ACCOUNTABILITY IN YOUR CAREER CHOICES

It’s tough being a business of one, especially when staying true to your values. And making sure those bills get paid.

Man, childcare is expensive.

You’ve got to keep pushing things forward, staying motivated, all the while balancing bringing work in with getting it delivered and maintaining quality. And one of the biggest overarching problems is accountability.

When you don’t have a business partner or employees, let alone a board, who is it who keeps you on the straight and narrow?

Four years ago, I sold my stake in my social media agency and went solo, driven by a desire to move the world in the right direction, even if only by a millimetre or two.

I wanted to be clear about which projects I would and wouldn’t take on. So I wrote a list. No arms companies, gambling, oil and gas, junk food, tobacco, or fossil fuel vehicles.

My previous business partner and I hadn’t had this conversation until much later in our relationship, which I regretted. So it felt good to write a list.

But not every project falls neatly into ethical/not-ethical buckets. There’s a spectrum.

Could I work with an energy company in the process of transitioning away from fossil fuel? Could I help skill up the public sector workforce of an emerging economy with a questionable human rights record? Was fast-fashion OK if it clearly wasn’t a vanity project, and the team were genuinely invested in sustainability?

I was lucky in the sense that I now had decent savings and could say no when it mattered. However, when you’re early in your career, you may not be able to be so discerning – can you afford to turn down work?

But still, I needed to pay those nursery bills.

And I found myself wavering. I was missing something.

Appropriately, the person who gave me a solution was my accountant: he suggested getting an accountability partner.

I needed someone working on their own thing, in a similar predicament, who would be willing to set aside a half-hour each week.

Someone to present to, bounce ideas off, and keep me honest.

As my first partner, I found a nuclear fusion scientist a world far away from mine. Then later, a friend working on an Ed-Tech startup.

With the weekly cadence, I started to make more progress. Finally, I could talk through business problems, chat through dilemmas about which clients to take on, and show early work for my startup.

And giving advice in the other direction meant I was poking my head into a different space each week, able to reflect on my work from a different angle.

And reflection increasingly became a part of my workflow.

Alongside these weekly meetings, I also take the time to reflect each day and each week.

I use a software tool called Sunsama as my calendar and task manager, which also prompts me to review each day and each week to consider how I’m progressing in achieving my long term goals.

Things aren’t perfect – I’m now back on the hunt for a new partner after my friend got acquired by a bigger company – but the habit of reflection and questioning continues.

And those bills aren’t looking quite as scary anymore.