Unless you are the parent of a young child who has asked the question a million times, the one question we should be able to answer is “Why?” More specifically, “Why does our organization exist?”

I have been thinking about mission and vision and the future quite a bit recently. Because the external environment is so unstable, most of us are doing what we need to do to stay viable. We try to search for growth opportunities. We think about the products and services we offer, we might think about what our customer value proposition is, but we rarely think about “why” we exist.

Luckily I stumbled across Simon Sinek who appears to have made a living out of helping organizations answer this “why” question. What really got my attention was his 18 minute talk on Ted TV in which he teaches us about the power of knowing why our organization exists. He postulates that when we know the answer we will attract more customers and employees.

The Golden Circle. Sinek, who was first in the advertising business, uses several examples to teach us about what he calls the Golden Circle. He says it is the rare business that starts with the inside “why” question and moves outward to the “what” question.

The inner-most circle challenges us to answer “why” we exist or what we believe questions. The “how” circle is where the organization determines how they add value for their customer. The outer-most circle is where the business determines “what” product or service they will sell to customers.

He says most businesses start with the outside circle and move in - first make a product or design a service, then think about what the value proposition or differentiation strategy is. Then try to find a customer to buy it. Rarely, do they even talk about why they exist.

Sinek says that when you start with and understand what you believe in, it shows-up in your products or services. It resonates with your customers and potential employees. It provides you the foundation you need. Let’s look at Apple, which Sinek uses as a great example of a company that does this.

I have created an Exhibit here of Sinek’s Golden Circle with his Apple Computer example. He believes Apple and their late CEO, Steve Jobs, always began with the inner “why” circle and moved outward.

If you ask Sinek why Apple exists he says, “They believe in challenging the status quo and doing things differently.”

“How” Apple does this is by making products that are beautifully designed, unique, and easy for the customer to use.

After attending to these inner-most circles they present their products to customers. When we think about what Sinek says you can see how the Mac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad flowed from an understanding of the inner-most circle.

Steve Jobs himself was someone who rejected the status quo and energized the growth and development of the “How” and “What” Apple did.

Wright Brothers vs. Samuel Pierpont Langley. Although I have read accounts of how both the Wright Brothers and Samuel Langley tried to build the first airplane, until listening to Sinek I hadn’t thought of the “why” question before. Langley, who was the head of the Smithsonian Institute, was leading a team of people trying to invent a flying aircraft. He had plenty of money and resources at his disposal. “Why” was he leading the project? For the fame and fortune that would surely follow. The Wright Brothers only had the money and parts from their Ohio bicycle shop. “Why” did they do it? Because they wanted to fly and do it as a team.

As soon as the success of the Wright Brothers flight got back to Langley, he quit the project. Clear to see he mostly believed in himself.

Sinek reminds us, “If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.”

What do you believe? The answer will lead you to the “why.”

When my son, Scott, was about 18 months old Santa brought his father a fun toy gun that shot ping-pong balls. We still have the video of me hitting him with the ping-pong balls and the sheer joy and laughter flying out of his little body as ball after ball flew toward him. Every time I or anyone else watches it we just start laughing. It is a great example of how often the simplest things can make us so happy, especially when we see others happy.

I thought back on that video twice this week. First, when I observed this little unknown girl and her sister and brother jumping for joy through this water fountain in Curacao.

The other time was when I was listening to Radio Lab as they explored “Bliss.” What caught my attention was their interview with Aleksander Gamme, a polar explorer, who is the star of a 500,000 hit Internet video. In this video we get to see his pure joy on day 86 as he discovers special treats he stuck in the snow on his way to the South Pole. Like many explorers before him, including Amundsen and Scott 100 years ago, he left survival packs of food and other materials on his way to the South Pole for discovery and use on the return trip back to the base camp.

What he discovers were fun food treats like Cheez Doodles and sugar candies he had forgotten he packed away. We can each imagine what it must be like to discover those treats after so many hard days. The video is only three minutes and 22 seconds long, so go ahead, make your day!

For over 10 years I have been connected to some very good friends who have worked together on an important project. Recently they reminded me of a very compelling poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson, that really helps us center ourselves on the joy of our daily lives. Here it is:

Write it on your heart
That every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in,
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
Begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
To be encumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
With its hopes and invitations,
To waste a moment on the yesterdays.

