The Frustrated CFO

Three Business Owners and Five Sales Directors Walk into a Bar...

We used to complain about our country being divided into two colors, red and blue.  Boy, I miss those clear-cut times when we had a few personal liberties to fight about!  Now we are a fucking Pollock's painting!  Social, monetary, ideological, intellectual, and cultural (some even say micro-cultural) differences create a broad variety of political blends and affiliations.  At this point, we have pretty much slid off the two-party platform; we are now swimming (or drowning) in a multi-faction cesspool.  

It definitely looks to me like the 2016 primaries are far more divisive and tumultuous than the presidential election will be in November.  Each candidate, on both sides of the partisan divide, represents a very distinct combination of views and positions that categorically separate him/her from others.  Accordingly, the supporters are broken up into a multitude of tiny puddles, not two oceans.    

This made Politics into a more dangerous and touchy subject than it has ever been. I always tried to uphold the propriety rules and stay clear of the political discussions in public, particularly with co-workers, business relations, perfunctory acquaintances, etc.  But nowadays, I am literally left with only one place where I can express my opinions openly - my own home.  Even in this blog I keep myself in check.  

But there are people who will talk politics anywhere.  They are usually either (i) very brave and willing to take a stand; (ii) too powerful or confident to care; or (iii) absolutely tactless and have no idea that they make others uncomfortable.  The combination of (ii) and (iii) is also very typical.  And, of course, I happened to work with one of those.  It seems that this business owner believes the impossible - that everyone in the room shares his opinions on... everything.

When I end up in one of the awkward situations he creates (usually during business dinners), my choice of actions is simple: ignore (just get myself busy with food or something) or deflect (hopefully there are people with little kids at the table - trumps all other topics).  Sometimes I find a reason to avoid going to an event with this dude altogether; which is what I did the other week during the company's Annual Sales Summit.  

And dammit!  He actually managed to instigate a rare political exposé: he asked everyone around the table (two other business owners and five sales directors) to declare their choices of Presidential Candidates!  I cannot tell you at what level of intoxication these people agreed to basically reveal their political stands  ("No judgement!" was guaranteed, by the way); nor can I warranty the truthfulness of the disclosures.  However, I can testify to the fact that everyone was surprised and/or traumatized by their own unusual candor: one by one, all eight participants came to my office the next day to confide their bewilderment and share the results of this bizarre poll.  And now I am sharing them with you, my readers (in the order they came through my door):

1. Business Owner (the instigator himself), 60:  A liberal Upper West Side exterior, rotten chauvinist interior (just imagine late Nora Ephron writing a really obnoxious character); born and raised in Westchester County, he'd spent 30 years of his life running his own business in Pacific Asia before returning to Central Park West -  Hillary Clinton;
2. Business Owner, 46:  The company's founder and CEO; a remarkable woman who remade herself from a basic Chinese wife into an extremely independent and self-reliant woman - Michael Bloomberg;
3. Sales Director, 48 : A Midwestern gentlemen with deep roots in 250 years of family traditions; a trained chemical engineer, he spent most of his life in business development and sales; an avid hunter and a boater - Jeb Bush;
4. Sales Director, 41: A Texan of Korean descent; another engineer who actually has spent most of his career in chemical manufacturing; someone capable of setting up a production line from A to Z; a tech savvy guy with unbearably weak handshake and darting eyes - Jeb Bush;
5. Sales Director, 45: A third-generation raw-materials distribution professional; born, raised, and still residing near the New Jersey Shore; recently divorced with one daughter whom he loves more than anything; after three beers will bust out pretty credible vocal quotes from Notorious B.I.G. and 2Pac (beats 'n all), if you ask nicely - Donald Trump;
6. Sales Director, 33: An ambitious Korean boy born in Southern California; trained within LG system for the Latin American markets, he possesses the valuable assets of fluent Korean and Spanish; while making a low 6-figure annual income, he still lives with his mom so that he can support her - No one; he stated that no candidate represents his political, economic, or life concerns;
7. Business Owner, 49: A descendant of an old aristocratic Shanghainese family persecuted by the Mao regime, whose parents forced him into piano playing and lounge singing as possible means of self-support; yet, after coming to America at age 16, he chose engineering and business as his areas of interest; he was making a remarkable progress climbing a career ladder of one of the largest plastics producers in the US, when the company's founder (see above) offered him the partnership - Ted Cruz;
8. Sales Director, 65: An old-school career salesman, he was originally responsible for building the core of the company's distribution structure, bringing with him dozens of his customers; a Vietnam War veteran with the combat experience and hot-blooded Italian ancestry, he is known for smashing desk phones against the walls; yet his wife, with whom he lives in Upstate New York, has been able to calm him down for nearly 40 years - Bernie Sanders.

So, here you go, ladies and gentlemen!  By most statistical parameters this group is not even all that diverse!  Yet, the results are all over the place; with some totally surprising picks (Ted Cruz? Really?!).  I mean, some respondents have named people who are not running at all or are out of the running already.  Moreover, the leading Republic and Democratic candidates only got one vote each.  It's remarkable how uncertain and confused our political landscape is!

But I have to say: that last one actually broke my heart a little.  It is unfathomable to me that someone who fought North Vietnamese commies in hand-to-hand combat; who saw with his own eyes the devastation and poverty of the people under socialist regime; who enjoyed the benefits of booming American capitalism during some of our country's most prosperous periods would vote for a socialist.  What veteran would support a senatorial failure that is Bernie Sanders?  And why?  If I had to guess, it's because his daughter and son-in-law are not doing all that great financially up there in Vermont, but they had two kids nevertheless.  The man is afraid that he will be the one paying for his granddaughters' college tuition.

And isn't this typical?  A demagogue promises people something free (without even laying down the actual plan of actions) and everyone's principles go out of the window.  History repeats itself.     

