Surfacing our Wants & Needs

To solve for “Now What?!?”, we need to be healthy professionally, highly engaged, passionate and purposeful. When examining our condition at work, we find visible Actions & Behaviors are only symptoms of deeper issues manifested in our Emotions & Attitudes as well as our Wants & Needs.

Understanding our Wants & Needs requires richer reflection.

Wants are our desires, the benefits we expect work to deliver for the efforts we exert.  These motivations are the impetus driving us to compete, achieve and capture the rewards. Wants can be Extrinsic returns such as money, status and recognition or more personal Intrinsic rewards like professional growth, building something new or developing others. 

While wants and needs are used interchangeable in some contexts, with regard to our Professional Health, Needs are different from Wants.

Needs are deeply important questions we seek to answer through our work. "Who am I?" "Where do I stand?" and "Why am I working?" are questions of the heart and common to all of us. While Wants may be obvious, Needs can be unfamiliar territory, hiding below the surface or in some cases, undetected. Yet make no mistake, Needs are foundational, the core of who we are and what we will become.

Wants are entirely personal and change over time. New circumstances generate fresh motivations. What drove us up the ladder may not be the same as when we reach the top. Motivators during our single-in-the-city stage may vary from our family-in-the burbs period.

With experience, Implicit motivators can carry added weight. Acknowledging the impact of mentors, many seasoned leaders increasingly value relationships at work. Investing in less experienced colleagues can become an energizing dynamic in our career.

There is a competitive nature to Wants. Comparing ourselves to others is human nature. In achievement-oriented culture, surpassing our peers is a common ambition. We want a bigger bonus than colleagues on our desk or to be the first of our friends to take a company public. Egos are tough to control. I continue to measure myself against the accomplishments of my B-School classmates from years ago.

There are no judgments with Wants. 

I find leaders unwilling to disclose money or status as motivations for fear of being perceived as shallow. Problems arise when we are not sincere about our Wants. If our work motivations are material rather than noble or driven more out of envy than purpose, so be it. Candidly, the objective at the onset of my career was to get my picture on the cover of Fortune magazine (no dice!).  Our Professional Health will improve if we are working from true motivations rather than a politically correct fabrications.

Our Wants impact how we act and behave. Both Explicit and Implicit drivers undergird our feelings and points of view. As leaders, we try to avoid an “agenda” but it’s foolish to deny the influence of a quest for our bosses job or desire to leave our mark with a memorable innovation.  If our Wants clash with our morals, a deeper dive into Needs and Core Beliefs is warranted.

Take a moment to write down your primary motivators, both Extrinsic and Intrinsic. Be honest. 

Understanding our Wants & Needs will give us better insights on the derivation of our Emotions & Attitudes and the potential impact circumstances or interactions will have on our Actions & Behaviors. This knowledge leads to more robust wellness at work and paves the way to answers for “Now What?!?”