Life Lessons

 Unfortunately, you’ll probably have to learn these on your own

I recently posted one of my teaching techniques, “50 Shades of Fraud”, which I also expanded into another segment “What Would You Do?”  I use these as real-life examples of work situations, and I allow the students to tell me what they would have done in the situation before I tell them how I addressed the issue.  As I noted, in many cases, my students had a solution that I found better than how I handled it, but I obviously can’t change history.

Another technique I was planning on utilizing was telling my students “Life Lessons” that I learned over my life and career, but I deferred this one simply because we really need to learn our own life lessons for them to be most effective.  I can tell them all I want, what I learned, how I learned it, but I truly believe for a life lesson to be most effective, you really need to experience it fully.  There is one I do share because I believe it’s an important one for them to hear, and I’ll leave that one to the end. 

There are many more I could highlight here, I’ve unfortunately had many painful moments that have taught me a lot, and a few not so painful, but I’ll stop at the top ten I can think of:

Every Life Experience on the Journey is Valuable, Even the Hard Ones

The best illustration I can give of this one is working for a horrible boss.  I’ve had a few, two in particular, and it was extremely painful to work for them.  They were narcistic, habitual liars, had no respect for their employees, and really weren’t very kind or considerate people.  Most days, I dreaded being around them or having to work with them.

What I learned though is how I didn’t want to be treated, and I learned how not to treat people who work for me.  To be honest, I probably learned more from these bad experiences than anything else.  They were the antithesis of good bosses, or even good people, and it gave me role models not to strive for.

Ignorance is a Better Option than Bullshit

When I was at Barco Simulation, my supervisor in Belgium was Michel Vandeplas.  Michel was brilliant, a very smart person, who really knew our industry well.  Michel would ask lots of questions, and after a while, I figured out that in most cases, Michel already knew the answer, he wanted to see if I knew the answer.

Once I got smarter, I learned to just tell him, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out”.  I’d go back, research the issue, and give him a proper answer. 

Not everyone learned this lesson unfortunately, and it could be really difficult for salespeople in particular.  Michel would ask a question, and I’d be dying to advise the salesperson to defer on an answer, but they couldn’t help themselves.  They just had to answer.  The most painful was when one of our salespeople said he was working on a project with a university, and Michel asked what state was that university in?  The salesperson answered, he picked the wrong state, and of course, Michel knew the correct state and knew that the project was bullshit.

People Are Watching You

One of my less favorable traits is that I carry my emotions in my expressions.  When you are in a leadership role, that isn’t necessarily a good trait to have.

There were times when I was a Chief Financial Officer or General Manager, when I was deep in thought, and I would be walking around the building, scowling, thinking or worrying about something.  The next thing you know, there would be rumors or concerns about what horrible tragedy was happening in the company.  Eventually the rumor would work its way to me, and I’d have to assure everyone that the world wasn’t coming to an end, I just looked like it was.

Thankfully, the one person who worked for me for a great deal of time, Nancy Cox-Lupori, wouldn’t put up with it.  She’d come in and tell me, “Wipe that Snoopy-look off your face!”  It’s always good to have someone who can be brutally honest with you.

If You’re Trying to Prove You’re the Smartest Person in the Room, You’re Probably Not

When I was at WIKA, there were two individuals, we affectionately called Yogi and Boo Boo.  They used to love to pontificate on whatever the topic of the day was, going on these meandering speeches, using big words to impress, and never really coming to a point.  As our eyes would glaze over, one of my colleagues would often say, “What’s your solution?"  They never had one, they just liked to hear themselves talk and show us all how incredibly smart they were.

One of my other colleagues used to say, “If they think they’re the smartest person in the room, they’re obviously not, because Felix is.”  Some may disagree, but most of the time, Felix was either the smartest or one of the smartest, but you wouldn’t find him trying to prove it.  He didn’t need to.

Politics Unfortunately Do Matter

I’ve seen many examples of this in my career, but probably the best one is Michael Gerster, who was then the President of WIKA Instruments in the US.  In 2014, we were in the midst of a record sales year, record profitability year, we were just crushing it that year. 

Easter weekend, I was out of town visiting my son Sean at college, and I got the call that Michael had been fired.  The shock and sadness were devastating.  I couldn’t believe it, but in a way, I could.

I was copied on all of the board minutes from WIKA Headquarters in Germany, and when I read them, there was always a negative spin to everything we were doing.  No matter how good our numbers were, something was said to rain on our accomplishments.  I would bring the minutes to Michael, I would express my concern, but Michael would brush it aside, he said there was nothing to worry about.

And that was just it.  Michael just didn’t play the political games.  He did a great job, he was a great leader, but he didn’t manage his boss, and he didn’t manage his peers.  He had no clue he was in trouble, and he didn’t realize at that level, politics do matter.

Yogi Berra Was Wrong, It’s Not Deja-Vu All Over Again

Again, I could give various examples of this, but the best one I can highlight is when I took over as

General Manager at WIKA Sensor Technology.  It was virtually identical to when I took over as General Manager at Barco Simulation.  My time at Barco Simulation was probably the most fulfilling experience of my career, and I thought I was heading for a repeat performance.

