Loyalty, Ethical Corporate Cultures, and Apple Juice

Greg and Adam discuss loyalty, virtues, core values, and their impact on accountant ethics.

Meet Your Hosts

Greg Kyte, CPA
Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregkyte
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkyte/

Adam Broud
Twitter: https://twitter.com/adambroud
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-broud-18870a198

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Transcript available upon request (email [e-mail]) 

Creators & Guests

Host

Adam Broud

Host

Greg Kyte, CPA

What is CENSORED Ethics?

Welcome to Ethics that doesn't suck! CPA and comedian Greg Kyte teams up with MBA and comedian Adam Broud to discuss the intricacies of behavioral ethics — sociological nudges that prime people to behave more ethically or less ethically. During their lively conversations, they draw on research from psychology and economics.

Attention: This is a machine-generated transcript. As such, there may be spelling, grammar, and accuracy errors throughout. Thank you for your understanding!

Greg Kyte: [00:00:00] And now than ks for listening to Ethics. If you would like to earn behavioral ethics for listening to this podcast, there is now a premium course available for purchase on the earmark app. Just go to earmark.com or download the earmark app from the App store or from the Google Play store. Hello and welcome to Ethics. I'm Greg Kite. I'm a licensed in the state of Utah.

Adam Broud: [00:00:34] And I'm Adam Browde. I have a masters in business administration from Brigham Young University.

Greg Kyte: [00:00:39] Ethics is the only certified course where the presenter me and you get more and more while we discuss the intricacies of behavioral ethics.

Adam Broud: [00:00:48] And today's episode is loyalty stories.

Greg Kyte: [00:00:53] And we are going to take seven shots during the course of this one hour podcast and there's no time like the present. What are you going to start off with?

Adam Broud: [00:01:02] I'll start with the Oh, I'm so terrified. Yeah.

Greg Kyte: [00:01:05] Um. All right, here we go. Cheers on this one. Yeah. So. Ding. Oh, it's like. It's like licorice. Mouthwash.

Adam Broud: [00:01:16] Oh, yeah.

Greg Kyte: [00:01:17] Yeah.

Adam Broud: [00:01:18] It was like black licorice.

Greg Kyte: [00:01:19] Like the black licorice. Like the worst. Like your. The your worst nightmare of your grandpa's mouthwash just came true to you.

Adam Broud: [00:01:26] Like a black licorice with a vendetta. Like it's going to try to murder you a little bit. It's not. It's not bad, though. Yep. All right. We also have another person in the studio with us today. She is a baller. She is a shot caller. She has 20 inch blades on her Impala. Well, at minimum, she's a shot caller. It's. It's your daughter.

Greg Kyte: [00:01:46] My daughter.

Adam Broud: [00:01:47] Kylie. Kylie. Kylie, What's up? When she rings the bell, we have to take another shot.

Greg Kyte: [00:01:52] So on today's episode, we're going to we're going to start off by talking about loyalty, how loyalty affects one's ethics. So first off, Adam, do you consider yourself to be a loyal person? Are you a are you are you loyal?

Adam Broud: [00:02:07] Yes, absolutely. I think I have a strong sense of loyalty to individual rules, at least. Okay. Towards corporations. Less so. Okay. Towards individuals. Absolutely right. That's what would get me in trouble. If I land in jail. It's because of my because my loyalty.

Greg Kyte: [00:02:23] Because your loyalties, potentially.

Adam Broud: [00:02:25] Really?

Greg Kyte: [00:02:25] Okay. Yeah. Which is kind of.

Adam Broud: [00:02:27] That's kind of that against me. Please.

Greg Kyte: [00:02:28] Well. Well, I'm going to because that's kind of where we're headed in today's podcast. This is exactly what you were just you were just talking about. And and funny thing for me, I would not say that I'm a particularly loyal, loyal person. I mean, really? Yeah. Well, first off, I am divorced. So that may be is a as my daughter pretends to not feel awkward by that so but yeah so I mean that right there. Yeah.

Adam Broud: [00:02:54] You're divorced. You have two kids.

Greg Kyte: [00:02:55] I've got two kids now.

Adam Broud: [00:02:56] Couldn't even stick with the first one. Had to find to find another kid.

