knew where he was yet they did not give him up even though they were obviously very poor people who could have used some money . The billion dollar question here is , ‘ why did they not talk ?’ It is also important to know why people were willing to blow up themselves in the pursuant of the leaders ’ vision . Anyone who can get people to kill themselves can surely get people to do anything . Before providing answers to these questions , let us consider another case study here-under .
The Underwear Bomber
Umaru Mutallab had served in government at cabinet level positions since the seventies . Mutallab was described by The New York Times as " among Nigeria ' s richest and most prominent men ", by The Telegraph as being " one of Nigeria ' s most prominent bankers ", and by The Guardian as being " one of the country ' s most respected businessmen ". He had also served on the boards of some of the most prominent companies ’ and parastatals in Nigeria . His son Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had the best education ever . He schooled at the British International School in Lome Togo where a sizable number of the Nigerian elite send their children . He was also enrolled as a student studying mechanical engineering at the prestigious University College London . The UCL engineering
The mindsets and belief systems of people is what determines how they behave and that belief system is shaped by their environment . That environment that shapes beliefs is what is called culture . Strategy lays out what you want to accomplish as an organization but culture creates a conducive atmosphere for what you want to achieve . department has described him as a " wellmannered , quietly spoken , polite and able young man ", who " never gave his tutors any cause for concern ". As far as money was concerned , he lacked nothing !
Yet on Christmas day 2009 he tried to blow up a plane flying from Amsterdam to Detroit with 289 people on board . Abdulmutallab was convicted in a US federal court of eight federal criminal counts , including attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted murder of 289 people . On February 16 , 2012 , he was sentenced to 4 life terms plus 50 years without parole .
The Power Of A Cause
What was driving Abdulmutallab ? It certainly was not money ! We submit that what was driving him was the very same thing that shut the mouths of the people that knew the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden and who did not betray him in spite of a twenty five million dollar reward . There was a cause that was greater than money . They were not driven by financial rewards . They were driven by a strong cause which they believed in .
Monetary motivation pales in comparison with cause motivation . When you are motivated by a cause there is nothing you cannot do for that cause . There is the story of a company that was going through a financial crisis and rather than walk away and let it go down , members of staff decided to do the unthinkable . They began a fund raising drive to save the company . People refinanced their homes and got personal loans to save their beloved company . No level of motivational speaking could deliver such a result . They had to be driven by something totally different . They were driven by a cause .
The Heart Of Culture
The greatest companies on earth are driven by a mission - a cause and ultimately they make a lot of money but the key driving force was their cause . This should not be confused with the mission statement on the walls which most of the people in the company do not know anyway . Companies with a strong driving cause that gives its people a sense of purpose will always out do companies that just set out to make more money .
The irony is that having a strong well defined cause will give you a more dedicated and purpose driven team . Being purpose driven means that they are driven from within and as a result , the company does better . Why is this so ? Because at the very heart of a strong culture is ownership . Getting people behind a cause is the most effective way to build ownership and a strong culture .
In the book , Great By Choice by Jim Collins , some of the greatest organizations in the world were studied and it was discovered that the top performing companies were driven by a very strong cause . Their leaders were ambitious alright but for a purpose beyond themselves . Their ambition was first and foremost for the cause , for the company , for the work and not for themselves .
The Role Of Values In Shaping Culture
Most organizations have literally the same values of integrity , professionalism , teamwork etc . These values are mainly on the wall of the organization . However with a closer interaction with the organization it is often discovered that the employees are not living the values . Sometimes , they do not even know the values . This is due to the fact that for values to mean something , they must move from the wall to the hearts of the team .
For this to happen , there must be unity in the definition . Without a unified definition for each of the values , each person will give it their own interpretation . Ambiguity in definition is dangerous because it means everyone will be doing what they think is right in their own eyes . In such an environment , a solid team will not be built and neither will a strong culture .
The definition of the values in the organization must be localized . In essence we are not talking of the dictionary definition of words . We are talking of definitions that the leadership of the organization have unanimously agreed upon to be the values that will drive the organization forward .
The process of defining the values should be collective and everyone must feel that they contributed to it . Remember what we said
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