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if we see any improper activities, we will take decisive action.”20 Boeing sent the message that employee behavior does not answer to a set of rules, but to a much more powerful standard: repute. In a stroke, Boeing employees understood that part of their job involved bringing the company positive repute, and that integrity was so central to what Boeing is that it could cost even the highest executives their jobs. By celebrating a value rather than instituting a rule, Boeing gains much tighter alignment with its workforce. Every employee must internalize this value, wrestle with it on an ongoing and individual basis—deep in the Valley of C—and thereby develop a much more active relationship to the company’s desires and a tighter alignment with its goals. The value, while seemingly less direct than a rule, achieves a greater result.

Even within a lower-skilled, service-oriented workforce like fast-food giant McDonald’s, values provide a means of tighter integration with company goals. “The whole experience at McDonald’s boils down to the moment of truth at the front counter or drive-through, that 30 seconds of interaction,” CEO Jim Skinner told me when we met at the company’s Oak Brook, Illinois, headquarters. Skinner built his career on knowing that moment. He began his career with McDonald’s in 1971 as a restaurant manager trainee in Carpentersville, Illinois. “The development of that relationship between our people and the customer is probably the hardest thing that we do. With hundreds of thousands of employees serving more than 50 million customers a day across 119 countries, common values are essential. They are efficient. They form the link among all our moving parts, allowing everyone who serves the McDonald’s brand to understand what it means to be successful at that moment of truth with a customer.”21

FROM CAN TO SHOULD

Can versus can’t thinking substitutes for genuine time spent considering the HOWs of a given situation (HOW can I best delight my client? HOW can I bring the company greater repute? HOW can I make this meeting more successful?) and fosters a passive relationship to interaction with others (WHAT does the manual say to do? WHAT is my job description? WHAT is on the agenda?). In this mode of thought, you believe you can do what you want as long as you comply with the contract or the code. When you think in the language of values, however, you must actively engage each situation. Values propel action toward others. This creates an energy focused on HOW you do WHAT you do, and that energy becomes a propeller, driving a Wave of action toward others. In an information economy, where more power lies in the network than in the individual, outwardly focused energy makes sense as a propeller of success.

From can to should. From rules to values. These fundamental shifts in language exert a profound effect on the way you think, orient your energies, make decisions, and, therefore, achieve. New language may seem awkward at first, like learning to communicate in something other than your native tongue. But people who learn a second language often develop better grammar than native speakers, because they do so as a conscious act of will. Understanding the interplay of rules and values, and freeing yourself from the tyranny of can versus can’t are essential steps toward mastering the grammar of the new world of HOW.

CHAPTER 6

Keeping Your Head in the Game

The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world

is to be in reality what we would appear to be.

—Socrates

The Open Championship, held each summer in Britain, is the oldest and perhaps most prestigious title in professional golf. In 2005, the tournament was held at the birthplace of golf, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews in Scotland. Former Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) champion David Toms, with one win and six top-10 finishes so far that season, was among a handful of players with a great chance to win. Then something unusual happened.

On the morning of the second round, Toms walked into the officials