10 HR Lessons From Summer-Binging on "The Good Wife" Plus Some Other Stuff

In the TV business, summer traditionally has been considered an off-season.  Primarily because the broadcast networks' prime series go on a 4-month hiatus after completing their 20+ episode seasons.  Nowadays, of course, it's not all that relevant for TV viewers, because...  Well, for multiple reasons, really, but to name a few:  

First of all, if you prefer edgier premium cable series, your TV viewing patterns are driven by  2-3 month seasons scheduled at different times throughout the year: Shameless airs January through March, Game of Thrones and Silicon Valley - April -June, Masters of Sex - July-September, Homeland -  October-December, etc.  Even if you are into blending your TV cocktail out of cable and broadcast ingredients, you most likely use on-demand and DVR options to accommodate your personal schedules and to fill the airing gaps.  Plus, some broadcast networks now have "summer shows" - short-seasoned and "limited" series aired specifically to cover the off-season void: Hannibal, Wayward Pines, Under the Dome, Aquarius, etc.

The most important factor, however, is that we've stopped being restricted by conventional TV ever since Netflix came along.  First, they made the idea of going to video stores and looking for something to watch unnecessary.  We were so grateful for digital searching, online ordering, and USPS drop-ins and drop-offs.  But then even walking to the mailbox became unnecessary, because they made a tremendous volume of content available for IP streaming, including rare and obscure movies, shows, documentaries, anime, etc. from all over the world! 

They didn't stop there either - they got into creating their own original programming.  And then Amazon followed suit!  As a result, we got access to gems that make me feel as if I am living through some sort of an indie renaissance via the Internet: House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, Peaky Blinders, Grace and Frankie, Sense8 (Netflix originals), Transparent and Mozart in the Jungle (Amazon's originals).  It's fucking incredible!

Moreover, not only that streaming content is available everywhere you can go online, it's available in whole seasons.  There is no waiting for weeks at a time until the next episode; no mid-season separation anxiety; no loss of vital details from previous weeks.  Technically you can watch a 12-episode season in one day.  It is my understanding that some people actually do that. 

Netflix had at their hands the best market-testing sample imaginable - their entire subscription base.  They must've noticed early on that a large percentage of the viewing population doesn't restrict itself to one episode at a time.  They even installed a special probe at the start of the third consecutively watched episode to test whether you are actually binging or have simply fallen asleep on your couch.  Brilliant! 

Yes, binging - as in excessive indulgence, as in manifestation of addictive personality traits.  Not a new thing, really.  TV networks (USA especially) have been scheduling rebroadcasting marathons since the 80s.  By offering this opportunity to audiences with pretty much any kind of preferences, Netflix forever altered the cultural lives of millions of people. 

The phenomenon itself became a marketing tool for Netflix's competitors, who want you to know that you can replicate this experience with them as well:  This summer, Amazon actually used the phrase "binge on your favorite shows for free" in its promotional messages for Premium subscriptions.  HBO, still holding onto their highbrow status, softens it by offering you to "feast" on your past and present favorite shows on HBO GO.

Poor David Foster Wallace warned, way before streaming had become a household concept, that Television is the one and only true American addiction.  He predicted that catering to user demand for content of their choice whenever and wherever they wanted it (remember the "direct dissemination"?) may irrevocably alter us and potentially result in the crumbling of human will.

But who am I to judge?  Yes, my life is too busy for hardcore binging and I refuse to watch an episode of anything on my goddamned iPhone, but I've been taking advantage of on-demand entertainment ever since it was first introduced by American cable providers 15 years ago.  Then came iTunes 6.0 (2005).  Today - Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus, HBO Go, Showtime Anytime - I've got them all, including a Fire Stick to carry them with me wherever I go. 

But that was not the topic of this post, was it? (Too bad you cannot hear me laughing at myself.)  This was meant to be a brief introduction to the shocking fact that, even with all that variety of quality entertainment on hand, at some point in July I found myself with my personal TV time-slot empty.  And let me tell you, that made it hard to ignore the binging and feasting callings of the content pushers.

I browsed the variety of offerings and ended up with The Good Wife on Amazon Prime.  It used to be one of the shows I watched during its active seasons - all the way through the middle of Season 4.  But then, 2013 announced its arrival to Netflix with their first two major originals, plus Top of the Lake, plus The Fall, the first season of Broadchurch, etc., etc.  I'm a busy woman - something had to go.  Now I picked up where I left off.  

I have to admit, assuming you manage not to paralyze your life or degrade your mental and motoric agility, watching multi-season, multi-episode shows without gaps measured in weeks and months has its undeniable benefits.  Complex and intricate storytelling loses some of its power when it's broken up into weekly installments and then gets shelved away for 4 or more months.  Reducing these gaps not only allows for a more detail-oriented viewing, it also gives you an opportunity to assess the show's merits and values in a more coherent way. 

Aside from the most obvious and well acknowledged attributes of The Good Wife - strive for realism; acute attention to the impact of technology on our lives; honest depiction of shifting morality; head-on tackling of race, class, gender, sex, and all other divides - what I like the most about the show is its refusal to label itself as a single genre.  We can definitely identify it as a Drama, but the range of applicable modifiers is quite long - family, political, crime, legal, courtroom.

But what I realized while watching seasons 4 through 6 now, was that in it's wardrobe full of genres, The Good Wife's favorite outfit was the Workplace Drama.  One law firm, another law firm, State's Attorney's office, governor's office, clients' businesses (including a drug-distribution organization), you name it - all of them are depicted as places of employment.  And the human relationships inside these businesses play essential roles in the show's storytelling.  The office politics, alliances, squabbles, hiring, firing, promotion, compensation, peers' competition, subordination, fraternizing, partnerships, resignations, harassment, even telecommuting -  all of them have been used as plot points.

