Finding The "Why"

This week while I was interviewing my colleague Carie Keller, Marketing Director at Thermo Fisher Scientific, learning about her story and background for an upcoming career advancement panel, she talked about her Why, which is helping the Customer. That got me thinking: What's my Why? Do I even have a Why? After the meeting, I spent the rest of my day thinking what's that one thing that drives me. And after a few hours of self reflection, couple of cups of coffee and some Hindi music, I finally figured my Why. And even more importantly, why should everyone know their Why.

Finding your Why will clarify your next step. Here’s my Why and some tools for finding yours. Enjoy!

Let's begin with understanding what is this Why. Paraphrasing what Carie said: "Your Why is what defines all your actions. Your job(s), your career, your life. Everything revolves around the Why. Your Why is what wakes you up every day". As I was thinking more and more about this question, "What's my Why?", I found its connection with a tool that I had been using during the pandemic - Ikigai. Ikigai is a Japanese word that translates as reason for being, reason to get up in the morning, a 'raison d'être' as the French would say. Ikigai talks about finding that "Zen" space in the intersection of your passion, interests, needs and profession. Even though I had been filling the various circles on my Ikigai drawing board, I still hadn't figured that dark green slot in the middle - The Ikigai. And this question was going to help me figure that out - What's my Ikigai? What's my Why?

As I asked myself "What's my Why", I traveled back thirty years ago when I was a kid. I was that kid who always had questions about everything around him. Why can I not become Superman? Why do I have to drink milk? Why can I not eat fries all the time? Of course, as I grew up, my questions evolved. But I was always curious, always inquisitive, always questioning. I asked for logic behind everything I was told to do, and as most parents do, I was told "this is how it is".

While I was in high school, as I started reading more about businesses and different companies and products, I started learning that a lot of them don't succeed because don't have or don't pay attention to facts and data. It sparked my interest, as this "data" seemed to have answers about everything. So, in my undergrad, I started my quest of demystifying this "data". I started developing strong foundational concepts in different kind of data sets, databases, warehouses, data marts, data mining etc. By the time I finished my Masters in Computer Science, I called myself a "Data Wizard". I was Neo of this Data Matrix.

My first job was in a big multi-national technology company. I was hired as a Software Engineer intern, along with about 100 other recent graduates from a campus hiring drive. After a month of training and onboarding sessions, I found out that each of us would be assigned to different teams, one of which was the business intelligence team. After inquiring about all the other teams, I figured I would get bored to death, and the only team where I belonged was the business intelligence team. So, gathering courage, two days before the teams were going to be announced, I walked into the business unit head's door and said - "I want to join the business intelligence team". He looked at me and asked - "Why should I make you part of that team?" My reply was swift - "Why would you not assign someone like me to that team who really wants to learn and build his data skills?". He went quiet and asked me to leave. Two days later, the teams were announced. I was relieved to find out that I had been assigned to that team.

After three years in that company, I started questioning the business and team practices, and I was told - "This is how big companies operate". So then my next question was "Why do big companies work like this? Do all big companies work like this? Did they have the same issues and challenges when they were small?". With those questions, I found my next step. I joined a small company with the head count of 30+. While working there, as I was getting exposed to different areas of the business, I realized I had a general sense of business, but I lacked formal training that would make me lethal and effective. I decided to take a break from working and focus on preparing for GMAT and applying to business schools. After wrapping up that project, and having received my admission letter, I was staring at a 12-month wait period before I would start business school. While I was figuring my next step, I got a phone call from my college friend. He was a young entrepreneur, who was building website and mobile apps, selling e-Commerce solutions to other companies.

I accepted his offer of joining as his business and product consultant. Together, we worked on multiple client pitches for our solutions. As we went from one pitch to another, I would ask him - "Why did you quote this price to the customer?". I never got a satisfactory answer. I asked the same question to my dad and uncles, who ran their own businesses, and I got the same response - "Good question". And so, in business school, I decided to pursue a concentration in Strategy and Pricing, with the intent of finding answer to the question "Why is Pricing so hard for everyone?"

As I developed my knowledge in Pricing, I started to feel I had my hands on the Tesseract of business world. For me, pricing was that magic key that had answers to the main problem for all businesses. After graduation, I landed a job at Thermo Fisher Scientific (where I currently work), one of the biggest names in biotechnology industry, as senior pricing analyst. I spent the next three years working on various pricing-based projects, helping different businesses with their customer and product pricing strategies. Working with commercial and marketing teams, I saw that while pricing was a major lever for the businesses, there were more factors at play when it came to sustaining and growing those businesses. I was already asking my next question - "Why is pricing not able to solve all the business problems?"

I am currently figuring my next step, where I can expand and continue building on my journey so far. And I am sure I will be asking many more Why's down the road. So, coming back to the question - "What's my Why?"

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Okay, enough suspense. My Why is Finding the Why. I look for the Why in everything. I operate on logic, facts, numbers, data... In order to solve problems and build strong and effective solutions, I need to know the Why. I do not accept other people's version of a problem or a given situation, until I have verified it with my own logic. It helps me in not only solving problems but also feel confident that I have developed the best possible solution given the information I have and I can find.

Yes, that's my Why. My Why's have helped me figure my each step, and hopefully one day will get me to my end goal. What’s the Why that will help you get to yours?