.
Our flag is infused with so much meaning that some have tried to pass laws
banning its desecration. It’s not the material out of which the flag is sewn that
these patriots aim to protect. The laws they propose have nothing to do with the
destruction of property. Their goal is to protect the meaning the symbol
represents: the WHY. The laws they drafted tried to protect the intangible set of
values and beliefs by protecting the symbol of those values and beliefs. Though
the laws have been struck down by the Supreme Court, they have spurred
contentious and emotionally charged debates. They pit our desire for freedom of
expression with our desire to protect a symbol of that freedom.
Ronald Reagan, the Great Communicator, knew all too well the power of
symbols. In 1982, he was the first president to invite a “hero” to sit in the
balcony of the House chamber during the State of the Union address, a tradition
that has continued every year since. A man who exuded optimism, Reagan knew

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the value of symbolizing the values of America instead of just talking about
them. His guest, who sat with the First Lady, was Lenny Skutnik, a government
employee who had dived into the icy Potomac just days before to save a woman
who had fallen from a helicopter that was attempting to rescue her after an Air
Florida plane crashed into the river. Reagan was trying to make a point, that
words are hollow, but deeds and values are deep. After he told Skutnik’s story he
waxed, “Don’t let anyone tell you that America’s best days are behind her, that
the American spirit has been vanquished. We’ve seen it triumph too often in our
lives to stop believing in it now.” Skutnik became Reagan’s symbol of courage.
Most companies have logos, but few have been able to convert those logos
into meaningful symbols. Because most companies are bad at communicating
what they believe, so it follows that most logos are devoid of any meaning. At
best they serve as icons to identify a company and its products. A symbol cannot
have any deep meaning until we know WHY it exists in terms bigger than
simply to identify the company. Without clarity of WHY, a logo is just a logo.
To say that a logo stands for quality, service, innovation and the like only
reinforces its status as just a logo. These qualities are about the company and not
about the cause. Don’t forget the dictators. They understand the power of
symbols, except the symbols are often of them. Likewise, so many companies
act like dictators—it’s all about them and what they want. They tell us what to
do, they tell us what we need, they tell us they have the answers but they do not
inspire us and they do not command our loyalty. And to take the analogy a step
further, the way dictators maintain their power is through fear, reward and every
other manipulation they can think of. People follow dictators not because they
want to, but because they have to. For companies to be perceived as a great
leaders and not dictators, all their symbols, including their logos, need to stand
for something in which we can all believe. Something we can all support. That
takes clarity, discipline and consistency.
For a logo to become a symbol, people must be inspired to use that logo to say
something about who they are. Couture fashion labels are the most obvious
example of this. People use them to demonstrate status. But many of them are
somewhat generic in what they symbolize. There is a more profound example:
Harley-Davidson.
There are people who walk around with Harley-Davidson tattoos on their
bodies. That’s insane. They’ve tattooed a corporate logo on their skin. Some of
them don’t even own the product! Why would rational people tattoo a corporate
logo on their bodies? The reason is simple. After years of Harley being crystal
clear about what they believe, after years of being disciplined about a set of
values and guiding principles and after years of being doggedly consistent about

