The Frustrated CFO

CFO Folklore: The Home Front

I touch on the gender inequality among financial execs once in a while - an obligatory topic for a female CFO/author/blogger.  I mean, everyone writes about it.  Entire institutions and organizations compile sociological studies dealing with these issues.  None of it seems to be creating any changing momentum, but hey, at least someone is willing to pay the researchers their salaries. 

The interesting thing, though, that most of the time these topics (including my earlier posts) deal with the social, rather than practical, aspects of the phenomenon.  People talk about advancement rates, compensation levels, female-to-male executives proportions, etc.  In a very scientific way, we say: all things being equal (education, achievements, intelligence, etc.), women still don't get a fair shake.   And nobody talks about the fact that, on a practical level, things are never equal between men and women, who strive for, or already achieved, top job positions.

First of all, women by nature are more conscientious and responsible than men.  That is why we have higher percentage of female straight "A" students both in high schools and colleges (yet, there are more male valedictorians!).  Secondly, women know only too well that they are at disadvantage due to the simple fact that they are not men.  That makes them work ten times harder than any man in their position would.  So, in truth they get rewarded at lower rates not for the equally good work, but for the job done much better.

But the biggest practical inequality occurs on the executive's home front.  I remember having a friendly airplane conversation with my CEO, on our way to a meeting in Germany.  At one point he said that I was the hardest working person he knew besides him - he honestly believed that he worked as hard as I did.  Of course, he was talking about the job itself.  Well, I thought that even at that I worked much harder (I did not take Friday's off during summers), but I chose to turn to more obvious facts of life.

I asked, " Who prepares your suit, shirt and tie for tomorrow every evening?"  "My wife," he said.  "We frequently work until 9 or 10 pm, is the dinner ready, when you come home?" "Yes."  "Who writes checks?  Who deals with repairmen?  Who talks to teachers?  Who buys groceries? Who takes kids to the doctors'?"  "The wife" was the answer to all the questions.  "Now, who do you think does all that in my home?"  

He knew the answer, of course.  So, every day I was working my executive job, let's say, just as hard as he did, plus his wife's job.  And that's true for most of female CFOs, whether married or single, with or without children. 

Look, how many unmarried male CFOs or Controllers you know?  I don't know any.  Even if their wives leave them, they get remarried very quickly - someone needs to take care of the home front.

On the other hand, a woman expected either to give up her personal life for the career, or hide it away, as if she does not have any.  It is especially true for those female executives who work in small and midsize companies - the salaries are not large enough to afford a Mr. Mom of a husband.  So, we are talking inequality cubed: the majority of women work harder, plus cover the home front (or give up life outside of the job), and still get paid and promoted on a much smaller scale. 

Here is the funny part.  At the end my boss asked, "How come you still read more than I do and go to the theater all the time?"  "Because I don't sleep," I answered.

Life's Mind Tricks

When I was a senior in high school and it became apparent that I will not be allowed to become a theater theorist, a cultural critic, or an art historian, and would have to settle for something more practical like finance or engineering, I went to see my history teacher to pour my frustration on her metaphorical shoulder.  And it was just that - a metaphor: I was upset, but I was not going to cry.  The roots of the tough Frustrated CFO that I am now were already forming then.  No, I was not planning on shedding a tear over it.

I wasn't, but the teacher cried.  This hard core, no bullshit lady couldn't stop crying.  I made tea, put it in front her, and asked, what made her so upset.  She replied that these were tears for my mind.  She got me slightly worried, not for my mind, but for hers.  What was she implying?  That the forced career choice will make me crazy?

When she calmed down, she explained her empirical theory that, regardless of your natural intellectual inclination, your occupation (note the key word - it occupies you!) little by little changes your brain; reshapes it comply with the job requirements.  She said, "If you are going to count money and look at numbers 60 hours a week, it will change you forever.  Your mind will never be able to respond to a movie, a play, a piece of music or art, the same way it can now."

"It will never happen to me!!!" - that was my answer.  And I can proudly say, it didn't.  Through MBA, PhD in Economics, and over 20 years in accounting and finance, somehow, I retained my ability of unadulterated absorption of any artistic expression.  Don't get me wrong - my profession affected many sides of my personality, and not in a good way, but somehow I retained the sensitivity to the arts.  Maybe I subconsciously resisted the alteration of the mind because I was warned?  Who knows?  But, I am a rare exception.  Years of observing other people proved to me that my old history teacher's theory was correct.  Life does play tricks with most people's intellect. 

A month or so ago I attended a philanthropic event headlined by Andrew Bird.  I really love his eclectic music that combines classical technique with rock-n-roll melodic structure and folky stylistics.  It always has a tremendous emotional impact on me.

