Tag: Subordinates

Writing Angry Letters Is Therapeutic, Sending Them Out Is Foolish


I remember reading Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People when I was about sixteen years old.  Early in the book, he talks about dangers of criticism and gives examples of written but unsent letters: by Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain.  It made a great impression on me.  I cannot avoid being critical entirely – the tongue is difficult to control.  However, I made a rule of letting stinging letters to stew for 2 days.  Then I re-read them.  If I still think it necessary, I send the letter.  90% of the time it doesn't get sent.

This is a recurring topic for management training gurus, self-help writers and bloggers.  They say,"Write an angry letter, if it makes you feel better, just don't send it." Unfortunately, no matter how many times people hear that advice, they write and send flaring mail, causing commercial and social damage.  If the problem was not persistent, there wouldn't be any demand for products I have described in the Cautionary Tale About Artificial Intelligence Progress.

As CFOs and Controllers, we deal with a lot of irking and ireful people.  With my firm believe in therapeutic qualities of writing, I always advise to let the paper or the monitor to bear your negative emotions.  As supervisors we also have to manage the anger of our subordinates.  How do we prevent hostile writing from going out?

In the times of hand-written letters, it took longer to complete them.  Plus, you had to stuff, seal, stamp and post the envelope.  By the time you were done, you might have changed your mind about the whole thing.   Dictating a letter worked even better.  Saying the angry words out loud had a potential of making you sound ridiculous even to yourself,  leave alone those girls in the typing pools.

Emails made us more vulnerable to our impulsiveness.  In the beginning, at least the ISPs were slow enough for you to recall the unwanted message.  Nowadays, soft keyboard, easy mouse, and fast internet create a volatile combination.

Here are few preventive measures I can recommend:

1.  Always leave "To", "Cc" and "Bcc" fields of the email header blank until you are absolutely positive you need to send it.

2. Re-read your letter at least three times right away and then yet another time later.

3. I have previously described my habit of putting stick-ons, stating "Please re-read all your emails before sending them out," on the sides of employees' monitors.  If you know that you suffer from the short writing fuse, then stick one on your own monitor as well.

4.  Whether for my electronic or conventional mail, the 2 days stewing rule works very well.  You should try it too.

5.  The Frustrated CFO actually offers a healthy alternative allowing you to go a step further than just writing your message.  Sharing your stories here lets you spill your frustration onto the virtual page and actually send it.  Not to the object of your anger, but to me – an understanding and compassionate reader.    

The Weakest Link in a Corporate Finance and Accounting System


Let’s say, as a CFO or Controller you have all policies outlined and procedures carefully designed.  Everything is properly documented and bound into books and manuals, which are readily available for orientation, training, and daily reference.  Through intensive internal audit program all components have been examined; everything have been tested in practice.  Whatever did not work well has been tweaked; cumbersome procedures were replaced with more straightforward ones; the inferior ones have been improved.

Finally it has been determined that the internal control system is both effective and efficient in accomplishing the company’s goals and the executive management’s objectives.  Is it reasonable at this point to expect that everything should be working like that expensive watch I keep mentioning as a model of a perfect mechanism?  Unfortunately, not. 

We don’t exist in the virtual world of The Matrix trilogy, where everyone is manipulated by the digital code.  In real life it is the other way around: our well designed systems and structures depend on being properly handled by people.  Their proficiency and diligence determine how well the policies and procedures are being performed.  The truth is that every task performed by an employee is vulnerable to occasional unintentional errors, consistent sloppiness, and even deliberate mishandling.

Any designer of functional systems, with frameworks that include people as key elements, knows that humans are the weakest links in the chain of actions.  Long time ago, when computers were so huge that a single unit occupied a hall the size of the New York Public Library’s Reading Room, all programs and data were coded on punch cards.  A punched out spot was read by the computer’s card reader as a character or a digit.  These cards were manually created by operators trained to use a keypunch machine.  Guess what?  Two separate people produced every card in duplicate.  No exceptions. If the cards did not match, they have to be re-punched.  Thus, the risk of human error was managed.

