I know many of you, us - - the young ONCE, can relate to this speech delivered by Joey A. Bermudez to our new colleagues during the oathtaking on November 20. Even those who are with the different field, the essence is generally the same. It is also like taking a review of what life has been after our own respective oathtakings years ago. Read on:
THREE decades ago, I was in your seat in this same venue anxiously waiting to take my oath while the guest speaker rambled through his “rags to riches” life story. To be fair, his story had many interesting twists but inspiration was the least of my needs at that time. My thoughts were of the uncertain future that lay ahead and I was very pre-occupied with the fear that I might not land a good job. It did not help that I was starting off with some bragging rights earned by hurdling the treacherous CPA exam.
What is the CPA title worth? As a badge of affirmation, it gives you front door access into the complex world of business. It puts you in the express lane. It makes the first few steps a lot easier. It gives you that proverbial “twice to beat” advantage. But you can’t expect it to do much more for you the moment you get past the door. Inside is either a bed of roses or a snake’s pit, depending on what glasses you wear.
I am not here to regale you with a heart-rending tale of how I struggled against poverty as a young boy. There is enough of that stuff in the evening soaps on television. Even my children who are about your age have grown tired of these poor boy stories. At dinner, whenever I would talk about how difficult it was in my time, they would turn nonchalant and dismissively quiet. I know that in their minds, they are quietly saying, “Yeah, right.”
Let us instead get real by talking about the cold, impersonal world of business, the same world that you have plunged into. If you’re not careful, you might get a glimpse of what you are up against. “Forewarned is forearmed” so they say. It is better to go to war with a good idea of the terrain and a clear picture of your enemy. Here is some unsolicited advice.
Advice no. 1: Learn to deal with an uneven playing field.
Have you heard of the saying, “Some are more equal than others?” The harsh truth is that we all enter the business world with varying weaponry. Some are more armed than others. We fight with what we have. Instead of complaining about lack of bullets, it is far more productive to pick one’s targets and fire high-quality shots. Let me give you an actual example from my own experience. In my first few years as a banker, I worked as an account officer selling the deposit products of the bank. I made cold calls, knocked at doors, introduced myself and tried to convince people to deposit money with my bank. It was a tough job for me but it didn’t seem tough in the beginning for my colleagues who were wealthy, well-connected and had the right surnames. They would simply call up their “titas” and “titos” who had money flowing out of their ears and voila, they would meet their quotas! It was pretty much like this during our first six months together. By the seventh month, their party was over. The family wealth was no longer enough to fill the ever-increasing sales quotas. It was time for honest-to-goodness selling. Suddenly, the scale had tipped in favor of those who had the humility and the thick face to knock at doors of non-relatives.
Don’t get me wrong. It is not a sin to be wealthy. If excellent pedigree gives you competitive advantage, well and good. Just remember that while wealth and connections can put you ahead in round one, you will eventually need to settle down and pound the pavement like the rest if you want to protect your head start. If you are not wealthy and well-connected, don’t lose heart. Make up for your handicap with “old-fashioned” perseverance. Try your best to stay within striking distance in round one and seize the momentum when your handicap has disappeared. Believe me, the “old boys’ club” is no match against those who diligently do their homework and execute their plans with deadly consistency.
The playing field is never even. In fact, is if often lopsided because external influences have a unique way of influencing business decisions. I need not even talk about fraternities, religious affiliations, geographic origins, and, believe it or not, gender preferences.
Advice no. 2: There are no right and wrong occupations.
You need to choose the occupation that suits your core competence and your personal inclinations. Because this occupation is what your heart desires and what your mind and body does best, it will make you happy and you will create so much value in this world. Economists call this your “comparative advantage.” If you deviate from your comparative advantage, you will end up so miserable in your old age thinking about all the fun that you missed.
If you feel that you are in your elements inside the classroom, by all means teach. If you believe that entrepreneurial risk and reward is what drives your adrenalin, go into business. If employment is your calling, take a job and do it well.