I was there with a group of people, some of them big time art philanthropists, including one hedge-fund guy, who supports many art organizations in NYC and around the country.  In his youth he was a follower of the Great French Mime and a member of a street performing group, but then Life called him away to become a multi-millionaire.  He never saw Andrew Bird before and after the concert talked to me about him.

The first thing he said was, "What a technical range!"  Considering that my heart was just shredded into pieces by the beauty of the performance, I was secretly taken aback by such cold, mechanistic assessment.  Then he picked my brain about the artist's career, and I relayed how he was classically trained as a child, but lost all his fancy scholarships as soon as he made a shift to rock.  The response was, "I'd say, he's done well for himself, regardless."

And that's how I was reminded about my old history teacher's theory again.  Youthful artistic endeavours - that was all in the past.  Now, the cold mind of the big-money-maker cannot absorb the emotional outpouring of the musician he just heard!  He reacts with "Professional skills!  Career achievement!"  His mind is twisted towards that train of thought and there is nothing anybody can do about that.

The Frustrated CFO Takes Lessons from Robert McKee

Human beings are like sponges - the second we are born we start acquiring general knowledge of things from everything around us.  It is a natural process. 

When it comes to intellectual knowledge, however, we tend to make our own choices.  Some people read Pynchon, others prefer Sports Illustrated.  Some go to see Black Swan, while others would never miss a new Transformers installment. 

It gets even more selective for specialized knowledge -  higher education, professional publications, technical books, etc.  Even with the subjects of human psychology, relationships, our understanding of the world around us (all frequently featured in The Frustrated CFO's posts), people are more likely to go for books written by "specialists." 

But the truth is that the nature of human interactions and the principles of emotional response to life do not change from industry to industry and from trade to trade. They are universal and I have learned long time ago that the knowledge of things pertaining to human experience can come to us from anywhere.  There is a reason I frequently present my topics by referring to books, TV programs and movies - the best examples of these art forms pursue the truth of life; that is why we can relate.

Those who have seen Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman's "Adaptation" may remember the screenwriting guru character played by Brian Cox.  Well, he is a real person - one of the best theoretician's of creative writing in the world Robert McKee.  After several decades of writing for theater and television, Mr. McKee found his true calling in formulating a set of fundamental principles for compelling storytelling, which became the framework of his world-touring STORY seminar.   He also compiled them into a bestselling book by the same name.

I happened to know a young screenwriter who attended McKee's seminar twice and described it as a life-changing experience - not just as a writer, but as a human being.  You see, Robert McKee teaches how movies should be written so that they penetrate straight into the audience's soul.  So, inevitably he touches on the subjects that reach far beyond cinematic matters.  That, together with the fact that his films recommendation list pretty much matches my own roster of favorites, persuaded me to buy his STORY book.

What can I tell you?  This is a very brilliant man.  Anyone who loves movies should read this book...  And everyone who considers himself a student of human nature should read this book.  It is impossible to convey all the wisdom Robert McKee generously shares, but his study of "the principle of antagonism" is particularly invaluable.  

He goes beyond the conventional knowledge that antagonistic conflicts are at the basis of existence (and a story, of course).  He concludes that there are three primary antagonistic forces for any positive value, progressing from contrary to contradictory to "the Negation of the Negation," which, unlike in math where two negatives make a positive, is "a force of antagonism that's doubly negative."  

He further constructs illustrative charts for such values as love, truth, consciousness, wealth, communication, success, bravery, loyalty,  justice, wisdom, and freedom.  I find the last three absolutely universal and applicable to many conflicts we encounter both in our professional and personal lives.  They are reproduced below.  It's mesmerizing: you look at them and it's like a reel of your life's events, fitting perfectly into these diagrams, unspools in front of your eyes.

Book Recommendation: "The Imperfectionists"

Tom Rachman's "The Imperfectionsts" have received the most glowing literary reviews for a debut novel I've ever encountered.  It is, indeed, a wonderful book.  Maybe one day, I will switch to cultural critique and start writing belletristic essays about artistic qualities of creative endeavors.

For now, though, this is a blog for working stiffs, primarily those operating in entrepreneurial environment with all its quirks, disadvantages, vulnerabilities, strange dynamics and faulty objectives.  Unexpectedly, in addition to its novelistic value, "The Imperfectionists" had something remarkable to offer from that standpoint as well.  Its setting, "the paper," is a microcosm of the small-business universe.  The book dissects extremely personal matters of human misery; and the author appears to be digging deep into his first-hand experience with actual people, whose traits fed his imagination.  Yet, these characters turned out to be a surprising array of archetypes we meet everyday in our offices.