Greg Kyte: [00:03:00] Right. I was not loyal to my first child. But also I would say, I mean, I'm not disloyal to people. I don't.

Adam Broud: [00:03:06] I don't go out of your way.

Greg Kyte: [00:03:08] I don't go out of my way to be disloyal. But I wouldn't say that if someone was if I was describing my character to someone else, I probably wouldn't be loyal. Would probably wouldn't go in there.

Adam Broud: [00:03:17] Tell you who I'm a little less loyal to knowing all that. Well, I'll tell you what.

Greg Kyte: [00:03:21] But here. Okay. So here's the next thing, though. Do you think loyalty is a component of being a good person? Is it a virtue? Is loyalty a virtue?

Adam Broud: [00:03:29] It's it I think it is to a certain point. Okay. It is to a certain point because, uh oh, this feels like a pretty strong extreme. But my brain immediately went to like, the Manson murders where, like, those women on on they're like, Well, this guy told me, and I'm just loyal. It's not as if we all stood and applauded and we're like, Good for you. Sure. Like, there's a limit to the loyalty for sure. Yeah. That has to be balanced out by like, other virtues and stuff like that. But I think generally speaking, yeah, if someone, I mean, if someone was like, Oh, I'm actively disloyal, I can't. What I do is I befriend people. I bring them in really close, close enough that I can stab them. And then guess what I do in the back. I stab immediately first go. At that point I'd be like, Oh, it feels like a bad person, right?

Greg Kyte: [00:04:12] So so again, so I'm feeling less and less confident in in just throwing it out there that I don't consider myself a particularly loyal person.

Adam Broud: [00:04:21] It's not that you're disloyal, though, right? But there's a certain amount of loyalty. Yeah.

Greg Kyte: [00:04:25] Yeah, yeah. Well, exactly.

Adam Broud: [00:04:26] Cause loyalty builds community, and I think that's part of why I have it. I think there's like this notion in America that we too often are like, You pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, you do it all yourself. No one succeeds that way. Spoiler alert. You need everybody around you to help you out. Everyone always has. And if you're one of those people who's like, I'm a self-made individual, really just means that you're kind of ungrateful, right? Like you need other people. So there has to be a certain level of loyalty somewhere. It's just to what extent.

Greg Kyte: [00:04:51] Right, Exactly. So just to. Just to look like a smarty pants, please. There is a there's a philosopher who was philosophizing around the time absinthe was made illegal in the United States named Josiah Royce. If I'm getting his name right, he he felt as though for a lot of the same reasons you're talking about. He said that loyalty was the prime virtue. Oh, it's the main virtue. But and I was like going and I kind of.

Adam Broud: [00:05:17] Sounds like a guy who wants to start a cult.

Greg Kyte: [00:05:19] Absolutely. Absolutely. That's that's exactly what I was thinking, too. A cult or like a mafia boss?

Adam Broud: [00:05:25] Yeah, actually, if you just swear to me, that's the best thing you can do.

Greg Kyte: [00:05:29] Uh, now that you're in the family, I just want you to know that the ultimate virtue is loyalty. Yeah. So now go. Go Murder my.

Adam Broud: [00:05:36] Foes. Feels like you got some strong ulterior motives, right? That's your ultimate.

Greg Kyte: [00:05:40] Right, But. Yeah, but when you dig into his philosophy, his reasoning is exactly what you just said, where it's like.

Adam Broud: [00:05:47] So I'm also starting a cult. So it's like, Yeah.

Greg Kyte: [00:05:50] I get it right. Me and old.

Adam Broud: [00:05:52] Josiah and.

Greg Kyte: [00:05:53] I'm in. I'm your first apostle. Wonderful. The but yeah, his whole thing was. Yeah, society's built on trust. Trust depends on loyalty. And if we are going to have if we everyone in the, in the on the planet if you really get down to like what is what's the. Oh there we go. There it is.

Adam Broud: [00:06:11] Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.

Greg Kyte: [00:06:14] That is just it doesn't get better on the second shot. But yeah, his whole thing was if if you ask somebody what the Perfect Society was, it would be just a loving, caring society where everyone's accepted and part of that and and his whole thing was, you can't have that without loyalty.

Adam Broud: [00:06:29] So that he took like, what is it, Aristotle's like social contract or whatever, something like that. And you just like ran with it.

