Returning to "WHY?"

“All organizations start with WHY, but only the great ones keep their WHY clear year after year.” – Simon Sinek

The quote above from the great (in my opinion at least) Simon Sinek brings to light a very important aspect about what makes some companies great:  in short, they retain their reason for existing over time.  Zoeller Company’s CEO, John Zoeller, once asked a group of his leaders why they thought the company does what it does.  While some good answers were brought up, he summed them up with few words.  John said the reason that Zoeller Company does what it does for the last 80 years is simple: it’s to improve people’s lives.  He furthered this by explaining that whether we’re talking about customers, suppliers, or employees, Zoeller Company’s goal is to make their lives better.

Over a year later, he asked me during a one on one why I do what I do.  While the question caught me by surprise, I took a little while to think about it.  I didn’t do this because I was trying to formulate what I thought he wanted to hear; after all, it would have been easy to regurgitate the reason he shared with us.  Instead, I was reflecting on the real reason (the root cause) of why.  While I could have easily said things like supporting my family, impacting the community, and many other similar reasons which all are part of the reason, the real reason for me is that I want to serve.  Before you think “oh no, here we go again with these buzzwords that everyone is throwing around without any real substance to them,” let me qualify my response a bit. 

If you were to lookup the definition of “serve,” you’d find many (everything from tennis jargon to the actions of wait staff).  But in this case, I think the definition that fits best is:

serve: to be of use in achieving or satisfying.

When I think about why I do what I do, I love to be of use to others to help them achieve their goals or to satisfy their needs.  Regardless of whether we are peers, I am their boss, they are my boss, or we’re just acquaintances, I want to do my best to help them achieve their goals.  I sometimes have to ask myself if what I’m doing is in line with my “why” and change course if it is not.  Also, my “why” is not the only thing that I do, but it is the reason behind the things that I do.  What I mean is, I cannot only serve others as it would consume every waking moment and I would not achieve my own goals.  When reflecting on my previous role with a different company, what really ended up making me want to leave was that I’d lost my “why” and could not support it in the role I was in.

I am, of course, not perfect in focusing on my “why” (or anything for that matter.)  But the key, in my opinion, is to keep trying.  Find your “why” and do things that support it. 

So, my question to you is “What is your personal why?” and I challenge you to do things that support it.