You've got a backstabbing bully, who uses the little authority his position allows him to doll out misery to others and boost his own ego by spewing teasing insults.  You've got a quiet schemer, who hides behind the wall of seeming indifference, while devising and implementing his intricate plan of revenge and ascension.

You've got your driven career woman who will sacrifice everything, including her own happiness, in the pursuit of what she defines as success.  And you've got a perfectionist with encyclopedic knowledge of all matters related to his profession and ambition of high quality.

You've got your obsessive-compulsive sloppy staffer, who has been there for twenty years, still as mediocre as ever and ridden with fears of dismissal, displaying the full spectrum of passive-aggressive behavior.  And so on, and so forth...

There is even a painfully familiar female CFO who thinks that the other employees "can't accept that she's young and a woman and above them in the food chain.  But she's the one keeping them employed."  Sounds familiar?

And yes, there is the expected succession of private owners: from the brilliant founder; to the son, desperately trying to prove his worthiness, but failing exactly because of that; to the completely disinterested and unfit grandson.  None ever caring about people they employ and at the end betraying their own legacy.

The business is small, struggling in the era of media transformation, dying...  I was astonished with Mr. Rachman's description of the strange sensation overwhelming the employees when they realize  that this stage of their lives is over - I have observed these emotions in people's eyes myself: "All these years, they have vilified the paper, but now it's threateining to quit them, they're desperately in love with it again."

Isn't this amazing that inside a very private book we still find characters so familiar, we recognize them as if they were our co-workers and, in some ways, ourselves.  What does it say about us?  Is it possible that with all our uniqueness and human individuality, when it comes to our jobs, we just fall into the draws of files organized by type?

Politics & Promotions: Gil Grissom vs. Conrad Ecklie

  I cannot really call myself a CSI fan.  I think in eleven years they've released over 250 episodes (!) and I watched maybe 25 or so.  It was enough to familiarize myself with the protagonists and even the first level of secondary characters.  Their dynamics piqued my interest.

After all, the Crime Lab is a workplace and many actors on the show portray co-workers.  Even though they are government employees, the operational localization makes CSI and the human conflicts within similar to a small business.

One antagonistic relationship between two characters I consider archetypal.  It is applicable to any workplace. I am talking about professional devotion  vs. careerism as represented by graveyard shift supervisor Gil Grissom on one side and Conrad Ecklie on the other side.   

It is not that Ecklie is a complete professional failure or a wicked person.  Not the sharpest pencil in the box or the most advanced scientist around, he is good enough.  He is spiteful, but not diabolically evil. He puts all animosity aside when Nick Stokes is in trouble (in the episode conceived and directed by Quentin Tarantino).  Still, his priorities are clear and they have nothing to do with being the best at what he does.  His ambitions are all about getting ahead in the organizational structure, and he will do whatever it takes to achieve that.

On the other hand, Grissom is a brilliant scholar whose life's purpose is to never stop learning.  The puzzle of crime investigation is his passion.  His rise to the shift supervisor position had occurred without his doing anything but the best job he could. 

In one of the episodes I've seen, this exchange between the two took place:

Ecklie:        "You kept the sheriff out of the loop, that's a career killer."

Grissom:    "That's your problem, Eckley, you view it as a career."

And that says it all.  So, what happens?

Ecklie consistently rises from dayshift supervisor, to Assistant Director to the Undersheriff of LVPD.   Grissom, even though a PhD and a star in his field, holds the same title leading his team until he retires and goes to Paris to teach in Sorbonne.

Obviously, I feel very strongly about this issue - I despise self-promoting careerists who climb up the ranks not because they are the best at what they do, but because they don't step on anyone's toes and know which ass to kiss at the right moment.  You, with all your knowledge, intellect and diligence have no chance against them.  If promotions and bigger salaries are rewards and it's the mediocre Ecklies who succeed, it means that the merit based system fails.

Whatever was the real reason for William Petersen's departure from the show, the viewers are to believe that Grissom is happier now.  But he did leave the job, to which he devoted a big chunk of his life.  And so did I - at one point in my career I left a job I liked because someone else undeservedly got ahead of me.  It wasn't easy.

 

Female CFOs and Controllers: Are We Equal?

March 8th, 2011 marked the 100th Anniversary of International Women's Day.  

I have to confess my aversion to such holidays.  Why do we need designated days to appreciate mothers, fathers, love, Earth, women?  It's like we treat them badly all year long and then try to make up for it in a single day. 

