Career Coach: How can I make a difference?
Ever feel like you’re not really making a difference? This week Career Coach Kate Savage deals with how you can add more value in your job.
Hi Kate, I’ve been in agencies for about 10 years now and have this constant nagging feeling that what I’m doing is just about lining people’s pockets and it’s not actally doing the world any good. I want to make a sifference. How can I do that? Do I need to leave, re-train, drop my salary?
Hi,
Can I ask, are you about to hit 30 or 40 by any chance?
To be fair many employees have to take a long shower at the end of the day to wash away the grime from their dirty, sometimes deceitful ways.
I spoke to a bloke who works for one of the big 4 accountancy firms who had spent around 2 months, working 10 hour days helping a large multi national to avoid paying tax. He questioned his purpose, when on Linkedin, his company posted photo’s of happy workers ‘volunteering’ for a charitable course. ‘They might not need to have volunteered if the company was paying tax and the $’s trickled deeper into our society!’ – was his sentiment.
It’s a bit like agencies, in bed with big tobacco and then their staff ‘volunteer’ to help out at a hospice. To be honest it beggars belief. It is all down to greed.
Lets be straight up here. 2nd to investment banking, agency execs have the 2nd worst footprint on the greater good for society.
You CAN make a difference and that is to pick a topic and carefully craft a following and enable change. Right to marry is one that is now totally main stream. Perhaps the environment should be next. If agencies refused to work with big polluters, we could help to get that one ticked off.
Rant over.
Hoping to make a difference in this industry?
Surely one can’t be that clueless?
Ever heard of Admen without borders?
@My two cents
I have seen change happen in the most unlikely of places. It takes leadership and often it isn’t from the suits at the top. It is from die hard legends who care, who influence there peers and make sh1t happen. Time will tell. There are of course pioneering companies who are rocketing ahead and leaving traditional, greedier businesses in their wake. These companies often have real purpose and are able to communicate clearly ‘why’ they exist and why they are going to change the world. Think Tesla as an example of many. The car and energy companies (enter further traditional, ivory tower businesses here) are running scared and scampering to evolve. For many the greed in the walls of their executive offices will not enable them to do so in time. It’s no different in ad land. STW’s failures are an example of how culture can vanish from smaller more awesome agencies, once a larger, traditional corporate meddles with the cogs.
Whilst being defeatist will certainly never change things. Many clients want to be seen as doing the right thing. Environment, as an example, is huge and companies peddling coal will be knocked back by certain agencies. This is going to get bigger and more common as greedy companies who do not benefit society will only be accepted by your unsavory agencies, (like the mob who work with big tobacco…) Many clients know and many are getting fussier as consumers want to interact with decent brands. Watch this space and have a great day.