Month: February 2012

Response to a Reader’s Question: Take a Position Abroad or Stay Home?


One of my readers, a fellow female CFO, have sent me an email asking for an advice on the following dilemma she is trying to resolve for herself:

"Hi Frustrated CFO

Please advice.

I'm at a crossroad between choosing to work as a group cfo in overseas subsidiary in US or stay in home country (malaysia) and becomes a group cfo of a division.

Both has its merits and demerits but i'm a woman and study shows that most women do not end at top spot without sacrifice. My family and I would have to sacrifice more if i choose to go overseas. My husband need to put his business on hold and becomes a house husband for a while until we settle down. Its good for the kids as they will go to international school and gain mastery in english language.

Staying in home country is not bad either. I will be in a familiar condition, i will gain new exposure, nothing need to change and i can send my kids to good schools at a higher fee.

Most people will say that experience abroad will change how people perceive you as a leader and thus this will give you greater opportunities within or outside the group.

What do you reckon?

Thank you.

Rgds
Anonymous"

Honestly, it is apparent to me that deep in her heart Anonymous knows very well that, professionally speaking, the best thing to do is to take the job overseas. I always said that a career CFO or a Controller needs to view every job as a line on her resume. Nothing more and nothing less. And what can make a better resume entry than a position showing that your knowledge and expertise are viewed to be unmatchable by a local talent pool in a foreign location? This is a great stepping stone in anyone's career development.

Men don't even think twice about opportunities like that, family or not. But women are naturally more considerate creatures. Many of us try to achieve an impossible balance between professional careers and personal lives. This requires a lot of trade-offs – you cannot possibly have everything. You want spend more time with your kids than you can. You don't want to be too tired for your husband. But, at the same time, your career is a source of income and, more importantly, social independence. The last thing a strong woman wants is to give that up.

I am also a strong believer in exposing children to foreign cultures. It broadens their horizons and sets them apart. Most professional parents do it through traveling and student-exchange programs, but here is a fortunate opportunity of a complete immersion. It would be a shame to pass on that.

So, the only real difficulty is the husband. Is it fair to ask someone to put their business endeavors on hold for the sake of perpetuating your own career? It's really a very private issue that depends on individual personalities, and it can be blown into a very complex problem. However, in my opinion, at the end of the day, it comes down to two major considerations:

1. What will guarantee better financial future for your family as a whole? We are financial professionals – we know how to count. Estimate the future values of each possibility.

2. What will secure the psychological stability of your family? If you are excited about the overseas opportunity, but decide to stay home for the sake of your husband, will you subconsciously hold it against him? Will you let the resentment corrode your marriage?

If you can honestly answer these questions, it will ease your decision-making process. I promise.

I invite other readers to express their opinions on this subject in their comments.

Quote of the Week: Eclecticism


5From a text-message exchange (Friday, February 24):

"YZ – Andrew Bird secret show tomorrow night at a small venue in Brooklyn… Got two tickets. R u down?

The Frustrated CFO – Always. I will crawl to secret shows if I cannot walk."

Quote of the Week: “Horrible Bosses”


I still think that this is a silly, phantasmagorical flick.  But that doesn’t prevent me from objectively acknowledging the mastery of Colin Farrell’s acting. He delivers there his most farcical performance to date in his pitch-perfect American accent.  His Bobby Pellitt is a caricature of those real people I frequently describe here—those who think that GAAP and GAP are the same things. 

Huffington Post nominated the following exchange as one of the funniest movie quotes of the year. It’s both funny and quite probable—believe me.

(Written by Michael Markowitz and John Francis Daley.)

Bobby:  We need to trim some of the fat.

Kurt:  What do you mean by trim the fat?

Bobby:  I want you to fire the fat people. They’re lazy and they’re slow and they make me sad to look at.