The Women's Day also troubles me because of its Socialist origins.  However, it provides an opportunity to raise issues of social and professional inequality.  If we have to choose between one day of awareness vs. none, of course, one is a better choice. 

Especially, if A-list stars like Daniel Craig and Judi Dench commemorate it with a video for Equals? partnership.  Watch it: Dame Judi spends two minutes reciting statistics of global-scale injustice.  It's important, but may create an illusion of remoteness.  When she says that women perform 2/3 of work, but earn only 10% of income and own 1% of property, surely, it accounts for all those "other" countries. 

Well, are we equal to our male counterparts here, in corporate America? 

Let's see.  The pay gap is still 19%.  Let me spell it out: a female CFO or Controller will make 81 cents against a dollar earned by a man in the same position.  Among the Fortune 500 companies,  only 9% of CFOs are female.  The same goes for Midcap 1500...  Enough of this lifeless statistical data.  Let me pull few examples out of my personal experience folder.

The brightest auditor I've known was assigned to my books by the CPA firm I've engaged about eight years ago.  Every time I praise her to the senior partner, he tells me that she knows ten times more than he does.  At one point I asked, when she was going to make a partner?  The answer was, "Well, the company never had a female partner before..."    

For many years I've been invited to participate in executive focus groups.  Banks are particularly interested in researching opinions of CFOs, Controllers and Treasurers.  There is never more than 25% of women in a group.  Once, when the subject was Board of Directors' accounting awareness, I was the only female participant.

Speaking of BODs, during internet bubble I worked for a high-tech start-up backed by venture capital.  The investors had their hands in a lot of businesses, which forced them onto a merry-go-round of board meetings.  They were freshly surprised every time I presented monthly results.  All other investees had male CFOs.

Five years ago I was asked by my boss to give up my CFO office for a newly hired COO.  What made this person more important than me?  Nothing at all, except for his gender.  The boss said, "I just cannot put him into a smaller office."  Really?  This big shot spent most of his time just staring out of the window.

Notice how cleverly the Equals? video is set up: even though M is 007's boss, she would never get away with shenanigans that make James Bond so endearing to the world.  So, no, we are not equal. 

 

CFO Folklore: My Personal Mantra

In my earlier post Why Do I Work So Hard? I talked extensively about conscientious attitude towards my CFO responsibilities.  However, time and again I find myself worrying about matters, which are not really under my direct control: lazy marketing people, self-serving sales force, inept operations, and (again and again) bosses who constantly jeopardize their own business.

And it's not just me.  There are a lot of people in my network, who display the same level of care.  We frequently become each others' sounding boards when the angst gets too overwhelming.

So, here we are at lunch.  My friend JM ranting about VP of Ops fighting with his girlfriend on the phone for three hours, while the production manager was waiting for him.  I am sharing the pains of trying to catch the President to release a $1M wire transfer and his dodging me because "he had enough for the day."

And it's not like we don't have anything else to discuss.  Most of my business acquaintances are entertaining individuals.  JM, for example, has an incredible sense of humor.  I am a theater and foreign cinema fanatic.  Somehow, my banking relations are all classical music buffs.  We all read Jonathan Franzen and Michael Cunningham.

And yet, we talk about problems at work every chance we get.  Most people, when they stop for a second and think about it, get very angry and frustrated with themselves.  Frequently at the end of these conversations I hear, " I don't own this business.  It is not my fuck up.  Am I supposed to butt in on other people's responsibilities? Why do I even care?"

Me? I don't get frustrated about my caring so much.  And I tell my concerned peers that they shouldn't get upset with themselves either.  You see, years ago I figured out that the conscientious working attitude, the ambition to succeed, the striving for merit-based rewards and the care for the entire business - they all go together.  They are inseparable qualities and indifference doesn't fit into the picture.  If this is who you are, you will always care.  

Moreover, in small business environment, this very combination of qualities is what brought you to where you are.  This is what separates you from others.  This is what got you into the CFO or Controller chair with the correspondent salary and perks attached, which, in their turn, define your living standards. 

So, I've created myself a mantra: I CAN'T SURVIVE ON "I DON'T CARE."  

There is a compensation threshold, which, when crossed, brings you into the stage of your professional life, where hardworking people care about the well-being of their employers.  I'd say right now it's somewhere around $70K a year.   At $200K a year, you either care a whole lot, or you are a fraud, or you are working for a big-size mastodon.  So, ask yourself, "Can I survive on a $70K salary?"  And if you can, go for it - not caring is a bliss.

