SACHIN JAIN

McClelland’s Need Theory:

McClelland’s Need Theory States that people are either motivated by need for achievement
, power or affiliation . A large part of what motivates a person depends on the culture and
environment he has been brought up in . Thus our analysis of Sachin’s career decision shows
the following

Case Fact (Sachin Jain):

Sachin Jain comes from a Indian family that moved to America and yet kept its ties with its
extended family in India, showing us that maintaining ties was something Sachin had
internalised growing up .

HE was constantly motivated by his brothers as a child . while his eldest brother influenced
him into building computers as a child , his middle brother constantly pushed him to
performing better as an athlete. Further Sachin did his early schooling in a very small
elementary school where everyone knew every one , making it important to him that he be
known to others . Thus we see that Sachin also internalised setting goal and achieving them
and that he enjoyed being known to others .The fact that both his brothers graduated from
an Ivey League college would have further influenced him into adopting the idea of setting
and achieving goals as a way of life

Thus linking with McClelland’s theory needs we can conclude that Sachin was largely
motivated by Need for achievement and Need for affiliation. This is further evidenced by
the below extracts from the case

Need for affiliation

i) I forced myself to learn hindi t be able to communicate with my relatives . As I

became older I’m becoming increasingly aware of how much being an Indian
American contributes to my identity
ii) “I fundamentally define myself as a people person and got lonely sitting in an
office writing by myself”
iii) “ The three of us spent a lot of time dreaming about ways to transform
healthcare delivery”

Need for achievement:

i) “The unexpected thing about Harvard medical school is that it is strangely non-
competitive “
ii) One thing that HBS taught me was that it’s important to set goals “
While it may be the case that Sachin had a need for achievement shown by how he
constantly pushed himself to new goals in career and how he found ways to do what he
loved in Harvard medical school by building a website for health care policy when he
realized the college did not give much importance to the same , His wide range of
experience and learning from successful people has made him realize that one must not be
bogged down by one particular idea of success . He had understood that success could be
achieved in many ways.
ERG Theory:

Alderfer’s ERG Theory states that for one to be motivated have satisfaction at work three
needs need to be satisfied: Existence Needs, Relatedness Needs, and Growth Needs.

Case Fact (Sachin Jain):

Existence Needs:
Sachin was from a well to do family and highly educated with a scholarship thus his basic
existence needs were satisfied
Relatedness Needs:
Sachin Made efforts to stay connected to his extended family and tied himself to the
identity of Indian American . He moved away from pure research as he figured out that he
was a peoples person and that he felt lonely sitting in office . Most importantly he made a
very important career decision by choosing to opt out of the Oxford program and choosing
to go to the Med school as his girl friend lived in Boston , the same place as his Med school
. This show hoe important Relatedness need was for Sachin.
Growth Needs:
Sachin had very strong growth needs . when he realized that his med school was not giving
much importance to health care policy, it effected him as he questioned the
meaningfulness of his efforts in doing the program . He addressed this by collaborating
with his class mate to get the commonwealth funding for creating website that intended to
improve the healthcare policy literacy of the medical students . This shows his need for
growth was high

Goal Setting Theory:

Goal-setting theory refers to the effects of setting goals on subsequent performance.
Researcher Edwin Locke found that individuals who set specific, difficult goals performed
better than those who set general, easy goals. Locke proposed five basic principles of goal-
setting: clarity, challenge, commitment, feedback, and task complexity.
Case Fact (Sachin Jain):

Clarity of goals:
Sachin had discovered early on , what his interest were. This is evidenced by how he spent
all his project time as a government major at Harvard , in doing projects with a public policy
bend . This shows that he had clarity of what he wanted to do very early on in his career.

Challenge:
Sachin was consistently selected for the top schools in medicine and business domains. He
set himself high targets that he could achieve , but over the years learnt that there were
many ways to achieve success and let a plethora of options for his future

Commitment:
Sachin followed his love for public policy , especially healthcare public policy right from his
time as a government major to making the decision to go to med school to finally doing an
MBA and working with Michael Porter in the health care domain in his second year of MBA.

Feedback:

Sachin constantly reached out to prominent names for help and feedback throughout his
career so far . For example while he was making his decision about opting his degree
program he consulted NYU medical school’s associate dean to choose the school that better
aligned with his goals . He also received feedback from Don after his internship and it was
Don who prompted him to go to Med school . Thus we see feedbacks were an important
part of shaping his career.