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everything they say and do, their logo has become a symbol. It no longer simply
identifies a company and its products; it identifies a belief.
In truth, most people who tattoo Harley-Davidson logos on their bodies have
no idea what the stock price of Harley is. They have no idea about some
management shake-up the week before. That symbol is no longer about Harley.
The logo embodies an entire value set—their own. The symbol is no longer
about Harley, it’s about them. Randy Fowler, a former U.S. Marine and now
general manager of a Harley-Davidson dealership in California, proudly sports a
large Harley tattoo on his left arm. “It symbolizes who I am,” he says. “Mostly,
it says I’m an American.” Customer and company are now one and the same.
The meaning of Harley-Davidson has value in people’s lives because, for those
who believe in Harley’s WHY, it helps them express the meaning of their own
lives.
Because of Harley’s clarity, discipline and consistency, most will know what
that symbol means, even if you don’t subscribe to it yourself. That’s the reason
why when someone walks into a bar with a big Harley logo on his arm we take a
step back and give him a wide berth. The symbol has become so meaningful, in
fact, that 12 percent of Harley-Davidson revenues are strictly from
merchandising. That’s remarkable.
It’s not just logos, however, that can serve as symbols. Symbols are any
tangible representation of a clear set of values and beliefs. An ink-stained finger
for Iraqis was a symbol of a new beginning. A London double-decker bus or a
cowboy hat—both are symbols of national cultures. But national symbols are
easy because most nations have a clear sense of culture that has been reinforced
and repeated for generations. It is not a company or organization that decides
what, it symbols mean, it is the group outside the megaphone, in the chaotic
marketplace, who decide. If, based on the things they see and hear, the outsiders
can clearly and consistently report what an organization believes, then, and only
then, can a symbol start to take on meaning. It is the truest test of how effective a
megaphone has been produced—when clarity is able to filter all the way through
the organization and come to life in everything that comes out of it.
Go back to Apple’s “1984” commercial at the beginning of chapter 9. For
those who have seen it, does it make you think about Apple and its products or
do you simply like the sentiment? Or the line “Think Different,” does it speak to
you?
If you’re a Mac customer, you probably loved this commercial; it may even
give you goose bumps when you watch it—a surefire test that the WHY is
connecting with you on a visceral or limbic level. In fact, this commercial, after
you learned it was from Apple, may have reinforced your decision to buy a Mac,

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whether for the first time or the tenth time. This commercial, like all Apple’s
advertising, is one of the things Apple has said or done that reinforces what they
believe. It is every bit consistent with the clear belief we know they embody.
And if the commercial speaks to you and you’re not an Apple lover, odds are
you still like the idea of thinking differently. The message of that ad is one of the
things Apple does to tell their story. It is one of the WHATs to their WHY. It is a
symbol. It is for these reasons that we say of a piece of advertising, “It really
speaks to me.” It’s not really speaking to you, it’s speaking to the millions of
people who saw the ad. When we say that something like that “speaks to me,”
what we’re really saying is, through all this clutter and noise, I can hear that. I
can hear it and I will listen. This is what it means for a message that comes out
of the megaphone to resonate.
Everything that comes out of the base of the megaphone serves as a way for
an organization to articulate what it believes. What a company says and does are
the means by which the company speaks. Too many companies put a
disproportionate amount of weight on their products or services simply because
those are the things that bring in the money. But there are many more things at
the base of the megaphone that play an equal role in speaking to the outside
world. Though products may drive sales, they alone cannot create loyalty. In
fact, a company can create loyalty among people who aren’t even customers. I
spoke favorably of Apple long before I bought one. And I spoke disparagingly of
a certain PC brand even though I’d been buying their products for years.
Apple’s clarity, discipline and consistency—their ability to build a
megaphone, not a company, that is clear and loud—is what has given them the
ability to command such loyalty. They are accused of having a cultlike
following. Those inside the company are often accused of following the “cult of
Steve.” All of these compliments or insults are indications that others have taken
on the cause and made it their own. That experts describe their products and
marketing as a “lifestyle” reinforces that people who love Apple products are
using WHAT Apple does to demonstrate their own personal identity. We call it
“lifestyle marketing” because people have integrated commercial products into
the style of their lives. Apple, with great efficiency, built a perfectly clear
megaphone, leveraged the Law of Diffusion and invited others to help spread the
gospel. Not for the company, for themselves.
Even their promotions and partnerships serve as tangible proof of what they
believe. In 2003 and 2004, Apple ran a promotion for iTunes with Pepsi—the
cola branded as “the choice of the next generation.” It made sense that Apple
would do a deal with Pepsi, the primary challenger to Coca-Cola, the status quo.
Everything Apple does, everything they say and do, serves as tangible proof of

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what they believe. The reason I use Apple so extensively throughout this book is
that Apple is so disciplined in HOW they do things and so consistent in WHAT
they do that, love them or hate them, we all have a sense of their WHY. We
know what they believe.
Most of us didn’t read books about them. We don’t personally know Steve
Jobs. We haven’t spent time roaming the halls of Apple’s headquarters to get to
know their culture. The clarity we have for what Apple believes comes from one
place and one place only: Apple. People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy
WHY you do it, and Apple says and does only the things they believe. If WHAT
you do doesn’t prove what you believe, then no one will know what your WHY
is and you’ll be forced to compete on price, service, quality, features and
benefits; the stuff of commodities. Apple has a clear and loud megaphone and is
exceptionally good at communicating its story.

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