TEDxSanDiego - Simon Sinek - Restoring the Human in Humanity

What I love most about events like these it's not just the spreading of ideas but it's that people come together and I think we often forget that humanity is made up of humans it's made up of individuals and one of the things that made the human race so successful is not that the word they're strongest or that were the smartest it's that there were social animals.

We have the ability to form communities cultures what's a community what's a culture it's a group of people with a common set of values and beliefs what's a company it's a group of people with a common set of values and beliefs.

What's a nation it's a group of people with a common set of values and beliefs one was surrounded by people who believe what we believe something remarkable happens.

Trust emerges make no mistake of it Trust is a feeling trust is a distinctly human experience it's not a checklist simply doing everything that's expected of you doesn't mean people will trust you it just means that you're responsible.

Trust is a feeling it is a very powerful feeling and it only comes from being surrounded by people who believe what you believe. I'll share with you an example that freaks me out every time I talk about it what's our most valued possession on the planet it's our children right our children our most valuable possession on the planet so let's game out of scenario.

Let's say you want to go on a date so you need a babysitter you have two choices option number one there's a 16 year old from just down the street with barely if any babysitting experience option number two there's a 32 year old who just moved into the neighborhood you don't know from where but she's got ten years of babysitting experience who do you choose you choose the 16 year old think about that you would rather trust your most valued possession on the planet with somebody with no experience but they're from within your community over somebody with vast amounts of experience and yet you don't know where they come from or where they belong or if you can trust them or why should they trust you.

Then why do we do it differently at work why are we more obsessed with someone's resume in what they've done and how much money they've earned for our company can they help us and yet we never think to ask or understand do you belong here how can we trust you how can you trust us one of the greatest challenges any organization has believe it or not is its own success all organizations start out the same way there's some sort of metric usually money in this case and time and when an organization is founded what they do and why they do it are in extra inextricably linked and that's because there's usually a founder or some small group of founders with some vision of the world that doesn't exist.

Zipp exist yet and they're filled with passion and they attract people who believe what they believe and those people join up and they want to work with them but then they get more successful and they're no longer relying on their gut decision on each other now they have to start hiring people who hire someone who hire somebody who hire somebody who has to make a decision based on what and that original cause gets forgotten although they do really really well here the original reason why they started the company gets forgotten and all of a sudden weird things start to happen.

I call this the split and when an organization goes through the split there are a few symptoms the old-timers will say it's not like it used to be it's not like it used to be and yet they can't put it into words what do you mean it's not like it used me just doesn't feel the same they say are there symptoms of the split or when stress goes up and passion goes down you work really hard at the beginning how did how come it didn't feel stressful then and very often you become more obsessed with what your competition is doing over what you are doing in organizations as they become really successful.

This starts to go away and what you start to see is that even though they're making more money and even though they're selling more fulfillment does not go up in fact what does go up is distrust we stop trusting management we stop trusting each other even now my fear my thought is that maybe America has gone through a split if you go back to the greatest generation our grandparents we call them the greatest generation think about that for a second why did they get the label the greatest generation.

I'm Gen X that's unfair I got a variable the unknown variable at that they get the greatest generation I get X okay why were they the greatest generation because they were a part of something they were all united in pursuit of something bigger than themselves there are stories of young men who shot themselves when they didn't get called to action the population bought war bonds we were all together we trusted each other we trusted our leaders and off we went to be a part of something bigger than ourselves but then the war ended and then they came back and I felt like they'd missed out on life being at war and they grew up in the depression and so they set all of that intense loyalty and that's intense trust and they went to work and we know what to find the 1950s.

This is when you gave your life to your company you work for years until you gave up and got your gold watch right absolute loyalty and what we started to see was a growth in wealth in the country growth in GDP and an increase in affluence but that same sense of fulfillment wasn't there because now they were working hard but they weren't feeling a part of something anymore and the distrust started to show up and in response was the hippie movement and the hippie movement could happen because there was more social welfare the country could afford it for people to fall off.

The grid and a lot of those kids who were joining the hippie movement they had rich parents and so they could afford to go away and run up and you know pretend to do something but that sense of fulfillment that seeking you know to rebellion against their parents affluence it didn't have that same sense of fulfillment they weren't getting it in a hippie community and then you had the 1970s.

The Me Generation and everybody thought that you know you had to find some spiritual guru before you could find some sense of fulfillment and cults or all those sudden were on the rise and that evolved into the 1980s still very very me focused Gordon Gekko greed is good except this time it went from spirituality into business all of a sudden business was good it wasn't dirty to be a part of a business anymore and for the first time in history in the 1980s.