Once I started noticing, I've found so many typical and easily recognizable Human Resources issues,  it was hard to pick the following ten:

1. Any employee, no matter how highly positioned and compensated, is always a disgruntled employee.  It's remarkable how much pent-up gall towards Lockhart & Gardner started spilling out of Alicia and Cary as soon as they left to set up their own firm.  They were never that rude to any other opponents as they were to their former bosses.  What was it that Cary said to Will and Diane? That watching them squirm gives him an immense pleasure?  It's the nature of a subservient position - no matter what, we don't like it.
2. Why don't we like it?  Because there is no such a thing as a fair boss. Every boss believes that you belong to him, yet he doesn't really need you and will do just fine without you.  That's why bosses never bother acknowledging, even to themselves, your full contribution and think that you should be grateful for what you've got.  Aside from always high-in-demand Kalinda, all other major and minor characters have experienced that.
   
3. Recruitment is the most depressing of all managerial responsibilities.  Will and Diane need to hire more attorneys.  They sit down with their headhunter to look at the resumes she already preselected for them.  Barely glancing at them, Will goes, "No, no, no..."  And let me tell you, whether you are an asshole or a saint, this is what you do.  And I know that not everyone sees a life story behind every resume, still it's an incredibly unpleasant exercise for all.
4. An easy interview is rarely a successful one.  Will is interviewed by Geneva Pine and her colleagues in his bid for an outsourcing contract with the State Attorney's office.  It goes great - quick and short; no follow-up questions, no drilling into specifics.  Why? Because it's just a formality - Lockhart & Gardner were never even seriously considered. Whether you are pitching yourself for employment or your company's services for a contract, the interviewing principles are exactly the same.  A short, formal, and overly polite interview means that you are not getting the job.
5. Only full-time employment comes with benefits coverage.  This one is important because many people are still confused.  Kalinda, who has been working for Will for years, is appalled that newly hired Robin has medical coverage.  Except Kalinda cannot possibly qualify for benefits because she is a 1099 contractor with other billable businesses.  This allows her not only to delay paying social security taxes, but also makes a lot of her expenses tax deductible.  In order to receive company benefits one must be a full-time payroll employee with a minimum of a 30-hour workweek.  You cannot have it both ways.
6. All computing and communication devices provided by employers belong to the said employers.  I know that many viewers may feel dismayed when they hear various bosses on the show proposing to hack into their employees' emails.  The truth is, however, that the employers are absolutely within their rights.  All devices paid for by the employer and everything inside of them are the company's property.  Not only is it implicit, but it is explicitly outlined in every single Employee's Handbook.  Yet, so many people treat the company's equipment as their own.  Hillary's personal email debacle is one recent memorable example.  People, don't be cheap and lazy, buy yourself a personal phone, external hard drives, and whatever else you need to keep your private contacts, communications, and files separately.
7. The impervious pregnancy shield.  Governor Florrick's Ethics Czar Marilyn Garbanza is pregnant and the father is 76-year-old!  Can you trust a person like that with any type of government responsibility, let alone the one that requires clarity of reasoning?  Yet,  nobody reassigns her (of course, she cannot be fired - that's a lawsuit right there), because her condition blocks everyone's common sense.  In fact, her looks merited more suitability discussions than the fact that she made a decision to have a child with a septuagenarian.
8. Workplace honesty is a relevant thing.  There is an information leak from Florrick/Agos.  Three key people (two lawyers and one investigator) privy to the information are being questioned.  All three deny any involvement.  Alicia says, "These are the most honest people I know."  Mind you, at different points in time we've seen these characters mislead their clients, lie to their opposition, trap witnesses, steal information and evidence, even betray one another!  Yet, that was all done in the "normal course of business;" to get the job done, i.e. to perform your professional duties.  Nowadays, nobody considers dishonesty on behalf of one's employer amoral.  I've done it and you've done it; everyone does it.  Are we absolved and untainted because we presume there is no direct personal gain?  That's the question.
9. How do you know when someone in the office is sleeping with the boss? Look for the telling signs.  People cannot help themselves - they get emboldened by the perceived closeness to "power."  The person in question will stand too close, laugh too loud, dress inappropriately, pick fights with peers, become insufferable for subordinates and less diligent with their duties.
   
10. One should always be aware of the temporary and unstable nature of any HR structure.  People die, get arrested on obscure charges, move on for higher salaries, or decide to be homemakers.  Companies go through mergers, buy-outs, and hostile takeovers.  And nobody, literally nobody, has a good life - everyone is fucked up and thoroughly unhappy, no matter how hard they try to hide it.  So, there is always a good chance that they may check out - out of job or out of life.  Or do something completely insane, like trying to shift from Law into politics.

But the most valuable life lesson one should take away from The Good Wife is that you should never ever burn all the bridges and cut all the ties, because you never know with whom you may need to partner next.  

CFO Folklore: Delusional Self-Involvement of Business Owners

As my readers know, years ago I've made a career choice of avoiding large corporations and their tall organizational structures.  I prefer small and mid-size companies allowing opportunities of direct interactions with business owners - the very people responsible for recognizing one's efforts and allotting rewards.  It's not for sissies, of course, because in this environment you cannot hide your incompetence or laziness in a mass of indistinguishable drones - you and your work are on the spot and in full view all the time. 

Even for a highly skilled professional with a strong work ethic it's not easy to be constantly exposed to this very special breed of people - the entrepreneurial bosses, who, God bless them, unwittingly provide me with endless writing material.  I guess it will be several years into my retirement (assuming I will live that long) before the urges to highlight this or that aspect of their psychology and behavior will ceise.

It's uncanny how many common characteristics are shared by private business owners.  For example, all of them operate under the same delusion that employees care (or should care) about their companies just as much and exactly in the same way as they themselves do.  It's especially amazing to me because most of them are pretty levelheaded and highly functional people, yet they insist on this deranged assumption that doesn't fit into any rational frame of thought.

For a business owner his company is his life's endeavor, his singular purpose, his channel of expression and fulfillment, his source of pride and wealth, his outlet of personal freedom.  The owner/CEO's opinion overrides everybody else's; he is the only one with a full authority to direct the company's development in any direction (to a success or to a downfall); ultimately he holds all employment strings in his hands; he can say or do whatever he wants (within the limits of the law, of course); nobody watches his time, assesses his performance, addresses his shortcomings.

