Tomorrow By Design

Many people confuse Accounting with Finance. Most people in the business world know the difference, but, in my experience, most people lump them together as “people who deal with money.” While they both do deal with money, that’s where the similarities tend to end.

Accountants track money and classify transactions. We figure out how the puzzle pieces all stick together. One of the reasons accountants aren’t very highly regarded in businesses is that we don’t often make money. We can save money in some instances, and we’re responsible for reporting information, but the decisions we are responsible for is oftentimes tangential to the actual business purpose.

Those in the finance world live by an entirely different set of rules. They speak the language of money as well, but in a different dialect: they make it. They make it in any way they can, repackaging it in stocks, bonds, options, derivatives, and all different kinds of forms that boggle the average person’s mind. They skim money off the top of every transaction, they come up with advanced mathematical models to maximize their return, and, in some cases, they just cheat people.

Supposedly, when these finance guys do cheat, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) is supposed to catch and prosecute them. They’re the main government watchdog set up to ensure that the massive amounts of money flowing through the financial markets is handled legally. Set up in the wake of the stock market crash in the Great Depression era, they were supposed to make sure investors were protected. Not necessarily from the normal market fluctuations — nobody can be protected from those — but from those bad guys that wouldn’t follow the rules.

No One Would Listen is about the failure of the SEC to actually do its job and, as a result, losing investors money to the tune of $40 billion. For those of you that may not recognize that number, it’s the result of over two decades of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. It ended up taking money from hedge funds and individual investors around the world and, true to the Ponzi scheme modus operandi, never ended up actually investing it. Instead, it simply paid inflated returns year after year out of the money that it took in. The ability of Madoff to continue to yield these high returns relied on new cash coming in continually.

The author, Harry Markopolos, tried to warn the SEC that something was wrong with Madoff. He made something like five submissions to the SEC as he pursued Madoff and pointed out the discrepancies in his plans. Unfortunately, nobody listened, and the scheme persisted for two decades, growing all the while.

The book itself details Mr. Markopolos’s plight as he seeks to warn the SEC of impending doom. As a financial analyst himself, he was more than happy to show that steady returns month after month, even when the stock or options market tumbled, were impossible. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until the real estate market burst and Madoff ran out of money that Markopolos’ fears were validated.

The book, while accessible to many without a financial background, is very poorly written. The myriad of spelling and grammatical errors cry out for the hand of a good editor. The author comes across as eccentric, egotistical, and at many times petulant. Although this look at his inner psyche may be revealing, it doesn’t make for very involved reading.

I found myself skimming the last half of the book because it was simply the same information rehashed again and again. Markopolos was understandably upset with the SEC and does not hesitate to show it in his writing. Although he includes an appendix that details his plan to revamp the SEC — and reveals that he may have been on the short list to head the SEC at one point — his continued anger and resentment is palpable.

Overall, the book is a good insight into the seedier side of Wall Street. However, if you’re interested in the details of Bernie Madoff’s scheme, the Wikipedia article is probably a much better place to start.

I recently retrieved Free from its dusty spot on my toilet (it’s my favorite spot for books that I want to read but haven’t quite gotten to yet). As I was reading through it, a portion about how something being “free” affects our psychology really affected me. It stated that eliminating a price eliminates people’s intrinsically human fear of making the wrong decision. If something is even 1 cent, according to Dan Ariely, it triggers a fear of what the consequences may be.

It’s an interesting thought, isn’t it? It’s something that I can certainly stand behind, as I tend to think about the consequences of spending my money pretty heavily.

It’s funny to me how this represents a weird kind of dichotomy. My gut reaction upon reading this was to think “man, if this is triggering some kind of fear in me, I should figure out how to eliminate as many decisions as possible.”

That’s really only one piece of the puzzle, though.

Let’s swing to the opposite end of the spectrum: what happens if we don’t have any choice? We start resenting it and we start not caring. Think about all those community college dropouts that don’t care about their education.

So it seems like there are different categories of choices. There are those that really don’t matter, yet still exact a toll on us. They take up time, worrying etc. Then there’s another category, those that matter: these are the things we should worry about. We have to make those choices — otherwise, they may not matter enough or they may not really represent where we want our lives to go.

I think that, in my life at least, I’m way too worried about that first category – the category that doesn’t matter. Or, I should say, I put too many things that should be in the first category into the second “necessary” category. The chances of me not being happy with something are actually pretty damn low. I’m happy with most everything. So why in the world am I worrying so much about it?

I really need to stop worrying so much.