Such duplication of staff is unthinkable now.  Today, we rely on computer systems to reduce at least the most common of the risks.  The rest of flaws must be caught through vigorous and persistent scrutiny of performance quality.  Monitoring is the cornerstone of internal control and one of the most important responsibilities of a supervisor.  It brings the entire system together and assures that policies, procedures and people concur.  A series of timely and thoughtful tests should become a part of your, or your internal auditors’, routine.

Remember:   If not corrected, every mistake your employee makes will end up in financial data, documents and reports, for which you are ultimately responsible.  One erroneous entry may affect your bank’s collateral statement or a presentation to the board of directors.  Omissions will impair strategic decisions.  Communication mishaps can impact commercial relationships.  These flaws will most definitely be a poor reflection on your reputation as a financial leader.  You have to create filters that will catch the debris before they pollute the results of your hard work.

You can read about various practical techniques of reducing accounting and finance systems' vulnerability to human factor in my upcoming book "CFO Techniques" (Apress, 12/02/2011), now available for pre-order at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.    

Arnold Schwarzenegger: Just Your Average Opportunistic Boss


220px-Terminator1984movieposter Who can resist this?  The Governator has cheated and lied?  Noooo, you are kidding!!! I am sure millions of bloggers hit the keyboards running.

But wait a minute, I already wrote about this – just little over four months ago: CFO Folklore: When Your Boss's Secretary Becomes His Girlfriend.  Well, not about Arnie per se, but about bosses having affairs with their employees. 

Obviously, it was based on incidents I have witnessed in business, as a financial professional.  I wrote the piece from the inside perspective of frustrated CFOs and Controllers, who are forced to deal with that.  Yet, I used very generalized terms, because it is the most typical type of infidelity. 

I don't think I have to remind you about all political scandals with exactly the same premise.  I never thought that the only reason these incidents ignited public attention was people's relishing the dirt.  It is the relevance of these situations to every-day life that attracts people: "Oh, he is just like that dick I work for."  As the matter of fact, that January post is the third most popular item on this Blog – people relate.

There is always an enterprising (rarely smitten) young and ambitions intern/staffer/secretary/page (she or he) in the office of a powerful older man, who,  driven by desire to excel in life without too much effort, will pursue the boss with all her (his) youthful enthusiasm.  And of course, the older person is weakened: his male nature already has a propensity for imprudence; his morals are corrupted by power; he is ridden with temptation to taste something 20-25 years younger…  "What a poor man to do?"

As the matter of fact, small business owners have it better than more powerful public figures like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bill Clinton.  The latter risk public humiliation and popularity votes; the former have almost nothing to fear in their little absolute monarchies.  

The truth is, I liked Mr. Schwarzenegger up until he went into politics.  I admired his drive to rise above his muscles.  He actually always seemed liked a pretty decent man to me – someone who, if he fell out of love, would just come clean, divorce her and then go on making babies with another woman.  I should have known that as soon as "political reasoning" kicked in, lying would commence.  That they kept quiet, so he wouldn't loose his supporters – it's just disgusting.  

It is uncanny, but the former action star's news of an out-of-wedlock child, hit much closer to the real-life prototype of Boss and His Secretary story I wrote in January – I've just recently learned that the secretary in question is actually pregnant, while the boss is still legally married to his wife of twenty years.  

I would like to propose a little contest.  My readers, if you know of a single male business owner over 50 year old, with the staff of more than 20 people, who never had any indiscretions, please let me know.  I will sing praises to him in these virtual pages.

Language Barrier


I don't know why, people still single out the US as a country of immigrants.  Just because before Columbus "found" the "New" World, this land was vastly unpopulated, and after that Europeans started moving in?  Well, people,  all over the world, migrated from one place to another through the history of humanity.  And I can assure you that Americans who can trace their origins to Mayflower and beyond, don't consider themselves immigrants.    

Of course, we have an inflow of new immigrants, and we  do lead in absolute numbers, but per capita, Australia's and Canada's immigration rates are currently three times higher than America's.  Also, there is a question of concentration.  What we should be called is a country of uneven immigration. 

