Among colleagues, we took a moment to think about the clients we take on and those we don’t take on.

It’s rarely an easy decision. The range of questions we addressed went across ethical issues, values, and competence to available energy.

Sometimes clients call in for example with a request that doesn’t seem to fit our portfolio, but they still want us to do the work. Is it then that they see something in us we don’t see? Or is it, that they are describing the work they seek support with very different terms than we would use? It simply can take some time until it becomes clear what it is that they seek support for. And in some cases, that’s the support they look for.

In other situations, we may encounter clients who raise some ethical questions with us. And these are questions we can only answer individually. Some will decide that there are activities they don’t want to be in contact with, and others will take the opposite approach and decide to step into that area to be aware of and understand other views.

Clay Christensen once wrote an article asking the question “How Will You Measure Your Life?” Answering how to live a life of integrity he pointed to the way people deal with marginal costs. His suggestion was to avoid the marginal costs altogether and stick to the rules one has set for oneself. What this means, is that it is almost too late to decide on the rule when an ethical question appears. It’s best to gain clarity on as many of these as possible. And from there work on understanding the principle behind these rules. Principles will guide us whenever a rule is missing.

But we can’t think everything through. There are also situations in which we are simply challenged by the situation. That’s when it’s important to be self-aware. A big question is, how we can ensure that we do our best work and serve our clients as they deserve to be served. That is to the best of our capability.

It’s a question that doesn’t only involve the rational and qualitative aspects of our work from a professional point of view. That is the question if we can do the work as such. The other part of this question is our emotional availability to the task. It’s a question that has us inquire into the relational aspects of the project at hand.

People can’t be neutral, they either appreciate the situation or they don’t. In this, situation describes the context of the task, the task itself, as well as the people one will work with.

And here again, the answer will be an individual one. We need to figure out if we can relate to the situation as if there was no obstacle to it, that is nothing we would need to resist while knowing that both are present.

We’ll easily ask ourselves this question when there is something we don’t like in it. However, the question is just as important if we like something more than usual. If so, we could find ourselves pulled into it without noticing how far we’ve gone, possibly disconnecting from our integrity.