The following book review appeared in the Tuesday, November 30, 2010 edition of The Daily Sundial:

What would you do if a lanky ex-con walked into your office, plopped down on a chair, and proceeded to tell you that he had raped and murdered a high school cheerleader – and that, worst of all, someone else was going to die for his sins? In “The Confession,” John Grisham’s latest legal thriller, a humble small town minister is vaulted into a battle against time as he seeks to clear the name of Donte Drumm, a high school football player sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit.

While Grisham focuses on a few main characters, including Keith Richards, the minister, and Travis Boyette, the repenting ex-con, other characters are introduced at timely intervals throughout the story. There’s Donte Drumm, the aforementioned black high school football player who confesses to murder under the extreme interrogation techniques of the white, corrupt local police. Despite a complete lack of physical evidence and a proven romantic link between the prosecutor and the presiding judge, Donte is sentenced to death.

After wasting away physically and mentally for years on Death Row, his time is up: the execution is scheduled mere days away and the last minute appeals have all been denied. Unbeknownst to him, his only hope is Boyette’s confession and, even then, the confession may not be enough to stop the execution. There’s also Donte’s dedicated legal team, including his fiery defense attorney Robbie Flak. After trying for almost a decade to exonerate Donte, Flak proves to be so jaded that he refuses to hear Boyette’s confession. The clock continues to tick as the minister and his ex-con cargo race across state lines to save Donte.

These characters serve as Grisham’s soapbox on which to preach. While there are a variety of characters, many of them serve as merely faces for stereotypes: the minister conflicted about the “right thing to do”; the ex-con with a cane, a twitch, and a history of sexual abuse; the mother of the murdered cheerleader who soaks up all media attention; the corrupt racist lawyers and police that lock up an innocent boy; and even the bloodthirsty Governor of Texas that is willing to kill someone for an uptick in approval ratings. These one-dimensional aspects, however, are often unimportant as Grisham continues to weave an engrossing tale. The book’s four hundred pages start flying by as all you want to see is Drumm go free, the bad people pay for their sins, and the world to prove itself as an orderly and just place.

Having debuted as the number one best seller on the New York Times Best Seller’s list and sticking in the top three for the past three weeks, there is no doubt that Grisham continues his blockbuster record with “The Confession.” It is easy to see why his books, such as “The Firm,” are so easily adapted to the big screen: Grisham’s masterful writing keeps you on the edge of the seat from start to finish. Even the ending of “The Confession,” which stretches slightly longer than is typical, is gripping. For those readers that hate not knowing what happened to each and every character – “good” or “bad” – this book will definitely leave you with a good taste in your mouth. The last fifty pages are dedicated solely to giving a rundown of what happened to each character.

Ultimately, “The Confession” presents little new in the way of a unique storyline. However, the story is told extremely well and is quite enjoyable. Grisham does a fantastic job of shedding light on the legal machinations behind the death penalty, including some of their gaping flaws. As “Aesop’s Fables” has shown us for millennia, sometimes it takes a good story to really drive a point home.

The following book review appeared in the Daily Sundial on November 2, 2010. I volunteered to do book reviews for the newspaper (on campus) gratis because, well, it’s obvious that I don’t have enough to do. There will be another one appearing next Tuesday, December 30, on John Grisham’s The Confession, which I’ll be sure to cross-post here. The tone of these articles is markedly different from those appearing only on my blog, as they are for a wider audience.

Shallow Characters, Ambitious Timeline

For his latest epic novel, “Fall of Giants,” British author Ken Follett set himself an ambitious goal: write an engrossing, somewhat historical account of the events of the early 20^th century.  “Fall of Giants” is the first book of Follett’s Century Trilogy which covers the events of the 1900s and continues the author’s tradition of conveying history through fiction. Currently sitting at number two on the New York Times Best Sellers List, where it has been in attendance for the past three weeks, it seems as though Follett has achieved his goals.

For anyone whose eyes glaze over at the mere thought of “historical fiction” and has horrifying flashbacks of high school history class, don’t worry. “Fall of Giants” is, at its core, an entertaining read that weaves the lives of people from various backgrounds into historical context. Aided somewhat by the size of the book – weighing in at 958 pages – Follett introduces characters ranging from rich English nobility to a Welsh mining family, German diplomats, Russian orphans, and a host of other supporting characters. These viewpoints include Earl Fitzherbert, “Fitz,” a dashing young aristocrat that seduces and impregnates Ethel Williams, the fiery daughter of a local coal miner; Fitz’s sister Maud, a champion for women’s suffrage that falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a German diplomat that must leave her to join the war effort; and Grigori Peshkov, a Russian peasant who becomes a leader in the Bolshevik Revolution. Their stories start in 1911 and continue until the end of the book in 1924, where they will be picked up and continued in the next books.