Greg Kyte: [00:06:37] I don't, I don't know, Aristotle's social contract.

Adam Broud: [00:06:40] I could be completely wrong about this. So someone. Someone's going to correct me. Good. Basically, just meaning we. All right. A social contract. Oh, and that's like what society adheres to is this understanding that we're going to operate by, like, certain rules. Okay? And when people, like, break certain social contracts, I think the rule becomes that's when, like, people riot. But maybe that's a different philosophy at that point. But whatever point being, we all have like a subset of rules that we adhere to, and that's what makes society work. Yeah, whether they're said out loud or not. And it sounds like he took that and he's like, Well, that's the end all. Be all right.

Greg Kyte: [00:07:13] Right, right. Well, yeah. Or at least the foundation. Okay. Yeah. And again, we're talking about I spent 12 minutes on Wikipedia digging into Josiah Royce. So that's, that's it. But, but here's the flip side stuff. And I think this is where you were getting at before. Is this like, let's say let's say you were building a Tinder profile and you were and it's like, Hey, hey, guys, I'm a foodie, I'm outdoorsy and I'm disloyal.

Adam Broud: [00:07:40] Why do I sound like this on Tinder?

Greg Kyte: [00:07:41] It's how everyone sounds on Tinder. So if you did that, if you said if that was one of the ways you describe yourself as disloyal.

Adam Broud: [00:07:49] Disloyal on Tinder On Tinder.

Greg Kyte: [00:07:52] Oh, chances are you'd be getting a lot of left swipes. Yeah.

Adam Broud: [00:07:56] So, uh, yeah, potential one night stands, but a lot of left swipes. Yeah, for.

Greg Kyte: [00:08:00] Sure, I think. I think that. Yeah, I think you would. It'd be a red flag. I mean, in terms of evaluating someone for a long term relationship. Yeah. Yeah, Disloyalty is probably a disqualifier. Sure. For that. And you. Well, now you're not. So you're in marketing? Not. Not so much. Hr Did you do some stuff in HR? I did, yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Adam Broud: [00:08:16] So for a while. Awesome.

Greg Kyte: [00:08:18] So if someone, if someone. If you ask someone you're hiring someone, you're in the interview. Yes. And you say, what's your biggest weakness? And they were like, I'm disloyal as a mother, what would you be like? Okay. And please put the rest of the donut down and shoot yourself out.

Adam Broud: [00:08:36] Oh, the comedian side of me would immediately come out and be like, Tell me more about you. You are you're you're no longer an applicant, but you are a case study for sure. I would be fascinated by that individual. Right.

Greg Kyte: [00:08:49] But but so loyalty is generally seen and I see this, too. It's generally seen as a virtue. That's why I'm feeling somewhat self-conscious that I wouldn't describe myself that way. Disloyalty, I think I can say unequivocally that disloyalty is a vice. That that's not. That's not a good thing.

Adam Broud: [00:09:07] Yeah. Someone actively trying to. Yeah. Work against people who have helped them in some way. It feels weird. Yeah, it feels weird, for sure.

Greg Kyte: [00:09:16] Yeah. Or just that you're going to. You're.

Adam Broud: [00:09:20] It feels like some of my exes. Am I right?

Greg Kyte: [00:09:23] It seems like you can't.

Adam Broud: [00:09:24] We're all wonderful people.

Greg Kyte: [00:09:25] I think disloyal is also like I'm untrustworthy, I think. Isn't that part of what is being communicated? Yeah.

Adam Broud: [00:09:30] How do you trust someone if they're. Yeah, if. If. Well, it's. It's weird for anyone to center their whole personality on any sort of, like, negative part. Right. Where they're like, I'm a liar, like everybody's a liar. But then be like, Yeah, that's an identifying part of me would be that much more strange.

Greg Kyte: [00:09:48] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adam Broud: [00:09:48] But a fascinating case study of an individual once again.

Greg Kyte: [00:09:51] So to wrap back around to Aristotle, where you got us to. So Aristotle wrote a book called How Do You Say It? Nicomachean Ethics.

Adam Broud: [00:10:00] Bestseller.