There are places where people have never seen an immigrant.  I have a Turkish friend who once stopped with his half-Swedish-half-French wife in a small Midwestern town for gas and the shop-keeper called a sheriff.  100% true story. Homogeneous regions and countries scare me – they are too easy to manipulate.

I enjoy the blessed places, where you can see different faces and hear different tongues every step you take.  And it is with a great reluctance, I have to recognize the fact that the language barrier problem sometimes affects the work environment.  Well, it's rather accent barrier.   

I myself have no such problem.  Over the years I worked with people from more than 20 countries.  I pay attention and my ears got accustomed to all sorts of accents and grammatical deviations.  Unfortunately, that cannot be said about everybody.  Many times I have encountered situations of stark misunderstanding between employees of different origin.  It results in  frustration, waste of time and even errors. 

Few years ago I had two employees in my analytics group – one was a woman from Ukraine and another was a man from China.  While I had no problem communicating with them, they could not understand each other.  The woman was very cautious about filling the gaps in information with her own assumptions and guesses.  Instead, she would drag him into my office, asking me to explain.  CFO, the Interpreter! 

Something needed to be done.  I thought of replacing one of them, but that's not my way of doing things.  Instead, I asked them to communicate in writing – every time they needed to say something to each other, they used IM.  Some people may think that it took away more time – not true.  They spent so much time trying to understand one another and getting me involved, my solution was actually a time-saver.  Actually, seeing the words has improved their verbal communication as well.    

I think problems like that are rooted in the lack of effort.  The two kept asking me why I didn't have problems understanding either of them.  I'd said,  "Just pay attention to expressions and emotions and it will be easier to understand."

Like in this video.  The great comedian speaks a cartoon language he invented himself.  Yet, people all over the world understand him.

 

    

    


   

CFO Folklore: My “Favorite” Questions


Ah, the Holidays!  They put you in the mood for remembrance.  Families get together and stories of past times and lives start pouring out.  My grandfather was a brilliant man of the WWII generation.  He died when I was a baby.  Hence, I cannot remember this myself, but I've been told quite few times about his main pet peeve: he couldn't stand what he called "idiotic" questions.   Apparently, I've inherited this familial trait.

His being the times way before the political correctness permanently  stifled us, he had the luxury to call things as he saw them.  Nowadays, I use more neutral words.  I call them nonsensical questions.  I even trained myself to ignore stand alone occurrences.  However, there are two questions that pervade my professional life.  As all pet peeves do, they cause undue frustration.

The first question is consistently asked by my subordinates and peers.  You see, unless I attend to a confidential business matter, I always keep my office door opened.  I believe it is good for employees' morale to see a CFO working as hard as I do. 

So, these people see me all day long attending to my scheduled tasks, addressing issues, solving problems.  I am consumed by work.  Yet, EVERY TIME one of them needs me and comes to my door, they ask me THE SAME question, "Are you busy right now?"  In response I want to scream, "Of course, I am busy.  Can't you see?" 

It doesn't mean that I am not available to discuss their problem if it is of higher priority, or scheduling them for a later time slot if it can wait.  But why do they have to ask that question?  At staff meetings, I teach them to approach this situation in a more sensible manner: come, don't ask the damn question, instead state your issue and let me decide if it requires immediate attention.  Some learn, but the rest just cannot help themselves.

The second question is similar but essentially different in its nature.  It's usually asked by the boss.  And, as we already discussed, there is nothing you can do, but to bite your tongue.  He has something on his mind, so he comes to your office.  Here it comes, "What are you doing right now?" 

The involuntary first reaction is, "What do you think?  I am doing nothing.  Just sitting here enjoying myself."  But he does not imply you are not working.  This is how their minds work: whatever is on his mind is the most important thing to him right now and in his opinion should be to you as well (even though you don't even know yet what it is).  This attitude renders your current preoccupation irrelevant.  Now, it is up to you to navigate the situation properly into the safe harbor.  Over the years, I've developed an arsenal of methods.  I am sure you have too, but if you need my help, please, don't hesitate to email.