On the other hand, for an employee, no matter how dedicated, loyal, hard-working, conscientious, and highly positioned, a job is just a job - a line on a resume.  It cannot possibly be anything else, because there is no such a thing as a job security anymore, no matter where you work.  If the current employment ends, there most likely will be another one after.  Nowadays, probably shifting down, but maybe shifting up - who knows?  There must be something, or there will be oblivion.  For many of us, a job is just a source of sustenance, not the means of self-satisfaction.  And when it comes to personal freedom... I already wrote about it four years ago (Bill of Rights in Small-Business Environment ).

Clearly owners and their employees are conditioned to look at the business from different platforms.  It is preposterous to assume equal attitudes from unequal parties.  Yet, the faulty presumption persists and is manifested by various business owners quite frequently.  I'm sure many of you have experienced it first-hand. 

On the rare occasions, when opportunities to be frank present themselves, I try to explain to CEOs that their employees have their own individual life agendas: what's good for you, your business, and your pocket, Mr. Boss, is not necessarily all that important to them.  Sometimes I even draw Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:  you see, I say, you cannot expect them to be proud of working in your wonderful growing company if they cannot make ends meet and feel overworked. 

Agh, it's no use!  Just the other week I was discussing (via email) with one of my clients, whose company made the 2013 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing companies in the nation, whether I should enter them into consideration this year as well.  It's my assessment that the negative outcome (everyone was complaining about the endless solicitation calls from various service companies) outweighed the pleasurable, yet hard to measure, positive impact of the resulted publicity.  He had no rebuttal to that particular argument.  Instead, he replied to me with the following:

"The ranking is something about which we can all be proud, and which thereby directly affects the morale of our staff, who both see results of their hard work translated into an accolade and have the pleasure of working for a company that has been honored.  I know I bathed in the warm glow of the company's recognition."

Of course he did!  It's his company.  He is rightfully entitled to tell about it every single person he meets.  But can you believe the gall?  They "have the pleasure..."!  Seriously?  Even the ones with $40K salaries and one-week-a-year vacations?  Uh-uh, Mr. Boss, the pleasure is all yours. 

Quote of the Week: A Business Owner's Reaction to a Typical Banker

From an actual email:

"Frankly, I left our meeting here on Monday with the conviction that you attended under duress but would otherwise rather have been doing pretty much anything else.  PNC is a month behind every other bank, and we used up considerable goodwill with these entities to secure you and Alberto a seat at the table.  No other bank has been treated so deferentially, which PNC earned by being our lender in the past three years.  However, watching you play with your phone in your lap during our meeting and appearing otherwise bored suggested to me that there was a huge disconnect between what we have been attempting to do for PNC and how it is being perceived."

                                                                                                    Business Owner

CFO Folklore: Don't Let the Boss Argue Your Case for You

In a small business with a flat organizational structure, where every exec performs 10-15 jobs, there is always a possibility of timeline conflicts.  It's like cooking ten dishes on a four-ring range: eventually you run into a point when the same burner is needed for two pots.  Which one to put on?  There is really no such a thing as a right decision at times like that - you must simply follow your instincts.

Let's say your are in the final stages of negotiating a Credit Agreement renewal with your main institutional lender.  It's Thursday, 03/13.  You have scheduled a meeting with the bankers, their attorneys, and your own esteemed corporate lawyers for tomorrow afternoon to press on with a few remaining crucial changes before the deal is released for the approval by the bank's Credit Committee on Monday, 03/17. 

At 5 pm your phone rings:  It's your tax attorney hesitantly letting you know that his team must meet with you urgently tomorrow, because they just figured out that the company may have tax exposures in Illinois and Wisconsin; the extensions are due on Monday, 03/17 (somewhat hysterically); and, he is very sorry to tell you, but he is not quite sure about this and that's why they need to seat down and read you into the details of the Code, so that you can express your opinion, because nobody understands the business better than you do.  No, it cannot be in the morning, because it's tax season and everybody's schedule is full as is; only the afternoon is workable for everyone who needs to be there (except you, of course, but who cares).

By the time you hung up, it's too late to reschedule the bank - most bankers leave at 5 pm, just like the government.  Now, you've got a dilemma.  Bank or taxes?  Of course, you can tell the tax lawyers to suck it up and do their well-compensated jobs without getting you involved.  Yet, you cannot - that's not how you do.  But the bank is incredibly important: the last stages of negotiations are the hardest, because nobody wants to give up the last frontiers.  On the other hand, you are literally the only person in the company who can express taxation opinions.  At least the owner has been in a tandem with you on the contest of wills with the bank.  However, he is easily mauled by financial predators if he is left on his own.                  

But what are you going to do?  It's the balancing act - you have to optimize.  You cannot be in two places at the same time.  So you decide that the tax meeting is the one you must attend and send your boss to the other one alone.  And, of course, you prep him on Friday morning.  You go over all important points of the agenda with him and outline your position on every issue (in writing, for better retention).  Then you silently pray to Hermes/Mercury, the patron god of all CFOs, and go on to your appointment.

You don't disturb him during the weekend, but as soon as he shows up at work on Monday (around 1 pm) you pull him into your office.  "Well, tell me," you inquire.  He beams at you: "Oh, it went very well.  They practically accepted all the conditions on the list you gave me.  You should have the amended Term Sheet by tomorrow morning."  You are cautious: "Practically?"  And he clarifies, "There is one item.  They said they couldn't do anything about migrating from weekly reporting to monthly.  But I figured that was okay, right?  Just this one thing?  And what?  It's like a nine-line report, or something?  Probably a few buttons on your system, right?"         

Well, it's actually a 52-line statement with 5 supplemental schedules. It takes two of your staff accountants several hours to update all raw data and 2.5 hours of your valuable time every Friday to compile the reports. This was one of the top 10 most important items you've introduced into the negotiations right from the start.  Of all items that's what he decided to let go?  And what is it with bosses?  Why do they always assume that everything you do is effortless - fast and easy?  Just because you are toiling away without making any fuss?! 

