Wanted: financial pro with no ethics

I was going to write about the Republican donation scam, which ended up conning a lot of donors out of a lot of money they didn't realize they were donating to the mighty Trump grift. There are really only two things to say. 1) This really isn't a surprise to anyone who's been watching. And 2) It's hard to dredge up much sympathy for someone who'd donate to Trump to begin with. (And to those donors who are moaning that 'Trump didn't know', all I can say is, you may be right - he might not have known about the details of the scheme - but if you think he's gives a damn about whether you and yours got scammed, you really do need to seek help, or at least a better source of information.)

Since I'm not going to write about the Republican donation scam, I had to come up with another topic. Then what to my wondering eyes did appear was an article on Fast Company entitled "Jaw-dropping study: Executives who manipulate earnings are hired for their lack of ethics".

I didn't get to see the full study. I really don't need/want to subscribe to the Journal of Business Ethics. But let's hear it for research that "finds that companies purposely hire people with unsavory personality traits when earnings manipulations are in order."

Researchers from universities in four states conducted a trio of experiments studying executive hiring under various organizational earnings demands. They found that, yes indeed, when companies need to report earnings that stray from reality, no, they don’t hire a CFO with super strong ethical foundations. They hire executives with “dark” personalities that are weak on ethics and strong on narcissistic traits. “Our research found that this is often no accident,” said coauthor Nick Seybert, an accounting professor at the University of Maryland, in a news release.

First off, I want to thank the writer for introducing me to the concept of the "dark" personality type, a term I was not familiar with.

I was, of course, familiar with the type, however, and had plenty of first hand experience with said types over the course of my brilliant career. Back in the day, we just called them assholes, and I had plenty to say, back in the day, when Pink Slip was more steadfast in its dedication to writing about business.

Here's a bit of what I had to say in ought-six:

Building a Civilized Workplace

All Worked Up 

These pieces focus on the different types of a-holes I was most familiar with, and pay particular attention to the Charismatic Asshole. Talk about "dark" personality types! Maybe I should have been a psychologist rather than a B2B technology marketer!

Anyway, back to the Journal of Business Ethics:

[The researchers] also found that these “dark” personality types tend to be one-trick ponies, purposely hired to falsify and evade. The study included a survey of potential candidates’ abilities, and the only category on which dark personalities out-ranked other candidates was ethical boundary manipulations.

...companies that don’t inflate their earnings also don’t tend to hire dark personalities.

I find that I'm asking myself just how a company recruits for a 'dark' personality type who's willing to cook the books. Do they get the word out through their network? I bet if you knew Allen Weisselberg, the CFO for the Trump Organization, he might be able to point you in the right (wrong?) direction. And the folks who cooked the books for Bernie Madoff must be out of jail by now. 

Seriously, how do you tell a recruitment firm that you're only interested in candidates who rank high on "ethical boundary manipulations"? What an admission that would be. And how would the recruiter know how to identify such sordid candidates?

As it turns out, there are ways to test for people who possess what's known as the Dark Triad of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. And there's some thinking that suggests that the Dark Triad should be the Dark Quad, with sadism added to the mix. Good to know!

In fact, psychologists at the University of British Columbia have come up with the questions you see how people measure up on the Dark Quad scale. 

Here are a few of the questions - statements answered on a 5-point strongly agree-strongly disagree scale. (Source: Forbes)

I love it when a tricky plan succeeds. 

Well, that depends on whose tricky plan it is, and whether it's good tricky or bad tricky, doesn't it? Only kidding. Tricky is carrying the weight here, and it implies sneaky and dishonest. At least to me. So who's going to "strongly agree" with this statement?

That was one of the Machiavellian statements. The narcissism questions are a bit trickier to navigate. As in:

People see me as a natural leader.

What's wrong with that? I'd have to at least somewhat agree with this one. After all, I was the president of student council my senior year of high school. And people did keep telling me so when I was of an age and in a circumstance where people talked about things like leadership with respect to me. So does acknowledging that, hey, I am a natural leader (whatever that means) makes me a narcissist? What???? But there's another narcissist question that stands out:

I know that I am special because people keep telling me so.

I can pretty much say with high assurance that no one who survived parochial school of my era would ever in a million years agree to this one. Now if they'd framed the question around the timeless nun question: Who do you think your are? For which there is only one answer: Nobody, stah, nobody.

I'm guessing that a psychopath would be willing to lie on this Dark Quad quiz. Seriously, who'd check box 5 ("strongly agree") with:

 People often say I’m out of control.

 I’ve been in more fights than most people of my age and gender.

People who mess with me always regret it.

Wouldn't these all kind of be major Red Flags? I guess they would, unless you wanted to hire a no-good-nik who'd lie on the financials for you.

And then there are the sadism statements, shown here in full, because. Well, just because.

1. Watching a fist fight excites me.

2. I really enjoy violent films and video games.

3. It’s funny when idiots fall flat on their face.

4. I enjoy watching violent sports.

5. Some people deserve to suffer.

6. Just for kicks, I’ve said mean things on social media.

7. I know how to hurt someone with words alone.

Okay, I do believe some people, c.f., Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, et al., deserve to suffer. But they're few and far between. And, yep, I do know how to use my words. But fist fights, violent films, violent sports... You might as well have "I enjoy picking the wings off of butterflies" in there. 

You'd think these scales would be used to weed potential hires out, not weed them in. But I guess if you want someone to back up your lies on the financial statements, you need to choose carefully.

I do have to ask, however, aren't these folks just a bit concerned about, say, getting caught and going to jail? 

Or maybe that's taken care of by the psychopathy statement:  I sometimes get into dangerous situations.

Hmmm. That'd be a hard no. Guess I just don't have what it takes to be a dishonest CFO in me.