These words from Emerson help us start every day. Happiness and joy are one of the special gifts we humans can experience. When was the last time you were really, really happy? Don’t forget that when you are really happy, others around you will be too. A good lesson for all leaders.

Here is a faraway story you may have missed.

It starts out when a two-year old girl's father, the leader of Burma, is assassinated.  Later in life, with two sons and a husband then in England, she returns to her country to try and help her people get freed from a totalitarian regime. The people tried to elect her as their leader, but the brutal leadership made sure that didn’t happen.

For over 20 years she was either imprisoned or placed under house arrest and couldn’t leave Burma (Myanmar). Her husband developed cancer and died in England – without her. Her sons grew-up – without her. The Nobel Prize Committee had a ceremony to award her the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 – without her.

Finally, this year, free elections took place and she has been elected to their Parliament and the leader of the opposition party. Having faith, now, in the government she has finally travelled outside her country. This week in Washington she received the Congressional Gold Medal they awarded her in 2008.

She is Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced “Suki”) and she is a wonderful example of someone who had the courage to sacrifice a great deal for the betterment of a group of people, most of whom she didn’t even know. And what makes this sacrifice even more impressive to me is that she didn’t view it as a sacrifice, she viewed it as her duty.

Sacrifice or Duty. Most of us admire people who have the courage to sacrifice their lives for others. Ms. Suu Kyi admired Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, all of whom made huge personal sacrifices for the betterment of groups of people they mostly didn’t know. Like you, I especially admire the soldiers, police officers, and firefighters who risk their lives in actual life and death situations usually for people they don’t know - and they look at it as their duty, not a sacrifice.

Why do we admire these people so much? First, I think we admire their unselfishness and sense of duty to do what’s right. And, I think we wonder if we would have the courage to do the same in similar situations. I know I would want to have that much courage, but I wonder if I would. I think if I looked at an act as my “duty,” I would do it.

So the question for us is this - when does a sacrifice become a duty?

Duty and Servant Leadership. Most of us are very lucky because we don’t really need to make difficult sacrifices like the ones I’ve mentioned, let alone sacrifices for groups of people we hardly know. Most of the sacrifices we have to make are “time sacrifices” and sometimes we can be pretty selfish about those. How often do we look at “time sacrifices” for the benefit of others as our duty?

If you are a leader of a business, organization, or team and you feel a sense of duty to the success and well-being of your teammates, then you may be a “servant leader.” Servant leaders look at themselves first as servants, then as leaders. According to Robert Greenleaf, the inspiration behind Servant Leadership, servant leaders exhibit four, distinct behaviors.

Servant leaders…

1. Put service before self-interest
2. Listen first to affirm others
3. Inspire trust by being trustworthy
4. Nourish others and help them become whole

It is important to remember that these behaviors have to be genuine for you to be a true servant leader and your team members will be the judges. As you reflect on the sacrifices of Ms. Suu Kyi and others remember this - servant leaders don’t view their support of team members as a “time sacrifice”, they view it as their duty.

I’ll bet you never thought you might be lying to your team members or subordinates every day? This may be really startling if honesty is your first core value, as it is mine. Being a loyal Boy Scout I know the first law is “a Scout is trustworthy.” As a Rotarian I know the 4-way test by heart and especially the first one, “Is it the Truth?” So I am quite dismayed that I might be lying every day.

I have been reading a great deal this week about self-deception and read a quote by Patrick Lencioni that got me thinking. He writes in his book The Advantage, “When you tell yourself you’re bad at holding people accountable because you don’t like hurting their feelings, you’re lying.”

Why is this lying? Because we are likely deceiving ourself into thinking that our reluctance to hold someone accountable is based on our desire to be kind to them. What we aren’t admitting to ourself is that “I” don’t want to feel bad delivering the information. It makes me uncomfortable. It causes me stress. So we justify not holding people accountable because of our false perception that we are being kind to the other person. Lencioni goes on to write, “Failing to hold someone accountable is ultimately an act of selfishness.” He points out that when we don’t offer feedback and information that could help someone develop because we want to reduce our own stress, we are displaying poor leadership.