You feel like Zorg from The Fifth Element.  "I am very disappointed!!!" growls Gary Oldman inside you.  If you want something done correctly, you'd better do it yourself!  Unfortunately, you don't have his powerful ZF-1 under your desk.  So, instead of simultaneously throwing flames and blasting freeze-rays, you grab your phone like a weapon and calmly explain, "These weekly reports end up costing you a lot of salaried hours that can be used more productively otherwise.  So, let me call and talk to them about it again."      

Funny Thing Happened On the Way to Ohio, or That Picture of Your Boss You Posted on facebook

I've said it before and I'll say it again: all entrepreneurial bosses are the same.  Of course, I don't mean it literally - they are not stamped figurines.  Yes, they are the same in their principal qualities (aggressiveness, single-mindedness, drive, vision, impatience, arrogance, callousness, etc.), but they are also different people with their own psychological makeups,  individual quirks, and human peculiarities.  Some can be informal and approachable, others are aloof and snobbish.  Some can be intellectuals, while others are simple and limited.  Some of them are religious conservatives, others are broad-minded libertarians.  Some are healthy and others suffer from an array of ailments.  Some like spicy food and others cannot stand a hint of curry or garlic in the air.

There is one universally common denominator that definitely unites all business owners, though - they are employers.  And as I wrote in CFO Techniques, one should never cross the line with one's employer, if for no other reason than in appreciation for creating one's job.

So, here is a little anecdote that involves a sociable female business owner, her all-male sales staff, and some spicy food. 

First, let me clarify one thing.  This woman, tough as nails and brutal in her nature, nevertheless strives to present a friendly and cheerful demeanor to the outside world.  Experienced people can see through that veneer and know to watch their steps around her.  However, when you get together eight men, even though subordinate, and one woman, even though a boss, the dynamic gets a little muddled.  I mean, when they are in a gaggle, it's especially difficult for men to suppress the testosterone.  It clouds their judgement and they forget for a hot second what's behind that charming smile. 

Oh, yes, and about the food: she really does like it hot.  You'd be in a restaurant with her, she orders a dish and then asks the waiter, "Is it spicy?"  The waiter smirks, probably thinking, "That skinny bitch will be asking now to make it mild," and answers, "Yes, ma'am, it's very spicy."  And she goes, "Could you, please, ask the chef to make it spicier." (Sometimes I actually consider of giving her a present of Pure Capsaicin Crystals, but I know she's going to try them and I don't want to be responsible for the consequences.)

Back in December, she held a three-day sales summit in the company's NYC headquarters - all salesmen came over from their different locations.  This usually means breakfasts, lunches, and dinners together.  Thankfully, in NYC that's not a problem.  The team enjoyed French-Asian fusion, classic American steakhouse, Korean...  An Italian restaurant is always a must, since the sales person with the most seniority comes from a Bolognese family. 

Unfortunately for the boss-lady, Italian food doesn't offer too many possibilities for extra-spicy.  She orders Shrimp Fra Diavolo over linguine, but it's not doing the job.  Red pepper flakes are asked for and happily received.  She starts shaking the plastic thing over her plate and orangy-red bits sparingly drip out (there is a reason the container is designed this way - one must use the hot stuff with a caution).  That's not enough for her - she starts shaking harder and harder...  until the top flies off and most of the pepper from the bottle ends up in the sauce.  All the men at the table are laughing their heads off - the boss slipped up!  Maitre d' sees it (how can you not, with all that violent shaking?) and immediately runs over, offering to replace the dish.  The lady refuses and laughs lightheartedly with her "boys" about her clumsiness.  She removes some of the pepper excess onto her bread plate and proceeds to eat what, I imagine, is an unbelievably spicy pasta without breaking a sweat.

Six weeks later, the same group of people is on the road visiting their Rust Belt customers.  They started in Pennsylvania and are now on their way to Ohio.  I'm sure my readers understand that the food scene in the industrial towns of Western PA is not quite the same as it is in NYC.  Here you go for Italian because it's probably your best choice.  So, there they are again with dishes that vaguely correspond to the Italian names on the menu.  This time around the owner's sauce is not spicy at all, but the generic plastic bottle with red pepper flakes is already on the table.  She reaches for it and the shaking ensues.  The memory of the NYC debacle is too fresh for the boys not to bring it up: "Be careful, don't shake the top off," a few of them warn.

Let me step aside for a second: Just as the bosses' human qualities differ, so are the ones of the subordinates.  A couple of them are of the self-conscious type - they simply don't want to be inside a public spectacle again.  Others are genuinely concerned about her not spoiling her food.  Yet, there are always those resentful, passive-aggressive employees, who secretly cherish the idea of a boss making a fool of him/herself.  One of those had his iPhone at the ready.

Well, as you probably guessed, the container's top comes flying again and a half of the red pepper flakes ends up on the pasta.  Oh, the childish hilarity!  Everybody laughs - some wholeheartedly, some to cover up the awkwardness.  The prepared dude snaps the picture and immediately posts it on facebook.

A young salesman who told me about the repeat performance of the pepper flakes show was visibly hesitant and uncomfortable with the whole facebook posting part.  I was simply appalled at the disrespect.  And what about the owner/CEO herself?  Did she fire that rude fucker?  Of course not.  The emotions should not interfere with business - it's impossible to replace a high-caliber sales exec overnight.  But I know this woman very well.  She's never going to let it go.  You can see it in her unsmiling eyes when she laughs about the whole thing.  She is on the lookout: as soon as she finds someone else, the insolent fool will be gone.  She will not even flinch; just like she doesn't flinch from the spiciness of her food.

Executive Gender Equality: The Perversity of Admiration

Ever since this company made into a couple of 2013 national lists of the fastest growing entities, we have been accosted by a slew of various business services offering their assistance and support: insurance brokers, real estate brokers, HR management providers, marketing consultants, etc., and most notably for me - bankers. 