You can watch the whole clip here: Horrible Bosses

 

Showtime’s “House of Lies” Showcases “Big Business”


ImagesShowtime methodically continues expanding its gallery of likable bastards – you know, those characters who consistently behave badly, violate conventional "morality" in every other screenshot, show complete disregard for their "fellow humans," and yet entice the adoring audience to watch their screen-capades every week, sins and all. Brian Kinney ("Queer as Folk"), Nancy Botwin ("Weeds"), Hank Moody ("Californication"), Jackie Peyton ("Nurse Jackie"), the Gallaghers ("Shameless") – they all have devoted followers who adore them despite their multiple faults and vices.

Now comes Marty Kaan (Don Cheadle), the ruthless management consultant who, together with his younger team members, would stop at nothing to rake more billable hours and expenses into their employer's purse. To make the main characters more or less palatable to the audience, and at times even lovable and pitiful, the show goes beyond the beaten path of showing their human side in personal situations – it pitches them against the somewhat two-dimensional, but decisively abhorrent, cast of clients who, in the viewers' minds, "deserve" to be taken advantage of, if for no other reason but to restore the sense of "social justice."

This means that the show doesn't go after small businesses – that could be risky as the viewers might feel compassion for the struggling owners, and, more importantly, it would demand from them a sufficient familiarity with commercial specifics. Moreover, even people with no exposure to actual business activities understand that no small company can afford Marty's team's first-class airfare and stretch-SUV limos.

In fact, the clients are all large businesses that seem to be plucked out of the media coverage, which makes them not just the Big Bad Wolves, but the familiar ones as well. These are the entities that, at the very least, come into the peripheral vision of the general public. You've got your proverbial bank, tainted by sub-prime mortgages and riding the bailout wave; an obnoxious teenage high-tech billionaire; a national budget-hotel chain helmed by racist Mormons, etc.

Not-businessy people ask me if the show reflects the reality of the every-day business life. My answer is, "No." And it's not because there are no consulting firms, businesses, engagements, and people like the ones we see in the show, or that the writers get the terminology wrong. Actually they get a lot of things right and I wouldn't be surprised if the writing staff compiled by Matthew Carnahan for this show has at least a few people with MBA's in their past. At times they even go too far in their realism: I wonder, for example, what percentage of the audience understands what KPI's are.

The reason the show has nothing to do with the life most business people live is that the Big Business's actual existence is unreal and makes no common sense. Their paper-financed operations, the influence on the government, the executive compensations, the excessive spenditures on… mmm… everything, the actions they get away with – they are surreal and grotesque. But, I guess, that makes it even more fitting for entertainment purposes.

That said, there were a few observations within the first 5 episodes of the show that not only rang very true to my ears, but some were already addressed in this blog's posts:

1. Within the first 10 minutes of the pilot, Marty explains to the audience how the "afterwork" is attained: make them feel like their business is going to fail without you and tons of billable hours will be generated (see 05/14/2011 post Case Study: The Marketing of Fear).

2. The member of Kaan's team responsible for crunching numbers and analyzing clients' financials looks timidly and acts awkwardly in social situations, representing the classical Hollywood stereotype of an accounting professional (see 10/26/2010 post He Looks Like an Accountant…).

3. The core substance of dynamics between various CEOs and CFOs so frequently discussed here (just go to the "Bosses" category) is accurately captured in a very schematic way, which actually manages to make it almost biblical in its generality: a prim-spined, heartless bully, bent on doing the things his way, whether it's good for the business or not (the Boss), on one side and a somewhat hunched, practical, reasonable, subordinate, but still powerful in his own sneaky way schemer (CFO) on the other.

4. Finally, the ultimate truth I have an occasion to repeat at least once every day: everything in this world is a matter of perception, or, as Marty Kaan puts it, "Data dump is the key; everything else is horseshit, except PERCEPTION, which is horseshit you can leverage."

Quote of the Week: R.I.P. Whitney Houston


“The trouble with life in the fast lane is that you get to the other end in an awful hurry.”

                                            John Jensen