A few years back, American psychologist and author Adam Grant read a story in Fortune about Silicon Valley’s best-kept secret. He writes that it wasn’t a product or process or hardware or technology. It was about a person. His name was Bill Campbell — football coach turned leadership coach. Bill had coached and guided several leaders from Google to Intuit to Apple to several other companies. For many leaders, he had remained a shining light during their period of turmoil.

Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle have written a book “Trillion-Dollar Coach” based on what they’ve learnt from Bill Campbell. …

Bill Campbell, Former Chairman, Intuit, stressed building communities in the workplace. And he also coached leaders in achieving that.

The research also shows that communities were a critical factor in building a sustainable business.

DaVita’s CEO Kent J Thiry says, “Building a community is our organization’s first priority. The company comes second. Our employees spend more than 50% of waking hours as an adult in the workplace. The workplace has become central to the employee’s life mission. So, it is important that he could make emotional connections in his workplace. It impacts the work positively.”

The BIG QUESTION — Do Humans Need To Be Part Of A Community? — We are social animals, and our evolutionary history shows that surviving in the immense diversity of habitats depended on culturally transmitted knowledge, abilities, and skills. It means that to ensure the survival of our genes, our ancestors had to be part of a community, working together for the common good. So, by nature, we need to be part of a group. …

Bowerbirds, one of the amazing creatures on our planet, could be found across the forests and shrublands of Australia and New Guinea. They are famous for their unique courtship behavior, where males build an elaborate nest and decorate it with sticks and visually fascinating, brightly colored objects(rare to find things). The nests vary in different shapes and sizes. Some of the structures rise to nine feet off the ground.

The Bowerbird works hard in differentiating the nest from other nests by decorating it through painting and arranging the objects. These nests serve only one purpose — to attract females. …

In a day, millions of people spend several hours on Facebook. Many of them check their Social Networking website as soon as they wake up every morning. (Studies also show that millions of people check their Facebook multiple times a day.) They use the product on their own, again and again, without any coercive calls from the site. Facebooking has become a habit.

How did Facebook build such loyalty among its customers?

The research shows that several factors have contributed to the brand’s success. But one element stands out — Enticing users to invest their time and content.

It was one high impact factor for the site’s success. …

When we start a business or a new brand, it is essential to aim for a long-term payoff for all our efforts and investments — A sustainable ROI. One of the ways to achieve that is to strive for getting maximum value from each customer(higher Customer Lifetime Value(CLTV)) — It means the brand should look for developing loyal customers.

The first step in building a loyal customer base is to position your brand inside a consumer’s mind that is called Brand Positioning. It is called the consumer’s perception of a brand with respect to competing brands.

The ways to enter their mind…

The year 2004 — MySpace and Friendster were fighting against time to become a world’s dominant social network. Both the websites already had millions of members. Another website, Orkut, backed by Google, was making rapid inroads into the social networking sphere. These companies had money and people to conquer the world. At this time, a group of college students headed by a person named Zuckerberg launched a social networking site called Thefacebook from his dormitory room. It started as a college student’s passion project, and it went on to become one of the internet’s wild success stories. …

In 2008, three recent college graduates Chesky, Gebbia, and Blecharczyk, started a website called Airbed & Breakfast(which became Airbnb) to allow people to rent out part of their homes to travelers — An alternate for expensive hotels. The idea itself was not new, and the market already had similar websites — HomeAway.com, VRBO.com, Couchsurfing.com, BedandBreakfast.com, and Craiglist.

Though Airbnb was a late entrant, it began to climb up the ladder quickly. By 2016, within eight years, the valuation of Airbnb reached $30 billion whereas, HomeAway was at $4 billion. The new company had 140 million guest arrivals in that year. …

In 2008, three recent college graduates Chesky, Gebbia, and Blecharczyk, started a website called Airbed & Breakfast(which became Airbnb) to allow people to rent out part of their homes to travelers — An alternate for expensive hotels. The idea itself was not new, and the market already had similar websites — HomeAway.com, VRBO.com, Couchsurfing.com, BedandBreakfast.com, and Craiglist.

Though Airbnb was a late entrant, it began to climb up the ladder quickly. By 2016, within eight years, the valuation of Airbnb reached $30 billion whereas, HomeAway was at $4 billion. The new company had 140 million guest arrivals in that year. …