Greg Kyte: [00:10:01] Big time before the Gutenberg Press. You just couldn't keep him in the scroll. In the scroll stores? Yeah. Uh, the so in in Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics. That's where we get the concept of virtue ethics. How familiar are you with the concept of virtue? Ethics?

Adam Broud: [00:10:18] Not explicitly by that name, at least. Okay. Well, dig into it. Okay.

Greg Kyte: [00:10:22] Well, so this is this is this is where I hate going in other behavioral other behavioral ethics KPIs is when people go well, when you really look at ethics and you look at virtue ethics versus other types of, you know, utilitarianism, you know, utilitarianism. Yeah. The greatest good for the greatest number.

Adam Broud: [00:10:39] Yeah. That's how you.

Greg Kyte: [00:10:40] Yeah. And it has its flaws. Virtue ethics is another construct like that where it basically says it doesn't matter. What you do is not the focus of virtue ethics. It's who you are is the focus of virtue ethics.

Adam Broud: [00:10:53] But who you are is not what you do well.

Greg Kyte: [00:10:56] What you do is a consequence of who you are. So if you're focusing on being the type of person that you're going to be, the, you know, then your actions will reflect the quality of person that you are.

Adam Broud: [00:11:10] Are you starting to feel it just a little bit?

Greg Kyte: [00:11:11] That was that's that was a very ab I'm.

Adam Broud: [00:11:15] Starting to feel it already. This is the fastest I've ever felt.

Greg Kyte: [00:11:18] This is it. This is going to.

Adam Broud: [00:11:19] Be this.

Greg Kyte: [00:11:19] Is going to be a rough.

Adam Broud: [00:11:20] Podcast.

Greg Kyte: [00:11:21] And my daughter is here to witness it all. The humiliation is extreme. I'm okay. Here's another thing. I'm loyal as a mother to my kids, though. You can't you can't shake the loyalty that I have to these kids. I'm going to be crying by the end of this podcast because my.

Adam Broud: [00:11:37] Daughter is here. That's where we swap. I've never been divorced, but as soon as I go to the park, I treat it like just an exchange program. I'm like, Here's here's this kid. I'll, I'll give me yours for a week. You have mine. It's whatever.

Greg Kyte: [00:11:50] Yeah. Oh, these kids, man. I will. I'm to till the. Yeah. Ride or die to the grave. I don't know if that's how they feel about it. About me, but. But but yeah, they. Well, they don't get another dad. So. So here's here's where Aristotle's virtue ethics where they go to is it. Yes. One of the fascinating things about virtue ethics is that it talks about any virtue as being a mean between two extremes. Okay. And each of the extremes is a vice. The most common example of this is, is courage. Okay. Where you go. Okay. Courage is there's like the virtue. That's the virtue, okay? And courage is because you go, okay, what's what's the vice related to courage?

Adam Broud: [00:12:32] What would cowardice is? The first one is cowardice.

Greg Kyte: [00:12:34] Absolutely. And so. Oh, my gosh, she is very enthusiastic with that bell. Yeah. I feel like we should have gotten her a cowbell for that. Mhm. Um, but okay, so. But then. So so what.

Adam Broud: [00:12:51] Cowardice is the first one that comes to mind.

Greg Kyte: [00:12:53] Exactly. And that's right. So. So basically courage is the mean. If you don't have enough courage, you're a coward. That's a vice. Being a coward is vice. If you have too much courage or whatever that is, okay, then you end up just being a foolhardy CENSORED whose, you know, then. Then you're out. Like picking fights with strangers at bars for no reason. Because it's like, I don't. I don't care. And so, so courage. He would say that's that's the mean between these two extremes. You don't want to go to either of those extremes.

Adam Broud: [00:13:22] Interesting. And you want to hit the middle.

Greg Kyte: [00:13:23] Right. And then an example that I've got here on our cheat sheet. Yes. As as a as a couple of stand up comedians, I think this hits more close to home. And this is one that he actually lists in the nicomachean. Ethics is is wittiness wittiness. It's like a sense of humor. You want to have a sense of humor, but you can go you can go too far. Either way where you're a buffoon, where you're just.

Adam Broud: [00:13:45] Out being just clowning around.

Greg Kyte: [00:13:46] Just to the extreme where everybody's like, this, this guy I don't want to be.

