Technology and change are stressing your life

Years ago, Holmes & Rahe crafted the first formal measure of the impact of stress on people. At the top of their list are events like the death of your life partner, a divorce, serious illness and the like, all the way down to something simple like getting a parking ticket. The valid notion underpinning the stress measurement scale is that each time we encounter change, we have to adapt. When we’re in charge of the change it’s fine. Theoretically (unless your partner’s nagging you to get it done) to mow or not to mow your grass shouldn’t cause stress. Because it’s a decision or action under your control. It’s the things over which we don’t have control that cause stress. Today, more than anything, it’s the speed of technological and sociological change that is a significant stress driver for developed economy inhabitants.

Some examples: There’s an emerging right-wing political movement in Europe and Australia. Based largely on a racist, anti-immigration platform. Recently, people who detest French President Jacques Chirac had to vote for him in order to prevent rabid right-winger Jean-Marie Le Pen from becoming French President. An unthinkable prospect but it nearly happened!

On the medical front, bio-engineering permits astonishing medical interventions. Cryo-therapy (liquid nitrogen) having failed on sun damage lesions (courtesy of the then SADF) on my face, I’ve just finished using a high-tech cream which attacks only the sun damaged cells. Thermal scans of the brain can tell us unequivocally if someone is lying. Vocal patterns measured on commercially available software running via the modem on your computer can do the same as you’re talking to someone. It’s being used in fraud and corruption prevention around the world.

Ozone pumped over decaying tooth enamel renders bacteria inert and reduces the need for drilling. An algorithm ‘reads’ your dog’s bark and via a little liquid crystal screen on Rover’s collar, can tell you whether he’s bored, hungry, wants to play or is afraid. Mobile phones have irretrievably changed the lives of millions of people. International media networks allow us to track what’s going on around the world in a matter of minutes. Personal digital assistants (PDA’s) and notebook computers haven’t put more time in your life. All they do is let you do even more in the little time available.

Recently conceptualized self-destructing DVD’s, hold promise as the answer to music and movie pirating. Once you’ve viewed or listened a maximum of twice, they’ll become unusable.

When the Americans finished bombing Afghanistan, entrepreneurs in Kabul didn’t plant veggie gardens; they started building satellite dishes so they could share in what’s going on around the world. Hungry people maybe, but even more info-hungry.

People bring class-action lawsuits against fast food vendors and cigarette manufacturers, airlines and reality TV show producers. All in an attempt to avoid taking responsibility for their own choices and their lives. It’s always easier to blame someone or something else. Genes are increasingly being indicted for everything from alcoholism to hyperactivity and over-eating. In many instances if we adequately managed our senses, we’d save ourselves the trouble of looking for external ‘causes.’

In fulfillment of futurist and author John Naisbitt’s ‘High-tech, high-touch’ predictions of years ago, we’re choosing to die not in ICU’s, but in hospices or in our own homes. Computer driven customer relationship management (CRM) programs notwithstanding, good old fashioned customer contact is still the best service differentiator in business. In fact, it’s so rare that we consider it exceptional when we experience it. Companies receive awards for transparency and corporate governance instead of merely running to an ethical script by default.

Disease travels around the globe and spreads in twenty four hours by piggy-backing on aircraft passengers. Surveys show that more and more people feel that they’re not living fulfilled lives. A recent BBC survey of viewers and listeners indicated that ninety two percent of British people felt they were in the wrong (and unrewarding) job or career. A terrifying statistic.

These are just some of a myriad examples revealing how our world and therefore our lives are being affected by technological advance and the speed of change. It’s essential that we take charge of the facets of change over which we do have control. That we make decisions about which uncontrollable ones we allow to influence our lives. That we choose to live using change and technology to our advantage. That we don’t passively allow our lives to be dictated to and driven by, technological change. Use it. Don’t let it use you.

Auditing and acccounting shake-up overdue

The most recent statistics indicate that just 8% of South African accountants are black. Given the urgent demands for transformation within the profession and the labour minister’s legit stick-waving over non-submission of equity strategies and thereafter, compliance – the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) must feel like a rudderless ship.

The auditing and accounting profession has been under an image siege for some time. Internationally, the Enron, Worldcom, Merck and Xerox debacles, and locally, those of Saambou, Unifer, Regal Treasury Bank and Jack Milne’s PSCGG, have all left egg on the face of the profession. This fate is perhaps not entirely undeserved. Via the Public Auditors and Accountants Board (PABA) the profession has succeed over the years in creating an impression that misdemeanours or oversights might be treated with a slap on the wrist for the elitist members of what was effectively an old boys club. Finance minister Trevor Manuel threatened to become a lot more prescriptive in control terms if the profession didn’t get its own house in order.

Following the local business failure scandals, one fully expected a concerted image counter-offensive. But - other than a little flurry of inconsequential PR pieces - nada. Certainly nothing that would have started a significant perception shift from what I’ve seen in the media.

The time has come for the profession to learn and appreciate the relevance of the term, ‘co-opetition.’ It’s something that was coined in IT as I understand it. Where a couple of competitive market players would get together in order to deliver a ‘seamless’ solution for a particular client. Microsoft has turned this into an art form, despite their speciality being software provision. Many entrepreneurs regularly co-opt the services of competitors in loose ‘alliances’ in order fully to deliver on client needs.

The auditing and accounting fraternity (because that’s what it still very much is) will have to stop playing at being collegial and yet remaining unco-operative. They need to nominate a fire-in-the-belly type from each of the big four firms and see how, by pooling their resources and skills; they can create a single ‘nursery’ for growing and nurturing talent.

The time has arrived for these luminaries to sit down at a table with Professor Kader Asmal and talk seriously about the prospect of starting a custom-crafted, auditing and accounting-directed, secondary level educational institution. Something commencing from grade eight onward perhaps. Eligibility should be via psychometric and other evaluations to ensure that the aspirations, mindset, career focus and ability of candidates are appropriately aligned.

This is not a new concept. The Russians would direct a canny young male chess player into a career in maths. The petit, graceful, lissome young girl would be groomed as a gymnast or steered to the Bolshoi Ballet. Schools for the arts around the world have recognized and fulfilled the need for talent-specific education. University sports scholarships are the same idea at a tertiary level. Why not something similar for the numbers lasses and lads – but a whole lot earlier in their careers?

Given that auditing and consulting functions are today required to be separate, the mentoring in an ‘Academy of Accounting’ or whatever it would be called, could groom people based on a preference for either.

In the final stages of this high-school type preparatory phase, the profession could engage the services of university business schools and use also, the skills of silvered haired retirees from the profession. I know of enormously capable retired HR people who want to play such a role in their particular field. Surely there must be accountants and auditors who would like to meet their maker with the news that they too had made a contribution. Although to paraphrase Churchill: “I am prepared to meet my maker – but whether He is quite ready to meet me is another matter entirely,” might be the refrain of some from the profession.

Revolutions begin in the mind of just one person. Albert Schweitzer, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Junior, Nelson Mandela and their ilk are great examples of this. What it needs is for someone in the auditing and accounting profession to stand up and be counted and make a difference in their field and in South Africa. Is this asking too much?