The troubles that befell the banking industry a few years back resulted in its consolidation.  The competition among the diminished number of the key players in the field of institutional finance has stiffened.  They are fighting for clients with proven records of steady profitability, growing equity, and assets with high market liquidity, which, of course, are not that easy to find in our "recovering" economy.  Hence, they are after our business.

All the better for us: We are approaching the expiration date of the credit agreement with our current lender and are looking for a relationship that would be a more suitable match to the fast-growing company.  So, I'm doing what I've done quite a few times throughout my career: I'm meeting with a lot of bankers - explaining the business, answering their drilling questions, providing them with extensive data, spinning the info in the most thrilling way. 

While all this is going on, I cannot help but notice the increased percentage of women in the banking mix.  Well, that shouldn't be surprising, actually: according to many statistical reviews, more than 50% of the corporate middle management in this country are presently females.  I hear from our own sales staff that purchase managers of our customers' (industrial sector, by the way) are predominately highly technical women in their 30s.

Of course, as we climb further up the ladder, the numbers diminish: men dominate upper management to the extend of 70-80%, and only 10% of the C-level executives are women.  Still, I used to be the only "skirt" in a room full of male execs and financiers.  Now, there is a female contingent on the opposite side of the table in 3 out of 4 meetings.  Hell, the founder/CEO of this company is a woman.  Hence, our board of directors is 50% female (her and I) - we are the tough side of the directorship.   

So, here I am in our conference room listening to two representatives from one of the 10 largest banks in the world, who are making a presentation of their proposal (aka a Term Sheet in business dealings).  One of them is a diminutive woman of Korean origin in her late 50s - she is the boss, the North-East Regional Director, a big gun brought on to get the deal closer to the finish line.  With her is one of her many subordinates - a young and ambitious man in his early 30s.  If I end up choosing this bank, I will get him as my Relationship Manager (RM).

The menagerie is balanced by a man at my side - COO/owner/our CEO's whity husband.  He has his full charm on: he cannot help it - he has a soft spot for Pacific-Asian women.  Now he admiringly "complements" the banker-lady for being deceptively tough, i.e. looking pretty and soft, while being steely behind her eyes.  I tense up: here goes seclusive male chauvinism, and you never know how a woman will react to it. 

She handles it beautifully, though:  "Well, you know how it is - brain and beauty combined are lethal."  She turns to me: "Right?"  Well, I wouldn't know - never got a chance to rely on no beauty, just my brain.  But I don't say that.  I just smile. 

I wish my COO would do the same, but he somehow takes it as an invitation for further "admiring."  "Yes, you are absolutely right.  I couldn't put it better myself," and he embarks on telling the bankers how his wife, our CEO, is especially successful in sales because she is a woman who can speak "sweetly on the phone."  He actually uses those words.  "It used to take me," he says, "four phone calls before Dow Chemical would call me back.  But she  sweetly leaves a voice mail and they return her call within 5 minutes!"

He is absolutely overjoyed with pride.  The Korean lady's mouth gets very thin and she looks at me again -we both know: this is how it is.  The men will always find the way to treat us as if we were inferior, whether through insults or with "compliments."

I am disgusted, but I'm willing to dismiss this on the principle "forgive them, for they know not what they do."  And right then he turns his head to me, looks straight into my eyes, and says, "You cannot repeat it outside of this room.  L. always gets very upset when I say this, even though I mean it as a good thing."

Seriously, dude?  You've been warned about it before?  By your wife, who is also your boss?  And what?  You cannot help yourself?  Of course, you cannot, because it's written into your genetic code, like a primal instinct.  And you are too insecure to consciously fight it off!  If it was me...  But she is not me, in many ways she is very different.  And that's why he'd financed this business for her.     

Boss Joke of the Month: Raises and Bonuses

Ah, January!  Traditionally, a month of raises and bonuses!  Or, at least it used to be.  You probably have read many an article and a blog post about the diminishing slew of companies still giving out performance bonuses and/or raises. 

I am not surprised - I am the one always going on and on about the illusional nature of the "economic recovery" tune so "earnestly" whistled by politicians and business media.  Companies, big and small, are struggling left and right.  In the absence of profits, merit is kicked off its, already pathetic, backseat all the way into the trunk: When a company experiences business losses you may need to work twice as hard as you did during more prosperous times, but it will not get you matching rewards.  In fact, big enterprises frequently present their employees with a more contemporary version of a performance reward: take a pay cut or a demotion for the sake of keeping your job.

But not the young company X! 

Company X had difficult 2011 and 2012, experiencing all sorts of growing pains and deformities, but 2013 was, if not a spectacular, but a pretty-pretty good year: the business outperformed its forecaststs both at the Gross and the Net Profit levels.  And so, in accordance with formal evaluations conducted at the end of the year, the Board of Directors decided that effort-based bonuses will be paid and raises will take effect as of January 2014.

Now, like many small and mid-size companies, X uses ADP as their payroll service provider.  So, in order to implement raises, an Administrator has to go into ADP's online system and change employees' pay rates.  X's CFO is very anal about being above suspicions: she has set up the payroll administrative functions in a way that allows her to change everybody's compensation items, except her own.  She left that prerogative to the owner/CEO.

Unfortunately that means getting the boss to do something outside of her comfort zone: Of course, she doesn't remember her login ID and password for the Payroll Administration portal.  Plus, any reminder of the compensation negotiations puts her in a vile mood.  Plus, a rate per pay periods, a special bonus batch...  It's all too much.  Never mind that she only needs to do that for ONE PERSON, her CFO! 

CFO is very aware, though.  She makes it as simple as possible, cutting the instructions for CEO into small pieces and chewing them into a pulp that can be fed through an IV.  She puts it in writing too, via email: 

"My base salary was $A per year.  You gave me a raise of Y%, which amounts to $B.  My new base salary, therefore, is $C per year ($A + $B).  Accordingly, please change my semi-monthly payroll rate from current $a ($A/24) to $c ($C/24).  Thank you."