Adam Broud: [00:13:51] I would love someone to describe me as a buffoon. So at some point like that, at that point, they they hated me so much they searched their dictionary to insult me. And I'm like, that's pretty cool, right? To get under someone's skin that bad? That's pretty neat.

Greg Kyte: [00:14:03] Exactly.

Adam Broud: [00:14:04] But I'd prefer someone calling me witty. I'd prefer being called witty. He was.

Greg Kyte: [00:14:08] A buffoon.

Adam Broud: [00:14:09] What an outright buffoon. I feel like a comedian. I'd be like, This is a great moment in my life.

Greg Kyte: [00:14:13] Still feel like if someone called you a buffoon or called me a buffoon, they'd have to smack me across the cheek with a gantlet as well.

Adam Broud: [00:14:20] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Greg Kyte: [00:14:20] Take off their glove. This you.

Adam Broud: [00:14:23] You bite your thumb at me.

Greg Kyte: [00:14:25] I do bite my thumb at you. I just watched that last night. Oh, really? The Leonardo DiCaprio.

Adam Broud: [00:14:30] One.

Greg Kyte: [00:14:30] Leo DiNardo. Leonardo DiCaprio. Leo Leonardo.

Adam Broud: [00:14:33] Okay, so.

Greg Kyte: [00:14:34] So. So. If a good sense of humor wittiness is what Aristotle calls it, if that's the mean buffoonery is you've got too much of it and just boorishness, just like being a not having any sense of humor is the opposite. So so again, it's like you want to have this mean I believe interesting. The same thing is true with loyalty. Okay, Loyalty is this. You got to have this mean. Yeah. Of loyalty where you're not so loyal that you're going to that you're going to end up in jail for somebody. Yeah, but you also don't want to be disloyal because that's. That's obviously a crappy you're a bad person.

Adam Broud: [00:15:06] It feels weird to have the vice be labeled as disloyalty, though, because the descriptor is. It's not the virtue. Right. This. You know what I mean? Right. Which I stab in the back. This is what we're going for instead.

Greg Kyte: [00:15:22] Throw me, throw me under the bussiness. Yeah, that's it. That's fine. So okay, so then we get let's, let's wrap this back around to CPAs.

Adam Broud: [00:15:31] Cpa to.

Greg Kyte: [00:15:31] To accountants. Like why do we do these professional ethics at all. We're supposed to. We're supposed to call up lying and stealing. That's what we do when we review financial statements. We're supposed to say, Oh, something bad's going on. If we see something bad going on there. Yeah, we got to call that out.

Adam Broud: [00:15:49] I feel like you can't be loyal almost at all.

Greg Kyte: [00:15:52] Right, So.

Adam Broud: [00:15:53] As an accountant, if I've learned anything from ethics in these last, last three, it is right. Two is enough. And just second to that is that accountants need to be narcs.

Greg Kyte: [00:16:02] Yeah, that's right. That's that's exactly right. We are. We're financial narcs is exactly.

Adam Broud: [00:16:08] Me as an accountant. I'm halfway.

Greg Kyte: [00:16:10] There.

Adam Broud: [00:16:10] You just I can barely do basic math, but other than that. But I'm halfway there.

Greg Kyte: [00:16:15] Your ethics are spot on as a narc is what is what is because we are and that's and we talked about in another podcast we talk about independence. Yeah and that's the whole thing to what loyalty versus independence is. Well, I mean maybe that's it. We were talking about what's the what's the oh, what do you call it? Instead of disloyal?

Adam Broud: [00:16:37] Is it independent too far on the side of independence or.

Greg Kyte: [00:16:41] But that's the thing. As an accountant, you can't get too far. You're supposed to be independent, period. Yeah. So. So is it a is it a virtue or is it not a virtue to be loyal? How loyal are to your customers? You talk about that in business a lot where it's like, I want my customers to be loyal to me. That means I need to be loyal to my customer. Yeah, is that. But we're not supposed to be. We're supposed to be independent. We're supposed to knock them out. If they're if they're, if their books are.

Adam Broud: [00:17:06] I just don't want you guys to be lonely and sad. And it feels like it's headed that way.

Greg Kyte: [00:17:11] We come on. That's when when someone's writing a movie and they need a character who's lonely and sad. What occupation do they give them?