Bean Counters vs Breadwinners

I hope my fellow CFOs and Controllers don't mind my calling us "bean counters."  After all, I am one of them and, hence, it's Ok.  It's like with all derogatory terminology - if you belong to the group, you are allowed to use it.  And if that name-calling has upset you, beware - this is just a beginning.

The truth is, many of my peers are just that - the bean counters limited to their narrowly defined tasks, thus contributing to the frequently observed conflict between finance and accounting on one side and the revenue generators on the other.  Both sides have to tolerate each other, but it is a precarious armistice. 

CFOs and Controllers think that sales and operational people don't work too hard, while getting high performance-based compensation.  They are loud and overconfident, while not necessarily well educated and intellectual.  They are never in the office, taking long lunches with customers and prospects.  When they are in the office, they are on the phone most of the time.  They take paid trips to foreign lands and get car allowances for their domestic travels.  They jeopardize the company's well-being with their grandiose "strategic" deals that end up losing money.  Most importantly, they wouldn't be able to do anything without our funding their transactions, controlling their profits, calculating their commissions and reporting their results.

On the other hand,  VP of Sales and COOs think that they are the moving gears of the company.  They despise the bean counters for stifling their "important" deals with "useless" profitability criteria, for knowing how much money they make and for suspecting that there is nothing behind the confident appearance - just the rolodex and lots of air.  Most importantly, they feel that their unique ability to bring business is not respected enough.  Money is not everything, you know.      

The fact is, however, that a sales (or procurement, or operations, or trading,) ace does possess a truly unique ability to generate revenue with skills that frequently have nothing to do with education, professionalism, or intellectual expertise.  There is a reason you don't need a college degree to obtain trading, brokerage, insurance, or real estate licenses.  You definitely don't need an MBA to become a VP of Sales.  These jobs require intuitive abilities and social skills of a very special sort.  Trust me, not too many people are born with those talents.   The real great ones are quite rare. 

It must be said that I am one of the few CFOs who always support the people responsible for bringing business to the company, even if they don't like me.   Many of my colleagues forget that all our functions are secondary and subservient.  Everything that we do either facilitates the breadwinners' success (and failure) or reports it.  That's all. 

Without them I wouldn't have my job.   They are the ones responsible for generating enough dough to cover my salary, benefits and bonuses.  And if I could do what they can, I would have. 

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.

The Curse of Private Business: Nepotism

My friend, a fellow career CFO and frequent correspondent, MJZ urges me to write on nepotism. Her acute sensitivity to the subject is understandable: over the years, she's had more than a few encounters with this practice and I intend to use some of those shared with me as examples.

The dictionary gives a definition of nepotism as "the practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs." Nowadays, a lot of people confuse nepotism with networking. Let me correct them. Circulating a resume of someone you know because you can attest to their professional achievements is not nepotism, but a favor to those seeking good people to hire. If you do the same for someone who is a poor worker and a nitwit, it's not nepotism either, it's just your own stupidity. Merit is the key.

The people who mistake networking for nepotism also miss an important element of the definition - "those with power." In monarchical states and dictatorships (such as Kim dynasty's North Korea) the passage of power from parents to children is a given. And in my post on The Distortion of the Bill of Rights in closely-held businesses, I have pointed out that these companies are not democracies, but absolute monarchies. Yet many of us, who still crave the illusion of meritocracy, still cringe at the unfairness of the "family" business arrangements.

It's not always that nepotism has a poor impact on business. For example, it would be a great relief for the media world if strangely progressive Lachlan Murdoch, son of Rupert, got a chance to  overhaul his father's empire. His departure from News Corporation has only deepened the company's regress. However, that's a rare exception: 99.99% of nepotism cases are bad both for commerce and morale.

In her early career, MJZ held a Controller position in a manufacturing and distribution company. She was responsible for all accounting, trade finance, and credit functions. As the matter of fact, she was the one who transitioned them from manual into computerized accounting. She was revered by the business owner. But when his daughter with a marketing degree hit the ceiling in her career at now defunct telecom company, MJZ's job went to her. The company went out of business within a year.

At her more recent job, MJZ had to suffer an onslaught of owners' children (all recent college graduates) being appointed as Presidents of the company's subsidiaries. As the conglomerate's CFO, she was forced to educate them, tolerate their shortcomings and listen to her peers and middle managers complaining about the kids' laziness, time in the office they spent on personal matters, and unlimited PTO. These stupid people made a terribly destructive impact on the business.  Yet, MJZ was unable to voice her opinion, because, say it with me, there is no such a thing as Freedom of Speech in a place of one's employment.

Curiously enough, the industry where nepotism is the most prevalent is the one that suffers the most from the lack of fresh talent - the entertainment business. But that's a subject for other posts.