In two hours our CFO receives CEO's response:

"Dear N,

Please double check your current pay and the number after raise.  Also, I will have to do it on Monday, because I need to leave now to pick up my son."

Really?!  CFO looks at the email and in her mind she imagines writing back something like: "Bitch, are you telling me that I don't know how much you underpay me?  Or that with an MS in Finance, MBA in Accounting, and a PhD in Economics I cannot do simple arithmetic?  And why the fuck I, of all people,  am supposed to wait for my fucking raise?  I just set you up with one, even though my daughter is waiting for me!  What the fuck?!"

But CFO is not writing anything: she knows only too well that CEO didn't mean malice - she is just that stupid, dense, and lazy.  It's insults CFO's intelligence to work for someone like that.  But what are you going do?  At least in this place they give out raises and bonuses. 

Tech-Savvy CFO vs. Technologically Inept Owners: A Boardroom Chronicle

Premise:  

Based on true facts, this present-day farce unfolded right after the company at the center of the story signed a new office lease.  The entity's CEO, an infamous procrastinator and a successful decision-dodger, has delayed the execution of the document to the point when only 60 days remained before the moving-in day.

Up until now, the fairly young business always occupied a full-service furnished office suite, where everything from pen holders to receptionists is supplied by the landlord, including all telecommunications and IT administration.  However, by this point the successful business outgrew the little rooms and the shared common space of the suites - it was time for the company to obtain its own residence.

As all logical people know, lease signing is only the beginning of a relocation process.  A lot of work needs to be done before a company can feel at home and be fully operational in its new place of business.  And nowadays, the IT infrastructure becomes a prerequisite to everything else.

This flat-structured small business has a misfortune of having a board of directors that consists of three technologically clueless owners (the type who cannot connect a printer to a PC) and a CFO.  The latter has been combining her financial and accounting responsibilities with those of a CTO throughout her entire career.  Needless to say, she understands what needs to be done, knows how to go about it (nobody else does in this company), and is more than qualified to make all necessary decisions.  Yet, the Board has a rule: anything that involves spending money must be approved by all four members.

So, here is the chronology of making a single decision under the described circumstances:

Motion 1 - 60 days till D-Day.  Upon receiving the fully executed lease from the lawyers, the CFO writes an eMemo to the owners requesting a Board meeting in order to develop an action plan that would ensure successful and painless relocation.  The plan should assign responsible parties and establish deadlines for each task.

The owners don't acknowledge that the issue was raised and two weeks pass in a complete silence regarding this matter.

(Side Note: All four executives are actually heavily involved in their day-to-day responsibilities.  They communicate extensively every day discussing various commercial concerns, while avoiding difficult extraordinary topics.)

Motion 2 - 46 days till D-Day.  Recognizing that the owners have fallen into their typical pattern of pretending that the problem doesn't exist (this happens every time an issue lies outside of their comfort zone), the CFO makes another attempt to mobilize the Board to set up an action plan.  This time she speaks to each of them in person.  They all nod in agreement - "Tomorrow," they say.  The CFO squeezes a two-hour time slot into her crazy schedule.

Three days pass without anything happening. 

Motion 3 - 43 days till D-Day.  The CFO feels the time pressure - at the very least she must start working on IT components, regardless of the owners' ostrich behavior.  The business will be simply paralyzed without an adequate infrastructure.  She really has no room in her schedule for all research, comparison, and optimization of  various ISPs, telecoms, and IT administrators...  But who else is going to do it?  So, instead of pestering the owners again about the "action plan," she writes a very specific inquiry:  "Please confirm your agreement with my taking charge of the groundwork for obtaining the Internet service, telephony, and IT administration support."  Without waiting for replies, the CFO starts working on the subject of the highest priority, i.e. the Internet connection, by reviewing nine ISPs whose services are available in the new building.    

Motion 4 - 41 days till D-Day.  At different hours, the CFO receives messages from the owners - all three are worded very similarly: "Thank you for asking and forward thinking.  Please go ahead with the projects." She can almost hear their sighs of relief - somebody else has made the decisions for them!!!  The CFO closes her eyes for a second and thinks, "The same shit every time.  I wish at least once I would let things run their course - just to see what would happen if I didn't worry about all of this, if I didn't jump in."

By carving little chunks of time in her schedule to deal with this shit, the CFO manages to come to her final ISP conclusion in 5 business days: to accommodate all of the  company's needs (including VoIP) she needs a reliable fiber-optics broadband.  She narrows down her choices to two ISPs - the award-winning Cogent with dedicated connectivity and Verizon's newest product FiOS Quantum ran through communal cables shared with all other users in the vicinity. 

Motion 5 - 36 days till D-Day.  She immediately gets quotes from both: Cogent values itself highly - $700/month with a three-year contract, plus $1,000 installation fees; Verizon's rate is only $129/month with a two-year contract.  Even with such a disparity in pricing, it's a simple choice as far as the CFO is concerned - she knows that Cogent will provide uber-fast, uninterrupted connection, and if something happens, she can be on the phone with an engineer within 30 seconds.  Verizon, on the other hand...  well, we all dealt with Verizon at one point or another.  Yet, for the owners all this technical staff is as difficult as Icelandic; the huge price difference, however, that's easy.   So, the CFO goes back to Cogent's salesperson and dangles FiOS Quantum at $129/month in front of his nose (virtually, of course).  He is taken aback - he had no clue that Verizon had started offering this brand new service in that building.  He cannot stop himself from uttering, "That's a compelling alternative."  The CFO doesn't dissuade him from this train of thought; she waits.  And he says that he would go to his director and try to get her a better deal.

Motion 6 - Same Day. Cogent wants the business - the salesperson reverts in two hours, dropping the price to $500/month with a three-year contract or $400/month with a four-year contract.  Both rates are exclusive of taxes and charges.  With this reduction in hand, the CFO immediately prepares a presentation for the Board, breaking down her selection process step-by-step and making a strong case for Cogent through detailed comparison and scoring of all providers.  She sends it out to the three owners and requests a board meeting to make the final decision.