Adam Broud: [00:17:21] It's accountant or h.r. And I got out of HR for a reason.

Greg Kyte: [00:17:25] No, it's never hr. Those guys are giving hugs all day long. No way. Yeah. I mean, they're they're giving hugs and let you cry on their shoulder.

Adam Broud: [00:17:32] While you pack your desk. Oh but everybody hates them so much.

Greg Kyte: [00:17:36] But no, but.

Adam Broud: [00:17:37] Actually they're the reverse of loyalty, right? Because HR is always the people who are like, no, we value the employees, but we all really know that. They're like, How does this work? Well, for the company. Right, right, right. So it is the opposite of accounting of anything.

Greg Kyte: [00:17:48] But but I'd say I'd say if you're looking for someone who's lonely and isolated. Yes. You you cast them as an accountant or as a librarian, those are kind of your choices.

Adam Broud: [00:17:58] Pretty fair.

Greg Kyte: [00:17:58] Your two choices in a movie. So yeah. So we're supposed to be independent like that. And so here's the thing. If you're loyal, because we talked about throwing people under the boat, I also say if you're loyal.

Adam Broud: [00:18:09] Throw them right under that boat.

Greg Kyte: [00:18:10] If you're if you're Did I say boat?

Adam Broud: [00:18:12] You sure did.

Greg Kyte: [00:18:13] Awesome.

Adam Broud: [00:18:14] If drown them and then run them over with a boat that's as disloyal as it comes.

Greg Kyte: [00:18:18] If that propellers on, man, you're.

Adam Broud: [00:18:19] So not loyal, you couldn't even use the common turn of phrase. You had to go further than that and throw them under a whole CENSORED boat. That's crazy.

Greg Kyte: [00:18:28] Well, here's the reason why. Because my notes say if you're loyal, you don't rock.

Adam Broud: [00:18:33] Oh, there we go.

Greg Kyte: [00:18:33] You don't rock the boat. Okay? If you're. If you're.

Adam Broud: [00:18:36] Loyal. That's true. Yeah. Which I mean, we've all we've all met people like that, I feel like who are at, like, a company. And when everybody's complaining, if they walk in the room, you're like. But actually, it's a good thing none of us got raises here. And I'm kind of glad for it, you know, just because you know that person's going to be like, what? How could you how could you say that? Right? How could you say that about this company? Right. Yeah.

Greg Kyte: [00:18:57] Well, and, and even like, like very topical right now. There are workers at Amazon who are trying to organize a union. Oh, yeah. And if you organize a union, you're rocking the boat and organizing the union. You are. You are being painted because, I mean, you're basically are you being loyal to your company? If you're organizing a union loyal.

Adam Broud: [00:19:17] To your fellow.

Greg Kyte: [00:19:18] Man, loyal, loyal to your coworkers, maybe. Yeah, but not to the company.

Adam Broud: [00:19:22] Uh, maybe I could see it painted both ways.

Greg Kyte: [00:19:25] I could.

Adam Broud: [00:19:26] Well, I could because it depends. Because unions can help companies in a lot of ways as well. That depends on how you want to define that. Sounds like a bleeding.

Greg Kyte: [00:19:32] Heart liberal to me, is what that sound sounds like.

Adam Broud: [00:19:36] But there's just there's a few people who are listening to us who just, like, shut off real quick. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Greg Kyte: [00:19:41] Engineer this. I don't need a behavioral ethics credit.

Adam Broud: [00:19:44] This bad? Yeah.

Greg Kyte: [00:19:48] Um. Kylie. Is that for. That's a lot. It's still. Okay. So a couple of things. Adam A couple of things. First off.

Adam Broud: [00:19:59] Yeah. Number one hit me.

Greg Kyte: [00:20:01] And now I forgot him. First off, last time. Yes. How? Like, how how bad did you get drunk last.

Adam Broud: [00:20:08] Time I got to class time. What happened last time to you? Okay, I already told Greg this, but I wanted to tell the listeners because we. You should know, we record this at, like, a 10:30 a.m. a m It's a horrible decision that by 11:30 a.m. for sure. And so and then I go home to my two kids. And the way my wife has agreed to this is she's like, okay, but as soon as you walk through that door, you're a full functioning adult, which I'm like, I'll give it my best shot. And we went to the park when I came home last time and I fell asleep, like immediately while we were all at the park, at the park. And my wife didn't even bother waking me up. So I woke up two hours later in a public park, sunburned, drunk, and I was like, This is a real low moment. If this is such a cliche of a character in a movie, like if someone wrote this in a movie, they'd be like, People don't actually do this though. And people would be like, Adam Roud.