Sadly, it was very far from the truth, and there were so many reasons for that, but part of it was probably my attitude going in.  I had an expectation from my prior experience, and I thought I could duplicate it, and even do it better based on my past experience.  Wow, was I ever wrong, it was a different situation, different company, different people, different industry, and really, a different me.  You can’t just go into a situation thinking it will be just like something you’ve done previously, there are way too many variables to take anything for granted.

Words Are Like Bullets, Once They’re Out, You Can’t Get Them Back

Another one where I have so many great examples, but I’ll pick the best, and it happens to be a personal one with Laurel.

Years ago, we were trying to sell our house, it wasn’t going well, and I was losing my mind.  OK, that’s a common occurrence for me, but I was desperate to control our financial situation.  So I developed an incredibly brilliant plan.  I would introduce a Purchase Order Policy within the home!  I think I’m already hearing sounds of horror coming from anyone reading this.

The one Sunday morning, it just happened to be Mother’s Day, I introduced the concept to Laurel.  As I did, and I saw the look on Laurel’s face, I was visualizing reaching my hands out and dragging those words back into my mouth, so that she wouldn’t hear them and wouldn’t have that look on her face.  No, too late, the words were out, they hit the target and exploded.  There was no getting them back.

Set Realistic Expectations for Yourself and Everyone Around You

I wish I could say that I’ve learned and improved on this one, but for the most part, I haven’t.  In so many instances in my work and personal life, I set conquering the sun, the moon, the stars as my goal, and when I only conquer the sun and moon, I’m disappointed. 

I was never satisfied with what I, or more importantly we, accomplished, and I always wanted more, to hit those unrealistic targets I set for my team and me.  If you always set your sights too high, you’ll never hit the mark, and you will forever be disappointed.  I’m trying now, but still, I’ll be grading tests, and when the grades aren’t quite where I’d like them to be, all A’s of course, I dwell on what did I do wrong teaching this topic?  Still, a work in progress.

No One Went to Their Grave Wishing They Worked More

This is the one I share with my students, because I believe it’s so valuable for them to hear.  At various points in my career, I put work first and foremost above anything else.  This was particularly true when I worked at Barco Simulation.  There was at least one year, probably more, where I pitched a shutout.  I missed all four children’s birthdays, Laurel’s birthday, our anniversary, and my birthday.  I was out of town for every special moment, and that doesn’t count all of the games, concerts, Halloween or whatever else I missed along the way.

Of course, you can’t get those back.  I tell my students, don’t be like me.  Live your life, have a balanced life, enjoy your life.  Don’t wait until it’s too late.  

You’re Never Too Old to Learn.  And Change.

When I finally figured out that I bled Barco red, but that really didn’t ultimately matter in the big scheme of life, I changed.  Sure, I still worked hard, but I worked on balancing my life.  I spent time on the important things in my life, not just trying to outwork anyone and everyone.  I’ll bring Felix back into this, once I told Felix, “I can outwork anyone!”, and Felix replied, “That’s really not a good thing.”

And after watching Laurel practice yoga for many years, I finally took it up about seven years ago, and it has been one of the greatest life-changers I could experience.  And finally, about two years ago, I learned to breathe.  For those of you who know how to breathe, you get it, and for those who don’t, it is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.  You’re never too old to learn.

I’ll stop at 10, for those who know me, you know I have many stories of screw-ups where I learned a very valuable lesson, but I figure 10 is enough.  And as noted, we typically have to learn these on our own.  I can tell you what it’s like to try to introduce a Purchase Order Policy to your spouse, but you may have to learn that one on your own.  Seriously, don’t do it, it’s a bad, bad idea.  Trust me on that one.

Fifty Shades of Fraud

One of the teaching methods I’ve used for several years is called “50 Shades of Fraud”.  For those who have seen the movie “50 Shades of Grey” (to be honest, I haven’t), I plagiarized the title for my purposes, but we’re talking accounting, so obviously, this isn’t nearly as exciting. 

On a certain level though, it is exciting.  I’ve grown to really enjoy the topic of fraud and ethics in my courses, and there’s a wealth of great material out there about people finding ways to steal and justifying it for whatever reason they come up with.  One of the foundations of fraud theory comes from Donald Cressey’s Fraud Triangle.  According to Cressey, fraud results from the convergence of three factors: pressure, opportunity and rationalization.  Basically, if for some reason, someone feels pressure to steal because they need money, if they have the opportunity where they work, and they can somehow rationalize it, they will do it.  Simple example would be I have medical bills mounting up that I can’t afford to pay, I’m in a position at work where I have access to the company’s bank accounts, and I feel like the company owes me because I’m a really good employee.  If you read the fraud cases, there are a number of situations that somehow fit this pattern.

