Start with why

part-time job. Intrigued by the prospect of working in the antiques business, she
answered a newspaper ad in Sacramento to do office work for a “collector.”
Harbridge soon found out, however, that the job was filing papers for a
collections agent, and even then she wasn’t entirely sure what that meant.
The collections office consisted of a huge room with dozens of phone stations,
each staffed by a debt collector making call after call to a long list of businesses
and individuals who owed money. The setup of the room meant there was no
privacy—everyone could hear everyone else’s calls. Harbridge was immediately
taken by the harshness of the tone that all the collectors used with those from
whom they aimed to collect unpaid debts. “They would hound them, and
practically threaten them,” she said. “They would do anything it took to get
information from them.”
Harbridge recognized that the owner of the company and the collectors were
all kind, gracious people. They helped each other out, listened to each other’s
problems and even joined together to sponsor a homeless family during the
holidays. But when they were on the phone to collect a debt, these same people
turned passive-aggressive, rude and often mean. It’s not because they were bad
people, it’s because they were incentivized to be that way.
Their officious behavior made perfect sense. “What gets measured gets done,”
as well-known sales coach Jack Daly says. And in the world of debt collecting,
the callers were given bonuses based on how much money they collected. This
has resulted in an entire industry that threatens, badgers, hounds and provokes. It
didn’t take long until Harbridge found herself adopting the same attitude
whenever she talked with debtors. “I began treating people on the phone the way
everybody else in the office treated them,” she said.
Feeling like WHAT she was doing was completely out of balance with her
WHY, Harbridge decided there had to be another way. “I got it in my head that I
was going to start an agency that collected by being nice,” she said. People in the
collections business thought Harbridge naïve, if not crazy. And maybe she was.
In 1993, Harbridge moved to San Francisco and started her own collections
firm, Bridgeport Financial, steeped in the belief that agents would have more
success treating people with respect than badgering them. Harbridge built her
company on her WHY—that everyone has a story and everyone deserves to be

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listened to. Her approach was to have her agents try to establish rapport with the
debtor on the other end of the phone in the course of a three-minute
conversation. The goal was to learn everything they could about the person’s
circumstances: Did they have the means to pay the debt? Would they honor a
payment plan? Was the reason for the failure to pay reflective of a short-term
situation? “We would get people to tell us the truth,” she said. “Sure, we had a
legal department, but we tried to avoid using it.” Harbridge knew, however, that
no matter her intentions, if she measured the results the same way as others, the
same awful behavior would result. So she came up with an entirely new way to
incentivize her people. She found a way to measure WHY.
At Bridgeport Financial, bonuses were not given for the amount of money that
was collected; they were given based on how many “thank you” cards her agents
sent out. This is harder than it sounds. Sending out a card thanking someone for
the time they spent talking on the phone requires a few things. First, Harbridge
had to hire people who believed what she believed. She had to hire good fits. If
her employees didn’t believe that everyone deserves to be listened to, it wouldn’t
work. Only good-fit hires would be capable of creating an environment on the
telephone that would actually warrant sending a thank-you card, even though the
purpose of the call was to ask for money. Harbridge measured WHY her
company existed, not WHAT they did, and the result was a culture in which
compassion was valued above all.
But what about the other results? What about her financial results, the ones
most businesses pursue first? Bridgeport Financial collected 300 percent more
than the industry average. What’s more, most of the people and companies who
were initially being pursued ended up doing more business with the original
company that sent the collections agency after them in the first place. This is
almost unprecedented in the collections industry.
Harbridge’s business succeeded not just because she knew WHY she was
doing what she was doing, but because she found a way to measure the WHY.
The company’s growth was loud and her cause was clear. She started with WHY
and the rest followed.
Most organizations today use very clear metrics to track the progress and
growth of WHAT they do—usually it’s money. Unfortunately, we have very
poor measurements to ensure that a WHY stays clear. Dwayne Honoré has for
the past ten years run his own commercial construction company in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana, a trade he learned from his father. A leader with a deep sense
of purpose, he devised some years ago a brilliant system to ensure that his values
are reinforced in his company’s culture. He figured out how to measure
something most people can only pay lip service to: work-life balance. Honoré

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believes that people should not spend all their time at work, but rather they
should work to spend more of their time with their families.
Every employee at Honoré Construction is required to clock in in the morning
and clock out in the evening. But there’s a catch. They must clock in between
8:00–8:30 a.m. and out by 5:00–5:30 P.M. Stay any later and they are taken out
of a bonus pool. Because employees know they have to leave by 5:30 p.m.,
wasted time has dropped 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,

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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.

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