There is no pecking order when it comes to job significance. It is not true that being employed makes you contribute less to society and to the economy than being an entrepreneur. Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi were not entrepreneurs but did more to enhance humanity than many of those who get written about in Fortune and Forbes. Your contribution to society and to the economy is the sum total of all the good that you have created less all the damage that you have inflicted. You may have created hundreds of thousands of jobs as an industrialist but if you have in the process deprived this government of the right taxes, bled your suppliers dry, shortchanged your customers, and underpaid your workers, you cannot even begin to compare yourself with an office worker who diligently goes to work, gives his employer a fair shake, performs his best, and lives within his modest means. One’s real worth is calculated no differently from the traditional accounting definition of net worth: Assets minus liabilities.
An occupation should not define you. You should define it. The passion, the creative thinking, and the hard work that you put into an occupation will define it. Remember that boxing was a brutal sport until Muhammad Ali re-defined it into a graceful dance. Golf was a lazy game for old men until Tiger Woods made it an exact science. Revolutions were bloody until Filipinos made it a picnic. Politics was a noble profession until some people made it entertainment.
Whatever occupation you get into, be not afraid to re-invent yourself. For many years, the accounting profession struggled to remake itself after waking up to the fact that the world had changed and that our long-held notions of fair reporting had to keep up with the evolving business realities. One does not need to be thrust into a life-threatening situation before re-inventing himself; he only needs to be excited by the new role that he will assume. The best financial controller who worked for me was not even a CPA. He was not even an accountant by profession. He was an engineer. But he totally transformed himself into a financial controller because he saw in that role a lot of thrills and joys that many who went to accounting school could not see.
Advice no. 3: Preserve your brand and your intrinsic quality, no matter what.
Your brand is not what you say about yourself but what your intrinsic quality exudes. There are many companies who talk incessantly about service quality even if your real-life encounters with them are enough to make your blood boil. Many politicians are notorious because they often preach things that they don’t do. In other words, they live a double life like schizophrenics. Before you even start acquitting the non-politicians, think twice. Moral decay is as alive in the corporate world as it is in public service. Yet some companies would make themselves out as guardians of societal good by tooting their horns noisily about their philanthropic and “social responsibility” programs. When juxtaposed with the way they commoditize labor, the way they creatively weave out of legitimate tax obligations, and the way they “out-and-out” frustrate the market through their anti-competitive behavior, all that breast-beating falls flat on its face.
Many individuals that inhabit both the corporate world and the entrepreneurial arena have been infected by the propaganda fever, the struggle to put up a cute face because of their failure to preserve their fundamental goodness. If you want to find them, read the stories of the great global giants whose CEOs were educated in Ivy League schools, moved around in respected social circles and sat in the boards of well-known charitable foundations, yet undid themselves by committing the most sordid corporate fraud and malpractice. This tidal wave of human folly in what has given rise to the tsunami of governance reform sweeping the world today. But my fearless forecast is that all these governance reforms will fail unless we focus on the true source of flawed governance: a flawed character.
At the end of the day, the only sustainable competitive advantage is good character. It allows you to stay in the race because people do not write you off nor deprive you the benefit of the doubt no matter how many times you have lost in the past. Yes, it has many short-term costs, not the least of which is the disadvantage one suffers against players who have no qualms about playing dirty, who are not morally convicted at all when they lie, cheat and steal. In my own career, I have been tempted many times to stray and give these dirty rivals a dose of their own medicine. After all, my friends would always tell me, “nice men finish last.” Fortunately, circumstances have intervened in a strange way, preventing me from dishing out my own version of Machiavellianism. On hindsight, I now know that people need not be saved by circumstances if only they had the courage to keep their intrinsic goodness, and thus, their brand.
That, ladies and gentlemen of the accounting profession, is my unsolicited advice. If I made sense, allow me to leave this hall with my limbs intact. If I did not, I can forgive the absence of applause, the nonchalant pose and the dismissive silence. I would know then that in your minds, you are sending me home with that all too familiar “Yeah, right!”
(Source)
PhP100 each