Despite the variety of backgrounds – or maybe because of it – the characters in “Fall of Giants” come across as rather shallow. The book follows them through the eruption of the European continent in World War I, the Zimmerman telegraph that got the United States involved in the war, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and everything in between. However, the story is often told in a dull monotone. Horrible tragedies and heroic triumphs garner little attention from the author before moving halfway across the continent to another outlook. The second half of the book has several chapters that contain little more than paragraphs that start “The next day…” and spout historical facts that have little to do with the ongoing story. When it comes down to it, there is just not that much excitement that can be squeezed out of a war that mainly consisted of trench warfare.

At times, Follett seems to attempt to make up for this inability to write engaging dialogue by throwing in gratuitous sex scenes. While some of these are the natural culmination of two love interests expressing their desires for each other, often the erotic couplings serve only as a few paragraphs of distraction from the monotonous daily life of the early 1900s.

In spite of these literary quirks, the story told in “Fall of Giants” does cover a lot of ground. The author manages to blend his characters into most of the major points of history between 1911 and 1924. All of the major battles and events that you may recognize from those required history classes are told from a viewpoint that is unique and human, unlike the boring repetition of facts found in most history books. Using the benefit of a hundred years of hindsight, the author tells both sides of the story in a way that portrays World War I as the frustrating, needless clash of troops that it was. While there is no overt commentary, the historical perspective highlights just how easily small misconceptions and bruised egos can have a devastating effect on the lives of millions of people.

By the end of “Fall of Giants,” the characters have gone through enough trials and tribulations that you really are interested in seeing how things turn out for them – just in time for the book to end. For those hoping to see how the characters fare in the second World War, the second book of the trilogy is due out in 2012.

I remember sitting through “Recruiting Boot Camp” a mere 3 months ago. Up in front of the classroom were some of my peers telling about their experiences going through recruiting for internships. “Be careful,” they said, “going through recruiting is like a full time job.”

Oh how I should have heeded those words. I thought I would be okay since I cut back my hours at work to three days a week. I was only taking four classes, after all, right? However, after resume workshops, mock interviews, application deadlines, on-campus interviews, pre in-house dinners, in-house interviews, after-interview lunches and dinners — I can safely say that I didn’t have any idea what I was getting into. Thankfully my work has been blessedly flexible, allowing me to work an average of two days a week – and often skipping out early on those meager days.

For all that, I wouldn’t change it for the world. The recruiting process is your chance to stand up and show yourself off. It’s a great learning experience that teaches you as much about yourself as it does about the firm. It lets you answer those nagging questions like “how would I act in in a room full of people I don’t know,” “what am I going to say when they ask all these behavioral questions,” and, eventually, “what do I value in a firm that I want to work for?”

I was surprised in a couple of my interviews when the interviewer confessed that they didn’t believe that the standard interview told you must about a person. After going through them, I agree. It’s a lot like dating:

1. You chat someone up amiably (Meet the Firms) and you get their number (business card)
2. You fret anxiously as to how long to wait to call and what to say (application/cover letter)
3. You call them and (invariably) get voice mail (that interminable wait until you get the on-campus invitation)
4. You put on your Sunday best and double and triple think every possible thing that could happen and go on the first date (on-campus interview)
5. Round 2 (of many) of fretting anxiously to see if you can get another date (after on-campus interview).
6. You get a second date (in-house) and are told that this will be longer and harder like the first. You’re meeting her friends and family, so you have to be on your best behavior.
7. You survive the test and are rewarded with a kiss for your success (post in-house lunch).
8. She calls you to see if you want to do something (offer letter). At the same time, hopefully, you’re getting calls from her three other drop-dead gorgeous siblings that want to take you out too.
9. ???
10. Accept offer.

Step 9 is where it gets murky. At this point, you’ve been wined and dined (although you’ve probably got more coming), and the ball is in your court. In my example, there are four ladies after your heart and each of them are similar (being of the same heritage) but different (being of different character). How do you choose?

No matter how you chop it, it’s a pretty good situation to be in. Having multiple offers makes it tough to choose, but it’s always better to have the choice than to not have the choice. It gives you power; not necessarily the power to negotiate a higher salary or anything like that, but power to choose what’s right for you, not what’s right for them.

