Everyone reading this has a career. We’ve all had a job or a series of jobs doing X for company Y. More likely than not, you’ve found some of those X’s and Y’s to be really great, inspiring experiences as well as the opposite. Those are all really informative experiences as you try to chart your future, which is an area I am passionate about.
I am a firm believer in the concept of a personal “WHY” for each of us to provide clarity in our path. This concept is 100% not mine: Read up on Simon Sinek and his book “Start with Why” and/or the companion book “Find your Why” for more there – it will be far more insightful than anything I can possibly share. If you are interested here is a link to his TED talk that introduces the concept in more detail.
Your individual WHY statement will be a reflection of a purpose that brings out your passion and inspires you. As you reflect on the roles you’ve held and the companies they entailed, you’ll think about what really made you want to give all you had at the time and what made the days seem like they’d never end. It could be tasks, projects, coworkers, or culture. With some thought, you’ll end up with a first draft of your WHY which you’ll like modify and reword over time, but the spirit will likely stay the same.
My personal WHY is to uncover or create possibilities so that others can imagine a different future. I have and will continue to tweak the wording, but this simple sentence has become a really clear guide in my career and life.
When it comes to the hands-on work that I do, I really enjoy building both tools and analysis that help people see a different future – the possibilities, the benefits, the costs, etc. When you boil it down, that is the process of building a budget – understanding what creating different future will mean and require. Same thing with modeling future states of business, finances, staffing, and so on or creating new processes and procedures. Even though predicting future outcomes means that Ill be consistently wrong, I really enjoy the process of creating the range of outcomes for people to understand and make more informed decisions on strategy and tactics.
As a leader, I take great pride in truly investing in developing the individuals on my team. It isn’t just “how are you improving at the job today?” but instead the conversations start with the broader “where do you want to go in your career and life?” and work backwards from there. I don’t force people to chose a path that fits me or my organization of the day, but instead try to open them up to the broader world of possibilities that their current (and potentially future) skills and passions would provide.
After coming to this realization, it makes each and every step in my career a little more clear. If a role that I’m either in or am considering has significant focus outside these areas, I think long and hard about the pros and cons before moving forward. Some roles have been nearly a perfect match for me where my hands on work and my leadership both allowed me to live my WHY, some have been a partial match, and some have been a complete departure from my WHY. In no small surprise, the roles that were a complete departure were also a complete disaster because ultimately they violate one of the key rules of hiring: match task and talent.
So is a WHY the secret to happiness and guarantee of fulfillment in your career? No. There are many factors that matter well beyond this: coworkers, company values, company purpose, compensation, and on and on. BUT, having a WHY that really does represent you as an individual will help guide you to roles that can be more fulfilling when all those other factors are right too…and will help you survive the roles when the environmental factors aren’t aligned as you may like.
View from the Middle 