How to Create Better Accountability Habits. I think making a habit of holding yourself accountable first will help you hold others accountable. Since I started thinking about this a few days ago, three small situations have occurred where I needed to hold others accountable – three situations that I would have let pass before. One involved missing a deadline, another involved not following very clear instructions, and a third involved poor written communication in an e-mail. All three people are very good people, who work hard, and mean well. But all three deserve to know how they can improve their performance; I owe that to them. The more I hold myself accountable to do this, the more I create better accountability habits. Of course when we do this, we need to think about how we communicate and the best technique for the circumstance at hand.

How to Invite Feedback on a Delicate Issue. One of the most difficult things a leader needs to do is give someone feedback on a delicate issue. Of course we hesitate to do this because we don’t want to hurt their feelings, and, now we know, we ourselves don’t want to feel uncomfortable. One of the best techniques I have heard of comes from a colleague of mine, David Dwyer, who uses a very creative approach. When he becomes aware of a personal issue that he thinks someone needs to work on he asks the person, “if you had a piece of spinach caught in your teeth, would you want me to say something to you?” He tells me everyone says “yes” and is then ready psychologically for feedback - they have “invited” him into their personal space.

An example David shared with me was when we had a very professional manager working for us who often ended her sentences with “…and stuff.” Quite often this happened once or twice in one paragraph. She was a very nice person, someone whose feelings you wouldn’t want to hurt. David opened the conversation with the “spinach” question and then made her aware of her habit, which she hadn’t noticed she was doing. She stopped it immediately, which greatly improved her communication. She was grateful to David for the feedback. By holding himself accountable to have this delicate conversation, David helped a valued manager improve.

A Positive Side Effect. If one of your organizations' values or principles is honesty or truthfulness - when you hold someone accountable - you strengthen that principle. When everyone gets feedback and are held accountable, people begin to feel the truthfulness of the culture. Sure, sometimes when we’re held accountable it’s uncomfortable, but not dishonest – just the opposite. I think this is a real positive side effect.

As you think about Lencioni’s advice, I encourage you to think about how you can improve your own accountability habits. Because if you don’t, you won’t just be lying to your people, you’ll be lying to yourself.

We’ve all heard the expression “put your John Hancock on it.” Most of us know this comes from the very distinctive, first signature we see on the actual Declaration of Independence.

This week we’ll be celebrating Independence Day, that fourth day of July in 1776 when John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration with a very large, distinctive signature. The actual original document only had his signature and that of Charles Thomson. Myth has it that he signed it in a large way because he didn’t want the king "to have to put on his spectacles to see it.”

Putting Your Name on It. Many businesses have programs where team members sign or mark their work. We see it often with product manufacturers. Steve Jobs insisted on many teams signing or marking the insides of Apple products because he wanted to inspire his people to make excellent products and take personal responsibility for their work.

Often when I buy clothes, I take a slip of paper out of a pocket that tells me either who made or inspected the piece. I remember an episode of Monk when Monk, a detective character with OCD (Obsessive-compulsive disorder), would only buy a shirt made by a person with a certain number on the slip he retrieved from the pocket. He searched stores for his favorite brand and his favorite “number” and visualized in his mind what the person looked like. Yes, of course, a mystery developed that forced him to find the person.

Most of us don’t make products, but we do produce tangible items - voice mail, e-mail, Facebook posts, Tweets, and text messaging, to name a few. Every time we produce these items we are making our mark, we are putting our “John Hancock” on them. We should ask ourselves, “if a wider audience heard or saw this work, would I be proud of it and stand behind my work?”

Taking Personal Responsibility. Some products are fairly simple to mark. But what about more intangible actions, which account for most of our efforts? I think we put our “John Hancock” on intangible efforts when we take personal responsibility. I sometimes imagine there is a visual tag on my intangible work with my name on it. This helps remind me how important it is to do excellent work, even when it isn’t visible.

There are many intangible actions performed by leaders. Some important ones include:

1. Connecting all of your team’s activity to satisfying the needs of your customers;
2. Selecting the right people for your team;
3. Clarifying personal objectives and showing people how their objectives connect to your organization’s mission;
4. Inspiring team members to do their best; and
5. Consistently using your core values to guide your behavior.

As you celebrate the 4th of July this week remember how proud John Hancock was to put his signature on the Declaration of Independence and how ready he was to stand behind it. Then make your own declaration to pridefully put your “John Hancock” on all your work.