Originally published at Cirillo Hooper & Company
n following from Jemma's last blog, I went out and bought Simon Sinek's book Start with Why on audible.com. In listening to it, it made me reflect on "The Why."
Our firm has had a very clear "Why" since we changed the purpose statement in February of 2012, this resulted total buy-in for the firm's mission. We now use the lean enterprise methodology of "5 Whys" to ensure internal projects we engage in are congruent with our firm's mission. I have no issue with the firm's mission, it's clear, we all know what we're doing and why we're doing it. The "Why" I'm looking for is, "Why did I become accountant?"
I once had the pleasure of meeting with an ambitious young high school student called Natasha. She was 17 and she knew she wanted to be an accountant and why she wanted to do it. I am certain she will be extremely successful in her career.
So why did I become an accountant? Initially as a young entrepreneur, I enrolled into my accounting degree, so I could run (or at least understand) the accounting in my own businesses. That was enough to get me through university, but I needed a more compelling "Why" if I was going to choose a business in accounting rather than another business. In his book, aptly called Accountants, Colin Dunn reveals that the third most popular reason for becoming an accountant was, "I am genuinely curious about business." It hit me, that was my why! I love business, just like an mechanic loves tinkering with cars, as an accountant I love tinkering with businesses. So in choosing to start an accounting firm rather than some other business was simple, if I chose another business I would only have one business to tinker with, through an accounting firm I get to tinker with heaps of businesses.
Having built on this idea some more, it dawned on me that working on a business is no different from working on a car. With that believe, I realise that any business can be fixed if you have the right parts and the right tools. The trick is knowing which parts to get and what tools to use.