Four days of silence passes.  The CFO understands: it's too fucking much for them, they don't want to deal with this, they are hiding.

Motion 7 - 32 days till D-Day. The CFO has no choice but to write to the owners again: "Let me remind you that installing the Internet connection must precede all other IT and telecommunication actions, including setting up the phone system, the computer network, etc. - basically everything that we need for the business's operations.  And it will not happen overnight!"  This gets CEO's attention.  She comes over to the CFO's office and says, "Let's decide by tomorrow the latest."

Two days passes.

Motion 8 - 30 days till D-Day.  One of the owners (already in possession of the previously distributed detailed presentation) sends an inquiry, "Can you make a comparison for me between Cogent and Verizon?" as if he just woke up to the issue. 

Motion 9 - Same Day.  The CFO prepares a simplified comparison chart intended for a 4-year-old audience.  Meanwhile, she tells Cogent that the decision is not settled yet and that she will appreciate if the provider gives up something else - like do away with the $1,000 installation fees and make rates flat, all-inclusive (taxes, charges, etc.)  The salesperson conferences in his Director and they yield.  The CFO simply cannot lose this deal: she goes around and collects the owners' consents in person. 

Motion 10 - 29 days till D-Day.  The CFO signs the contract with Cogent.

Curtains 

And this is just Act I.  Ahead, there are still decisions on a VoIP system, an IT Administration service, furniture, equipment... 

What Do Bosses Know About Their Employees?

Well, it varies from one boss to another, but one thing I can tell you for sure -nobody should ever expect a boss to bother learning who his subordinates are.  I mean as people. 

Yes, some overzealous HR pros in large companies paw through whatever material is made public by the social networking in pursuit of dirt, but  that's just "fact-finding" and gossip-mongering.  No, I am talking about a genuine human interest. 

In most cases there is none.  Watching all sorts of bosses interact with their employees I frequently wonder whether it registers in their heads that they deal with real people.  I think they subconsciously block this tiny detail out, so that they wouldn't feel guilty for being assholes.  So, how can you expect them to notice anything about your personality, if they see you as a cardboard cutout?  They are blind even to the most obvious manifestations of your existence outside of the workplace. 

You may belong to a weekend fight club and come to work every Monday with poorly covered bruises; or aspire to be the greatest drummer of all times and constantly bang your fingers on hard surfaces to some beats in your head; or know everything there is to know about existentialism and talk about it at length during office parties - none of it will be noticed: they see and hear it, but their minds reject it.  For them, you are still just Steve from Logistics, or Mike from Customer Service, or that girl from Accounting. 

Do I know for a fact that this sort of myopia exists?  Yes, I do.  My position as a financial executive and/or consultant allows me to observe various bosses in close proximity.  Over the years, I've collected a huge body of evidence to support my statements here.  But I can also vouch for their validity based on the incidents that involved me personally.  I'm not going to dwell here on the fact that none of my employers ever learned anything of my true motivations, ethical standards, or even why I work so hard and care so much.  Instead, let me share with you an instance of an inexplicable blindness.

I don't ever shove CFO Techniques into people's faces.  Being a book's author barely has any impact on consulting deals and it definitely has nothing to do with my CFO job.  But people do find out on their own: they connect with me on LinkedIn and see it on my profile, or they Google me, or whatever.  Normal people, not bosses.  A company's owner writes an email to one of his strategic financial partners with a copy to me: "Let me introduce our CFO M.G.  From now on, she is taking over all our M&A negotiations."  Apparently the fact that the three of us were at the same table during a corporate function has slipped his remembrance.  As per usual, I simply ignore it.  The external party doesn't:  "Not only that I've met Marina already, but I also keep her book on my desk."  The boss replies, "Oh yeah, I forgot, I introduced you, guys."  You may think that he deliberately ignored the part about the book, but I swear, he is not that devious - he simply blocked it out, didn't see it at all.    

And that's absolutely Ok.  Attentiveness is not a prerequisite to being a business leader and a jobs creator.  I'll take brilliance and perpetual drive to succeed over tact and personal involvement any day.  And I have to be honest - I'm not quite sure if I personally would've been as aware of people around me and familiar with some aspects of their lives if I weren't such an avid, life-long student of behavioral science.  At the end of the day, one can say that my interest is self-serving. 

Of course, sometimes it hurts just a bit that the people, for whom you work so hard, don't even care to learn who you are, but in the grander scheme of things we should not care - as I always say, every job is just another line on your resume.  Moreover, we should be grateful - we don't really want these people to know too much about us or our vulnerabilities.

That said, however, it is still pretty surprising when bosses are confused about most basic, most superficial facts about employees who worked for them for years.  Sometimes it brings about ludicrous, almost sketch-like dialogues.

A tragedy struck one of my subordinates: her Mom, only 55 years old,  died unexpectedly of a heart attack.  The girl has been with the company longer than me; she was originally hired by the CEO at the time when there were no other executive managers in the company at all - just owners and staffers.  The CEO shuffles into my office to reflect on the unfairness of life.

She said, "You know, it's so cruel: Shen's parents were the first-generation immigrants -  worked so hard to provide for the children!  And now, the kids are all grown up, married, educated - it was a time for her Mom to finally enjoy her life, and then this happened.  Just terrible!"

I listened to all that and agreed, "Yes, it's totally fucked up.  With respect to her Mom, it was Shen who was the first-generation immigrant.  Her parents got divorced when she was a little girl.  Shen came here 13 years ago with her farther and she didn't see her Mom for 8 years.  They missed each other terribly.  The girl was able to bring the mother here only after she herself came of age and became a US citizen.  They were together for only 5 years.  The Mom still worked 7 days a week to support herself, and now she is gone."

And here you have it, ladies and gentlemen: a boss's "reality" vs. truth.