I frequently talk about psychological trends and general attitude patterns in a broad sort of sense. Yes, large groups of people share similar traits due to comparability of their backgrounds, environments, occupational qualifications, etc. The very reason I write for the audience of financial professionals is because I believe that our experiences have common points and the topics would be understood and accepted; that our expert qualities unite us; that metaphorically speaking we all "have been in each other shoes." I write about our bosses, small business owners, entrepreneurs as a group of people with very strong and easily recognizable idiosyncrasies. But I never go too far with it. I acknowledge and value individuality and uniqueness of each person and each situation. That is why sometimes I describe experiences of specific people, including my own.
This separates me from organizational behaviorists, especially those who popularize their science for digestion by the masses. In their zealous attempt to fit the entire universe into a simplistic, easily explainable system, they go as far as dividing everything and everyone into 3-4 categories. And so, they manage to divide all possible motivations, intentions and impulses that guide employees' task performance focus, into just four categories (they even claim that it applies to "any given situation"):
(1) getting the job finished, which supposedly results in speeding up, being aggressive, and careless;
(2) getting the job right, which translates, according to this theory, into nearly OCD-ish fear of making a mistake and slows people down – they are just checking and re-checking everything over and over again;
Note that these two categories are placed on the opposite sides of the matrix.
(3) get along with people – I cannot offer any comments on this motivation nor its behavioral interpretations. Honestly, I don't know what the hell is that all about;
(4) be appreciated – Ah, this one all executives understand very well, that's what we strive for. But why is it associated with "being heard, being assertive, contribute to others;" moreover, why is it separated from 1 and/or 2?
This is laughable! I don't know what kind of subject group the scientists studied to draw these conclusions. Maybe these are just empirical deductions. Then, how many personal observations were accumulated to form these opinions? One thing I can say for sure – they are definitely not based on hard-working financial professionals like us – CFOs, Controllers, VPs of small and mid-size businesses. There is no possibility for us of separating "getting it done" and "getting it right." You don't become a CFO by accomplishing either one or another.
And it has nothing to do with the time frame, as some suggest. Other humans maybe can switch between the two, depending on how much time they have on their hands. Us? We live under constant pressure to get everything done yesterday and there is no room for errors. Of course, the good news is that if you are for real, if your expertise is not phony, if you got where you are through hard work and exceptional abilities, you cannot do it any other way. Your qualities and professionalism carry you through and that how you get to be appreciated. All at the same time!
The Frustrated CFO 