What Matters Most at Work

An eClinical Industry Giant

The cofounder of a company I worked at for 15 years and have known for 23 years, died unexpectedly last month. My friend and colleague, Steve Raymond, was an inventor and a scientist, someone you could talk to about absolutely any topic that came to your mind and he would tell you something unexpected about it. He interviewed me when I was 25 and a recent graduate very full of dot.com heyday wisdom and he asked me a million rapid fire questions. I thought he seemed a bit like a benign mad scientist, I was not sure I liked him. That changed after I joined when we became fast friends after working and traveling across the world together to win a complex book of business for a new product I managed. He was extremely opinionated and unpredictable on occasion, focusing at times on what I perceived as exactly the wrong things with clients, we argued about many topics and approaches related to building the business and priorities but always parted amicably. He attended my wedding, we went skiing together, he met each of my children when they were brand new, we traveled to Paris, South Africa, Geneva and all over the US together for client meetings swapping many stories and revealing different parts ourselves during these travels.

Steve liked sharing, and I loved listening to the stories of his childhood. He came from an illustrious and accomplished “original” California family. He grew up in Southern California in the late 40s and 50s, the oldest of three boys. His father was an engineer, aviation enthusiast and leader at Hughes Aircraft Company whose family had owned the famous Raymond Hotel in Pasadena. His mother was part of the Hale family which had a rich history of scientific discovery and leadership including the development of the Hale telescope. I met Steve when he was 57 and I was 25 and yet he had equal enthusiasm for my stories about navigating the mid-to late 20s and then 30s life in Boston including career growth, marriage, graduate school, and then parenthood all of which he had experienced differently.

Steve was a formal person by my twenty something standards. He always dressed in a jacket and tie no matter the weather or the day. He arrived at 6:30AM and left at 6:30PM every day, he always wore a jacket on an airplane regardless of timing or destination, even the red eye, as he considered this the only appropriate attire for travel. He disliked the excessive use of pronouns without their referring noun, “who are the they” or “what is it” he would ask, with a slight air of dismay. He had studied neurophysiology at Stanford as an undergraduate and then studied neuroscience at MIT and worked in a lab doing cutting-edge science to understand the nature of consciousness with some of the leading neuroscientists in the world at the time, a salon-type environment where brilliant minds gathered to generate, explore and debate new ideas together. He cultivated a type of salon environment at PHT Corporation – his office was often occupied by employees from across functions who would find their way to him by a shared business interest that would grow into a deeper and more philosophical conversation. “All roads lead to Steve” we would say as no matter what the topic he would find a common thread with those who met him – employees, partners and clients alike. He had a way of indoctrinating people to his ideas and perspectives. He never assumed anyone was not interested in solving the big problems in life and would often say his recipe for a happy life was “something to do and someone to love,” and that a root cause for most troubles was not having both of those areas in life covered.

Purpose Driven Work vs. Working With People that Give you Purpose

I loved working with Steve, having him as a friend and a mentor but I never told him this other than signing my holiday cards, after a few words of greeting and updates with, “love to you all from all of us” I’d scribble and even pause on this considering if it was the right word choice. Growing up in the 80s and beginning my career in the late 90s, I had impressions that “love” was not something that was acceptable to discuss, acknowledge or embrace at work. As a woman especially, you should keep your emotions in check, always, if you want to be respected professionally was a message reiterated constantly across all forms of media and in education. The fear of “crossing the invisible line” or signaling any type of openness to inappropriate romantic relationships is a root cause of this idea and that is not the type of love to which I’m referring. The concept that people go to work to work, not to have friends but to do a job and act in ways more like a robot than a person is still the reigning philosophy of work. You have family and “non work friends” for emotional support, don’t try to make colleagues into friends or reveal too much about yourself. These ideas stem from the industrial revolution when the assembly line approach was implemented for high volume and repeatable work leaving little room for both creativity and emotion being brought to the job. We need to change our ideas and expectations about finding and embracing collegial love with our colleagues. If you have been at your workplace for years and don’t genuinely love at least a few of your colleagues, you are not in the right place or on the right team, you can do better.

In the US, full-time employees spend most of their waking hours on work, an estimated 90,000 hours in a lifetime, not with families and friends, but with colleagues.  There is an increasing blurring of lines on all fronts with pandemic fueled remote work. We work from home, we have children, we have pets, we have parents, we have laundry, and they all show up more often with remote work because they are in the background. In an office setting, we do not bring our entourage with us physically, but they are on our minds impacting the work we do and the attention we give to our projects and our colleagues. The ability to reveal more aspects of our lives to colleagues and be more authentically ourselves at work is a positive result of the pandemic and of remote work that will have a lasting impact on our culture and expectations from work and careers.

There is a body of literature about the tremendous value a purpose-driven culture brings to the economic value of a business.  Throughout my now 22+ year career, I see people most motivated to do great work not for the success of the company however purposeful its mission, but by the desire to support and not disappoint their colleagues with whom they have built genuine and meaningful connections with. The two put together are a powerful combination.

Changing the Recipe & Ingredients at Work

At eClinical Solutions, the culture is built around the genuine affection and respect the three cofounders, Raj Indupuri Bob Arnesen and Bharat Agrawal had for one another. The company was founded with the goal of solving important new problems for the clinical development industry and for long-time professional colleagues and friends to have the chance to build something together. The underlying connection and bond of friendship among eClinical leaders Martin Roche, Katrina Rice and Sam Anwar was a key reason I joined the company because the energy of people doing work they enjoy together is contagious. Conventional wisdom suggests one should not work with friends because it can damage or complicate work relationships, however many founding stories – Apple, Ben & Jerry’s Microsoft, Google, Medidata… started with friends figuring out how they can start something interesting together, the result has proven to be a winning formula across industries.

As humans, we consider love the most powerful, noble and highest-level emotion that we can experience, and we are underselling ourselves if we can’t find a way to bring it to work more often. Not everyone truly loves what they do, hopefully most of us like it and it brings us satisfaction, financial security, the ability to fulfill our responsibilities to our families and in and of itself brings purpose to our days. Everyone deserves to work with people they genuinely enjoy and love and that make us better not only in our work but as people. Why would we choose to spend our precious 90,000 hours with people we don’t consider worthy of our best emotions?

Choose Friends AND Work Wisely

It’s unlikely we will love most of the people we work with but there should be a few in the mix that bring out our best selves. In some cases, it may take years to build collegial love and trust with colleagues built on shared experiences and solving difficult problem and sometimes it’s an instant connection that sparks a life-long friendship. These relationships matter and are one of the primary ingredients that transforms work into a higher purpose. It was not just me that loved Steve, he had the same impact on dozens of others and his legacy of leadership, friendship and innovation throughout the clinical technology industry is far reaching and long-lasting. Steve got it right and not just for personal life but for professional life as well. “Something to do and someone to love at work” is a tried recipe for a meaningful and successful career worth cherishing and working for.