Dov Seidman 
How 
Why How We Do Anything Means Everything, Expanded Edition

The flood of information, unprecedented transparency, increasing
interconnectedness-and our global interdenot pendence-are
dramatically reshaping today’s world, the world of business, and
our lives. We are in the Era of Behavior and the rules of the game
have fundamentally changed. It is no longer what you do that
matters most and sets you apart from others, but how you do what
you do. Whats are commodities, easily duplicated or
reverse-engineered. Sustainable advantage and enduring success for
organizations and the people who work for them now lie in the realm
of how, the new frontier of conduct.

For almost two decades, Dov Seidman’s pioneering
organinot zation, LRN, has helped some of the world’s most
respected companies build ‘do it right, ‘ winning cultures and
inspire principled performance throughout their organizations.
Seidman’s distinct vision of the world, business, and human
endeavor has helped enable more than 15 million people donot ing
business in more than 120 countries to outbehave the competition.
In HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything, Dov Seidman
shares his unique approach with you. Now updated and expanded,
HOW includes a new Forenot word from President Bill
Clinton and a new Preface from Dov Seidman on why how we behave,
lead, govern, operate, consume, engender trust in our
relationships, and relate to others matters more than ever and in
ways it never has before.

Through entertaining anecdotes, surprising case studies,
cutting-edge research in a wide range of fields, and
revealnot ing interviews with a diverse group of leaders,
business executives, experts, and everyday people on the front
lines, this book explores how we think, how we behave, how we lead,
and how we govern our institutions and ourselves to uncover the
values-inspired ‘hows’ of twenty-first-century success and
significance.

Divided into four comprehensive parts, this insightful book:

* Exposes the forces and factors that have fundamentally
restructured the world in which organizations operate and their
people conduct themselves, placing a new focus on their hows

* Provides frameworks to help you understand those hows and
implement them in powerful and productive ways

* Helps you channel your actions and decisions in order to thrive
uniquely within today’s new realities

* Sheds light on the systems of how-the dynamics between people
that shape organizational culture-andintroduces a bold new vision
for leading and winning through self-governance

The qualities that many once thought of as ‘soft’-values, trust,
and reputation-are now the hard currency of success and the
ultimate drivers of efficiency, performance, innovanot tion, and
growth.

With in-depth insights and practical advice, HOW will
help you bring excellence and significance to your business
endeavors- and your life-and refocus your efforts in powerful new
ways.

If you want to stand out, to thrive in our fast changing,
hypernot connected, and hypertransparent world, read this book
and discover HOW.

Table of Content

Foreword xi

Preface xiii

Prologue: Making Waves 1

Part I: How We Have Been, How We Have Changed 13

Introduction: The Spaces between Us

CHAPTER 1: From Land to Information 17

Lines of Communication.

Getting Flattened.

CHAPTER 2: Technology’s Trespass 25

The Ties That Bind Us.

Distance Unites Us.

Can You Hear Me.

Now?

The Age of Transparency.

The Persistence of Memory.

The Information Jinni Is Out of the Lamp.

CHAPTER 3: The Journey to HOW 41

Just Do It.

The Certainty Gap.

The Limitations of Rules.

Outbehaving the Competition.

How We Go Forward.

Part II: How We Think 57

Introduction: The Paradox of Journey.

CHAPTER 4: Playing to Your Strengths 63

Help.

You Can Judge a Book by Its Cover.

Looking Out for Number Two.

The Evolution of What Is Valuable.

Believe It.

CHAPTER 5: From Can to Should 81

Rules as Proxies.

Dancing with Rules.

On the Tip of Your Tongue.

Unlocking Should.

Risk and Reward.

CHAPTER 6: Keeping Your Head in the Game 103

Distraction.

Small Lapses, Large Costs.

Dissonance.

Doing Consonance.

Friction.

Putting It in the Whole.

Part III: How We Behave 125

Introduction: How We Do What We Do.

CHAPTER 7: Doing Transparency 129

Beyond Proxies and Surrogates.

ICU, UC Me.

The Market Defines You.

Say You Are Sorry.

Interpersonal Transparency.

Sig, Don’t Zag.

CHAPTER 8: Trust 157

The Soft Made Hard.

How High Is the Ceiling?

Going on a TRIP.

Tripping.

Doing Trust.

Trust Is the Drug.

Trust, but Verify.

CHAPTER 9: Reputation, Reputation, Reputation 181

Reputation in a Wired World.

Reputational Capital.

Mismanaging Reputation Management.

A Second Chance.

Part IV: How We Govern 209

Introduction: Innovating in HOW.

CHAPTER 10: Doing Culture 215

The Sum of All HOWs.

The Spectrum of Culture.

The Four Types of Culture.

Five HOWs of Culture.

CHAPTER 11: The Case for Self-Governing Cultures 241

Self-Governance on the Shop Floor.

Freedom Is Just Another Word.

Taking Culture for a Test-Drive.

Closing Gaps.

Values in Action.

A Journey to Culture.

Why Self-Governance Is the Future of Business.

CHAPTER 12: The Leadership Framework 267

Leadership.

Walking the Talk.

The First Five HOWs of Leadership.

Circles in Circles (A Thought).

The Leadership Framework, Continued.

Afterword 299

HOWs Matter 305

Acknowledgments 307

Notes 315

Selected Bibliography 331

Index 337

About the author

Dov Seidman’s professional career has focused on how companies and their people can operate in both a principled and profitable way. He is the founder and CEO of LRN. Since 1994, LRN has helped hundreds of companies simultaneously navigate complex legal and regulatory environments and foster ethical cultures. In 2008, LRN acquired environmental innovation firm Green Order. Today, LRN operates globally and reaches, works with, and helps shape winning organizational cultures inspired by sustainable values in hundreds of companies with over 20 million people working in more than 100 countries around the world. Fortune magazine called Dov the ‘hottest advisor on the corporate virtue circuit’ and he was also named one of the ‘Top 60 Global Thinkers of the Last Decade’ by the Economic Times. Dov became the exclusive corporate sponsor of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity Prize in Ethics in 2008. He is a Harvard Law School graduate who also earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in moral philosophy from UCLA and a BA with honors in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University.