The Boomers are Coming - Part 1

Modern day Paul Reveres are shouting, "The Boomers are coming!" from every digital rooftop. Magazines proclaim the changes to healthcare, investments, retirement homes etc. etc. that will accompany the retirement of the Baby boom generation. While there is a lot of hype surrounding this issue, there is a real opportunity for the accounting profession we need to address.

Have you tried to find a volunteer treasurer for a charity recently? Maybe they are plentiful in your area, but in mine they are scarce. Need someone to do a volunteer audit? They're even harder to find. Unfortunately, the situation is getting worse. Increasing professional liability insurance premiums combined with more stringent regulations make it more difficult to be a non-profit auditor.

We, the members of the accounting profession, need to put our heads together and come up with a way for retired professional accountants to volunteer their services to charities.

Good For Accountants

Many retired people are looking for work that is inspirational. They want to use their skills to make a change in the world. What better way than to find a charity in an area that is meaningful, using the skills developed over a lifetime?

Good for Charities

Time was when having a seat on a volunteer Board or giving a significant amount of time to a charity was an accepted use of an executive / professional's time. Currently there just seems to be less time for additional activities during the work day. Family time in two career households can be similarly squeezed. Charities need the time, skills and experienced that retired volunteers can bring.

Changing the Profession

What can we do to make it easier for retired accountants to:
* Stay current on professional development?
* Maintain an appropriate level of Errors & Omissions insurance?
* Keep their license to practice?

Could we establish a limited license that would allow the accountant to perform audits on a voluntary basis only, providing a certain level of professional development and peer review was maintained? Could professional practice firms set up a way for retired members to contribute their skills to charity?

What do you think we should do? Please put your ideas in the comments.

Do Accountants Make Better Lovers?

An article in the Life section of the Globe and Mail caught my eye this week: "When love hurts you know it's good - It should be a raging inferno, not a firelight glow . . . if it doesn't cause you pain . . . it's not worth it." The paper was quoting Cristina Nehring's book, A Vindication of Love.

OK - if I were to write a book, I know that the title "Fatal Attraction" would sell way more copies than "Wedded Bliss", but if you ask men and women who have actually lived through a fatal attraction, I'm willing to bet that most of them would have gladly traded for wedded bliss.

Reading the article made me think of Jim and Joanne (not their real names). Jim is a retired senior partner in an international accounting firm. He also volunteered in the community and played a leadership role in the finances of his church. He and Joanne have been married close to fifty years. I'm sure that those years were filled with the ups and downs of any marriage, but when I see the two of them working in their garden or walking around the neighbourhood, I can't think of a happier couple. Their children are both happily married as well. I think Jim and Joanne found something special, which was NOT a raging inferno.

It is no accident that raging infernos tend to burn themselves out rather than gently fading into wedded bliss. There is solid research on brain chemistry that backs it up. Cupid's Poisoned Arrow by author Marnia Robinson shows the link between intense love making and addiction, based on the body's built in reward system. In a nutshell, an intense love (i.e. raging inferno) can create an intense internal contradiction. The lover desires their mate, but at the same time, their brain chemistry leads them to feel satiated. Instead of progressing to more intense feelings, it often leads the person to push their lover away. If both partners are feeling this kind of on-again, off-again pressure, then the relationship turns stormy.

In a nutshell, humans are actually wired for two very different types of love: the love between two mates and the love between a parent and child. The first kind of love manifests through the neurotransmitter dopamine (which is also present in other infernos, such as drug addiction). Parental love is expressed by the neurotransmitter oxytocin, the "cuddle hormone". If a relationship is to last a long time, the gentle intimacy of an oxytocin based relationship is a better base than the stormy dopamine high.

So, if you were to give me the choice between the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton or Jim/Joanne kind of loves, I'd have to opt for the accountant.

Where is the Blog Going?

You may have noticed that I haven't been posting as much lately. It's easy to dismiss not writing by talking about how busy I am. I don't travel as much any more, so I don't have that airport waiting room time to compose blog posts. I'm no longer a consultant, so I don't have the varied clients to provide blog fodder.

All those are true, but they don't explain the reason.

This morning I came across the blog of "The Bunny Suit Girl". One of her posts seemed particularly applicable to my situation:

Bitterness at work and blog entries
they really seem to be directly proportional
When I was unhappy at work
I had so much to blog about
Now I'm relatively happy
I barely write a line
No wonder,all those famous poets in Ancient China
most of them had very unhappy career

I am happy with my current position. Before taking it I hadn't realized how important it is to me to work for an organization that is making the world a better place.

I mentioned before that I will be spending more blog time on not for profit issues. I also plan to turn this blog into more of a column than just accounting software advice.

I would also like to find topics that spur others to add their comments. One thing that has surprised me over the past year is the lack of comments. At first, I took it personally, until I noticed that most accounting bloggers get few comments. So rather than thinking of this as an accounting blog, please consider it as a blog by an accountant and throw in your $0.02!

Action, Approval, Information - Which is it?

"Bill, I'm not sure what you're asking the committee to do with the material you sent out for the meeting." The man on the phone was the committee Chair and he wanted to be sure he understood what was being asked of him before going into the meeting.

That was my mistake. As the resource person supporting the work of the committee, my job is to organize the material so that its purpose is crystal clear. For example, there are only three things you can ask of a Board or Committee:

• Action - You're asking them to do something
  
• Approval - You need their approval in order to move something forward
  
• Information - You are reporting back to them

If the Chair is clear on what is being asked of the Committee, (s)he can set the right tone for the discussion. If the supporting written material is already organized so that it flows towards a clear objective, less time will be wasted. With clarity of purpose and well organized supporting material, the work of the Committee can be done quickly and effectively.

It's when there is no clear purpose that Committees often flounder and meetings become protracted. Members end up trying to second guess the intent of the material before them or worse, re-write it completely. When that happens, when you look around the room and see a lot of tired faces, the best thing is to refer the work back to where it came from with instructions to re-draft it.

By this I do not mean to imply that Committees should be manipulated into one specific direction. If the intent of the work before them is clear, it is also easier to reject it or send it back for more work. My personal experience with Committees is that they respect a well reasoned argument and will put a lot of energy into reviewing it if the information is brief and well presented. They will usually come up with comments that I had not considered, so that the end result is better than it would have been had I been working alone.

Which brings me to the topic of brevity. Churchill famously insisted that all briefs be reduced to a single page, but your Board / Committee probably wants a little more background than that. Readable writing is more important than just the length, although if a brief is perceived as being too long you run the risk of your Committee not reading it at all. If writing is not one of your strengths, by all means delegate! There are lots of freelance editors who will help you structure your thoughts. Here are some tips:

• Use bullet points - they break up the monotony of the text and make it easy to find the important parts of your argument,
• Use sub-headings - they organize your work -- try reading just the sub-headings, they should give you a feel for the whole document
• Keep your sentences short - avoid compound, complex sentences
• Avoid the passive voice - keep your prose active

What has your Board experience been like, whether from the staff viewpoint or the Board member's? Please join the discussion and leave a comment.