My decision was agonizingly difficult, then surprisingly easy. The thing that mattered to me in the end was where I think I would be a good fit. For me, that was KPMG. It was an easy choice. However, if you ever find yourself in my position, here are some things that helped me (and may help you too):

• Take any notion of “pro” and “con” and throw them out the window. I can’t count how many people told me to do this and I refused. It’s worthless – I’ve never seen or heard of anyone that was able to write out pros/cons and make their decision based on it. Anyone that does ends up regretting it and second-guessing their choice. You’re weighing arbitrary attributes with arbitrary values and end up with an arbitrary rating that will just further confuse you.
• Reaching out to people is all well and good, but the decision is up to you in the end. A ton of people will ask you what’s going on in your head. You’ll want to ask a ton of people what they think you should do. Trust me, it won’t help. You know what helped me? Finding someone that knew nothing about Accounting or the Big Four and explaining the whole situation to them. For me, that was my dad. I went through and told him about the whole process, the industry, and described the firms that I had gotten offers from. By the end of the discussion – even before any back-and-forth about what each firm offered, he said “Well, it sounds like you’ve made your decision. Let me know if you change your mind.” I hadn’t told him which one I wanted — or even that I hadn’t chosen one, yet he knew just from my descriptions which one I really wanted.
• Realize that any choice that you make, it will still be up to you to make it a place you want to be. The firm does not cater to you. Trying to change the firm to your tastes will be like Sysiphus all over again. Try to choose the firm that will make the best fit for you, but realize you’re still going to have to work to make it a place you enjoy working.
• Once you realize that a logical decision (pros/cons) isn’t going to make you happy, and that you’re still going to have to make yourself fit the firm, the choice really boils down to what will make you happy. This is different for everyone, but for me it was the people. I walked away with every interaction with KPMG people with a smile on my face and an aura of excitement that I didn’t feel anywhere else. I’d like to say that it took a lot of introspection and reflection to figure that out, but it didn’t. KPMG — and the thought of working for KPMG — put a smile on my face. Easy peezy.

I remember remarking to a friend a few months ago that there doesn’t seem to be any time to sit down and talk anymore. Remember those days back in high school where you could call anyone, anytime, and have a heart to heart discussion on anything? Of course, in those high school days, the topic of conversation was more likely to be about the latest movie than the philosophies of life, but it still happened on occasion.

The Saturday seminar on leadership that I’ve been attending seems like it solves that problem: from 12 to 2 on Saturdays, I can guarantee that I will be surrounded with 15 or so other motivated, diverse people that will talk about interesting stuff. It’s like being part of a hand-picked think thank except the issue that we’re thinking about is, quite often, leadership. It’s “facilitated” by our “guru” (my own choice of title, not hers), but the conversation is quite organic and fulfilling.

Our first topic a few weeks ago revolved around finding a definition of a leader. It got to be an intense discussion about the qualities that leaders possess, qualities that they don’t possess, and all kinds of other things. Hitler came up, of course — what would a good conversation about leadership be without him? At the end of the session, our guru left us with this piece of knowledge:

Leadership Rule #1: Leaders always have the initiative.

The words “have” and “initiative” are the two key words and chosen very precisely, I came to understand; however, I think their importance is easily discerned with a little thought.

I tend to enjoy playing devil’s advocate in a lot of situations. It’s not that I necessarily like to shoot people’s ideas down. I do it often in my own analysis of situations and problems that I have to solve. In my analytical mind, I can’t be sure of a solution until I’ve attacked it from all sides and am relatively sure it’ll stand.

This was easy to do for most of the discussion about leadership qualities. Someone asserts that a definitive characteristic of a leader is that they act morally, even in the face of negative consequences. OK, well… I can think of plenty of leaders that don’t act morally. Someone else asserts that a leader must make choices that benefit the most people (hi, utilitarianism!). That certainly doesn’t fit my definition of a leader and, judging based on the various competing ethical philosophies, I’m not the only one.

But “leaders always have the initiative”… that’s a hard rule to argue against.

The one thing that really strikes me about this view of a leader is that it’s not something that can be taken by force. It’s something that has to be given. Maybe not always entirely willingly, but it does have to be given.

Initiative implies that there is more than just the leader sitting in a vacuum. If there is just one person, initiative is meaningless – you don’t have initiative over anything or anybody else. The only thing you could possibly have initiative over is yourself, in which case you’re really fighting conflicting ideas within yourself; whether you do something or not is completely up to you. (insert entire series of blog posts on the difference between “you” and “your mind,” to be tackled at some other point)

So, if there’s more than one person, the other people have to be willing to give up their initiative and follow you. Otherwise you won’t have initiative and won’t be a leader.

In ye olden days, it was probably a lot simpler and very well defined: monarchs had the ultimate in initiative, aristocrats less so, etc etc, down to the peasants who very rarely held initiative within their society. Nowadays, in the myriad groups and roles that we play, it seems a lot murkier to figure out who has initiative. And it’s something that is given to you by default less and less.

Now, you have to earn it.

It seems like capitalism runs rampant in our world even when the capital is initiative.

I hope the earning of initiative is something that we discuss in our Saturday seminar, as it has a whole bunch of interesting questions wrapped up into it. It rather reminds me of The Prince. They say Hitler kept it on his nightstand. Since it has a lot to do with gaining — and keeping – initiative, I can see why.