About a month ago, I was in Scottsdale, Arizona for a business development conference. Our keynote speaker was from the sports world, Michael (Pinball) Clemons. Pinball, as he is known played football and was electrifying on the field as he amassed the most all purpose yards of any football player in any league over his career. Pinball upon retirement became a coach winning accolades and excelling even there.
Mr. Clemons moved to the front office some time ago. During his talk to us, he asked us the question that I asked to open this article. Initially, I thought I had lots of answers to the question but as he went on I realized that he was not referring to the "why" on a peripheral level but the "why" that was core to the question. In the end he shared with us his "why" and how his "why" defined the career decisions that he made. Pinball revealed to us that his basic core "why" was his family. This man did what he did for his family. Mr. Clemons also shared that he had made a conscious decision along the way to remind himself of this core "why" as he made career decisions. Michael revealed to us that he stepped away from certain roles and career decisions because they were counter to his core "why". When career decisions removed him further from his family he knew that they would not be his choice. It was interesting to hear of his making a conscious effort to keep this value at the forefront in his decision making process. It was interesting to hear how he would leave his cell phone off each day as he drove his children to school to make room for conversation, interesting to hear how he chose to change his career path to keep him closer to home.
As a father of six boys who runs his own business, this line of thinking really spoke to me. As a private practice Audiologist, why do I do what I do? What are the core values of my business decisions? I can relate to family being the reason that I do what I do. The unfortunate reality of private practice is that vacation time is difficult to schedule into the demands of the profession, yet family is core to the reason I work as I do. Hmmm...... An interesting correlate to having a strong value based motivation for doing what we do is that it tends to influence our businesses in a very positive way. When my patients walk into my office, they see walls covered in pictures of my family, they hear me relate to them personal experiences from family life pertinent to their visit. From this foundation, I have built a business that makes the values that are valuable core to the success of the practice. If my family is core, I am motivated to make integrity core to my dealings with others because after all, I represent more than myself. If what I do is because I love my family then I need to make compassion a core value in my interactions. You can see where I am going with this.
Preaching values has become a key component in the business world as of late especially in light of the basis of the economic crisis being born out of ruthless self interest and deceit in big business. We hear the terminology so often yet we fail to really consider what values really mean to us in the context of what we do and why we do it. It would probably be wise for all of us to question our core motivations on a regular and ongoing basis.
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