It is estimated that 85% of the population would commit fraud given the right stimulus or tipping point, and 5% would do so regardless of the conditions.  This leaves only 10% who would not commit fraud under any circumstances.  Really, pretty sobering statistics, no idea how accurate, but this is based on fraud studies, so I would tend to believe they aren’t that far off.

Now many of us have heard about Enron, WorldCom, Tyco and Bernie Madoff, situations where people in power stole billions of dollars, but there are an incredible number of cases in places near and dear to us: churches, local government, non-profit entities.  These types of organizations are ripe for the taking, mainly because people are so trusting, and it’s usually perpetrated by someone who has been working there for years and has the trust of everyone.

For my classes, I present a scenario from my work career, one where I crossed an ethical line, and ask them, “On a scale of 0-50, how would you rate this on the Fraud Scale?”  Before anyone gets too excited, for the most part, the situations typically aren’t that exotic, and I would embellish the stories because I couldn’t come up with enough exciting material for this, but I do have a few moments of questionable ethical choices in my career that I can share with them and give them some learning moments and see what their reaction is.

What’s been great about each of these ethics segments is the interesting answers I get from some of the students.  One of the ones that has been the most enlightening to me has been when I talk about “Sandbagging a Budget” to corporate, a universal practice I’ve seen and used throughout my career.  I describe the process of submitting a budget to corporate and understating anticipated revenues and overstating anticipating expenses to make the budget more reasonable or achievable.  I’ve gotten some incredible reactions, and in many cases, I’ve been told that they would rank what I did as a 40 or even a 50.  I’ve defended myself by saying, “Everyone does it!  If I didn’t sandbag the budget, corporate would think I did, and make me push our numbers even higher!”  They don’t buy it.  And they shouldn’t.  The best analogy I can come up with is when athletes use performance enhancing drugs, and they justify it by saying “Everyone does it!  I have to take PED’s so that I can compete!”  Do we buy that?  No, we don’t and shouldn’t.

I had a few more that were less serious, and I really ran out of great examples of questionable ethics that I committed, and I eventually had to introduce another segment, “What Would You Do?”, where I would describe personnel situations I’ve dealt with and I get their feedback on how they would have handled the situation.  In some cases, I get a hardline response, “I would have fired them!”, and then sometimes, I get some great responses that make me think, “I wish I would have taken that approach.” 

This whole process has taught me a lot, I’ve grown to really value my students’ opinions, they make me re-evaluate each situation in a different light.  I keep trying to come up with more, different scenarios, and I’ve remembered a few more from my past, some are a bit weak, some I have to embellish a little more, but I still think it’s good learning material for students who will be entering the work world very soon.

But there is one “50 Shades of Fraud” that I use for every class.  It is by far the most egregious act I’ve ever committed, it happened over 20 years ago, and I still suffer from the memory of it. 

I was a General Manager, and we had a major customer/partner that we worked with.  They were incredibly arrogant, and they treated my personnel like shit, but we did a lot of business with them.  They tended to believe they were much smarter and better business people than we were.  The one time, somehow, someone made a mistake on their part, and they overpaid us on a project.  When my accounting group brought it to my attention, I said, “OK, if they’re so smart, let’s see if they figure it out.”

They didn’t.  And we kept the money.  Now, it wasn’t a huge amount of money, but it wasn’t our money.  Why did I do this?  Great question, and I wish I had a great answer.  Pride?  Ego?  Anger at how they treated us?  Could be many things, but it just doesn’t matter, what I did was wrong. 

I’ve shared this story with my therapist, and she vehemently tells me that I shouldn’t share this story with my students.  Every time I raise it each semester, I get the shit kicked out of me by my students and told what an awful person I am.  She obviously doesn’t feel this is a wise decision on my part. 

Here’s a sample from one of the students I respected the most from one of my MBA classes, she really nailed it:

“O.Em.G. My mouth dropped on this one when I got to the part of over payment "let's see how smart THEY really are" and did not give it back. Devil’s advocate here, totally get it. NOT your fault, that is on them. Wouldn't that be like someone dropping money on the ground who "just" so happened to be walking in front of you, YOU did not say anything after picking it up to pocket it for yourself. Wonder when they will find out they lost it, let's see.   50 shades of FRAUD 100/50. Lol”

It’s kind of funny, the part about someone dropping money in front of me really hit me.  Of course I’d give their money back!  Oh….

I still share this situation every class, every semester.  And do you know why I do it?  It’s not to get the shit kicked out of me, I’m already really good at that, it’s for them to see what it does to me.  I committed this act over 20 years ago, and it still haunts me.  At the end of the semester, I bring this situation up again, and I tell them, “This happened over 20 years ago, and see what it’s done to me.  If you ever get into a situation where you have to choose the right path, or violating your ethical principles, I want you to think about me.  I want you to think, do I want to suffer for a moment of bad judgment for the rest of my life?” 

I hope none of them ever face a situation where they have to make an ethical decision like this, but based on my experience, I’m sure they will.  I hope that if I’ve taught them nothing else in my classes, I’ve taught them the value of ethics and the value of doing the right thing.  And of course the consequences of not doing the right thing.