Theories were proposed to use people to balance the books this was the first time we started to see massive layoffs of human beings in order to make the numbers work then you had the 1990s a period still self-involved come boom and that didn't so work so well and now we're in the latest period in this new decade of uncertainty and searching we know that this hippie movement thing didn't work in the obsession with that money thing didn't work but as our country continued to the GDP started to go up and fluid started to go up this started to go away and that sense of purpose and that sense of cause went away.

Now, technology hasn't helped even Andy Grove the founder of Intel said the only thing the microprocessor really ever does is make things go faster and that's exactly what technology has done it's made that go faster right technology is wonderful for making connections technology is wonderful for the exchange of information technology is amazing for driving transactions you can perform transactions faster and faster than we've ever performed them but technology is terrible for creating human relationships.

There was a time when a desktop meant something horizontal today it means something vertical and there was a an a folder is a picture of a thing we used to use now that's a fun example but technology has co-opted some very human things as well a friend is not somebody who checked their status your network doesn't happen on LinkedIn a dialog doesn't happen on Twitter and a conversation doesn't happen on a blog these are human experiences and they could require human beings to be in the room even bloggers I love how bloggers talk about the Internet as the end-all be-all of the world and that every year they come together 20,000 of them descend on Las Vegas to have a conference.

Why couldn't they do it online it's because you've got to have the human Union in the 1960s a man by the name of Stanley Milgram did an experiment he wanted to understand how the Holocaust could happen and so he wanted understand how an entire population could stand by and watch a genocide happen or some could even contribute and the excuse they gave was I'm just following orders and so he did this what we know now is a terribly unethical experiment but amazing results he had a volunteer come in and that volunteer was told that they would play the role of a teacher and there was another volunteer who was really a scientist pretending to be a volunteer who would play the role of the student, that teacher was sat at a table that had a button and a dial and the teacher was told that the student would be asked a series of questions and if the question was wrong or if they refused to answer they would have pushed the button and administer an electric shock.

Now, in reality there was only one electric shock given the whole experiment it was a very small one given to the teacher so they could know what it felt like and the dial they were told after each question they were to turn the dial up one notch and it said sort of mild medium you know somewhat painful extremely painful very painful and it went red and then it said xxx and as they would start the experiment they would start giving the electric shock the other scientist would pretend that they were in pain and they pretend that they were getting an electric shock and the person would feel bad and they look to the scientist and say I'm hurting the guy and the authority figure would look down and say I'm afraid the experiment must go on.

The experiment really must go on and some of them would mutter to themselves the experiment must go on the experiment was gone as I continued to press the button what the what the results revealed is that when the teacher could see and hear the student they couldn't go very far before they completely quit the experiment when they could hear them but not see them they could go further but still not very far before they quit when they could see them but not here then they could go further but still not very far but when they could neither see nor hear the impact of their decisions.

65% of those teachers were able to go all the way and kill the guy and you know what they were concerned with I'm not gonna be responsible am i the reason it's an unethical experiment is because sixty-five percent of people who thought they were good people when they walked in the door went home with the knowledge that they could kill another human being now think about how we do business today there was a time that if you wanted to know what your employees thought about you you walked on the factory floor and you asked them there was a time when Custis customer service meant you talk to a human being now customer services you'll get a reply to your email in 24 hours.

I saw a bank advertising that you get to talk to a human being I earned miles up the wazoo in one of the airline's you know one of the things they gave me for my status a phone number to talk to a person since when is a person a luxury our survival depend on it now think about how we do business we do business on screens companies manage their businesses on screens and the more they make the more disconnected they come from the founding of the company the less they talk to their own people they less they see and hear the impact of their own decisions it's not a surprise that we're putting poison in foods chemicals and foods and now scientists are saying that if we continue down this path this generation will have a shorter lifespan and previous generation that's not surprising.

To me when you cannot see nor hear the impact of the decisions you make 65 percent of us have the ability to kill someone what we need is more human interactions what we need is to shake hands we need we need a handshake leadership we need handshake conversations we need handshake friends we need handshake dialogues we need handshake meetings imagine if you were to meet somebody you do a deal with them you get along great they say I agree to all the terms and I'm totally gonna do business with you and you go great shake on it and they go I don't need to shake your hand oh come on we agree let's shake on it why don't you shake your hand I agree to all your terms you won't do business with them because they won't shake your hand that's how powerful human interaction is what we need to do is set out and shake hands more often put ourselves in situations where we can create real human connections and where trust becomes the standard and not the exception thank you very much [Applause]