Feb 18, 2015 |
By John Sullivan
An advisor once told us about a charity
golf tournament he organized. He wanted to put the name of his firm and the
name of his broker-dealer on the golf balls he was planning to give each
player. He approached his broker-dealer who dutifully ran it through their
compliance department. The compliance department approved the tournament with
one caveat; the golf balls needed to include the required disclaimer—all of
the required disclaimer.
“It would have completely covered the
ball and looked ridiculous,” the advisor recalled. “But they said if we hit it
into the woods and someone found it, even if it was 10 years later, it would
constitute an offer to sell.”
We wish it were the only time we heard
of such a thing, but another advisor at a different broker-dealer had a similar
story. His annual client appreciation dinner was to feature a minor celebrity
who would give a speech and take questions afterwards. The advisor wanted his
name and the name of his broker-dealer on the pens they handed out so people
could write down their questions beforehand. The broker-dealer wanted a
disclaimer on the pens, which once again would have covered them entirely, with
little or no room for anything else.
Of course, both advisors opted against
using their name or the name of the broker-dealer, and for good reason. Doing
so would have needlessly raised questions that needn’t be raised. And that’s
the point. Each bit of added paper makes the client wonder what they’re
signing, why they’re signing it and what prompted regulators to require it in
the first place. As much as the advisor might explain, it eventually becomes
white noise, and clients’ eyes glaze over as they robotically sign and initial
where instructed. It was a common complaint when The Patriot Act first passed.
If every client transaction has to be accompanied by reassurances that the
advisor won’t launder money to fund insurgent activities—well, the terrorists
have won.
In other words, it gets clients
wondering, and engenders less trust, not more; which is the exact opposite of
what it was intended to do. It is said that the road to hell is paved with good
intentions, which relates to “The Folly of Accountabalism,” one of the
breakthrough ideas in 2007 that was featured in Harvard Business Review.
This is a critically important concept.
Every ethical person wants to be held
accountable for doing the right thing, but how do you successfully
institutionalize something so opaque? It’s a question regulators, legislators
and corporate America seems unable to answer. As a result, they go overboard,
and the outcome is the hyper-regulated and litigated environment in which we
now find ourselves. It gives rise to what marketing consultant David Weinberger
coined as accountabalism, examples of which are the golf balls and client
appreciation pens with which we opened.
Accountabalism manifests itself in four
interrelated beliefs and practices. They are:
1). Accountabalism assumes
perfection—if anything goes wrong, it’s a sign that the system is broken.
But as Weinberger rightly notes, “Social systems are incapable of anything
close to perfection, so if something goes wrong in one, it need not mean the
system is broken. If an employee cheats on expenses by filling in taxi receipts
for himself, the organization doesn’t have to ‘fix’ the expense-reporting
system by requiring that everyone travel with a notary public.
2). Accountabalism is blind to human
nature. For example, “it assumes that if we know we’re being watched, we
won’t do wrong—which seriously underestimates the twistiness of human minds and
motivations. We are capable of astounding degrees of self-delusion regarding
the likelihood of our being caught.”
3). Accountabalism bureaucratizes
and atomizes responsibility. “While claiming to increase individual
responsibility, it drives out human judgment. When a sign-off is required for
every step in the work flow, those closest to a process lack the leeway to
optimize or rectify it.”
4). Accountabalism tries to squeeze
centuries of thought about how to entice people toward good behavior and
dissuade them from bad into simple rules by which individuals can be measured
and disciplined. It would react to a car crash by putting stop signs at every
corner.
In other words, accountabalism claims
to increase accountably while in actuality decreasing it. Any efficiencies
sacrificed in the process are therefore all for naught. Common sense practices
and documentation measures should be a core practice of any ethical business,
advisors included. Just be sure it serves its purpose, and that accountability
doesn’t become accountabalism.
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