Greg Kyte: [00:20:59] Unfortunately, unfortunately, I know one.

Adam Broud: [00:21:01] Graduate of Brigham Young University.

Greg Kyte: [00:21:03] Yeah, great story. So. So if you're loyal, you don't rock the boat. But our CPA's supposed to rock the boat. Easy question. That's a layup.

Adam Broud: [00:21:13] Yeah, you rock.

Greg Kyte: [00:21:14] That we're supposed. Listen, listener, you're supposed to rock the CENSORED boat. So rock the rock that boat. Here's the thing. Personal story of mine, my old boss. So when I so I'm a CPA, I spent one year at a CPA firm. I got hired away by the company that I still work for, the guy who hired me away from the CPA firm. He stole $605,000 from the company, $605,005. We were able to get a large portion of that back. I think what we actually had to write off well, plus accrued interest. When you had accrued interest on that, it was like 700 and 780,000, something like that. My goodness. So, yeah.

Adam Broud: [00:21:51] What a talented man. So he in the wrong area.

Greg Kyte: [00:21:54] But he this guy he was he talked about loyalty all the CENSORED time.

Adam Broud: [00:21:59] Well, of course he did.

Greg Kyte: [00:22:00] It was like.

Adam Broud: [00:22:00] It was mentioned cults. He was trying to do it in the company.

Greg Kyte: [00:22:03] Yeah. He was like, Do you have my back or do you not have my back? Because he's like, well, I, I but I have to I have to make sure that the stakeholders know what's what I'm seeing that you're doing because.

Adam Broud: [00:22:14] There should have been a few people who were just like, I've got your back, but to what amount?

Greg Kyte: [00:22:19] And now, now to.

Adam Broud: [00:22:19] Make you would have to.

Greg Kyte: [00:22:20] Make it clear because there's going to be a lot of accountants who are like, He's still $605,000 and you didn't just throw him in jail. Here's what he threw. The CPA firm that I used to work for. They okayed this. He had it. He had it in the books as a loan. So it was a it was he took a $605,000 loan over the course of about a decade and had not paid even a penny toward interest or principal.

Adam Broud: [00:22:44] That's that's what I'm talking that's a pretty good loan.

Greg Kyte: [00:22:46] And there was no there was no loan document either. So there was no there was no legal document. There was no repayment.

Adam Broud: [00:22:52] Of this loan equality loan.

Greg Kyte: [00:22:54] It was booked as a loan.

Adam Broud: [00:22:55] So what company was this? I would also like to take a loan out. Right, Exactly. That sounds pretty nice.

Greg Kyte: [00:23:00] So. So he was hardcore about loyalty?

Adam Broud: [00:23:05] Of course.

Greg Kyte: [00:23:05] He was. And it and it was one of those things where I was going, okay, I'm making sure as the accountant for this company now, I'm making sure that the member managers of this LLC understand what's happening with you and this loan and what and that it's been and they they like and just over the course of time they ended up we're like, yeah, we can't. Well, it was weird too. Just full disclosure on this whole thing. He he was also in his 60s when I got hired by the company and he was making like $150,000 a year from the company and they were like, if we fire him, there's no way he can get another job if he's not repaying it when he's making $150,000. If we fire him, there's no way he's going to get more. He's going to be able to replay it as a Walmart greeter.

Adam Broud: [00:23:49] So sad.

Greg Kyte: [00:23:50] So he had he had frauded himself into job security because they were like the only way he can repay this loan to us is if we keep him on the payroll making what he's making right now.

Adam Broud: [00:24:01] So what a bunch of bleeding hearts you guys were.

Greg Kyte: [00:24:03] But they but they knew about. And the crazy thing was they they didn't. The other the other weird thing, just in terms of intercompany dynamics, they they wouldn't fire him about the loan because the managing members like the managers of the LLC, the people who because we have members and then you have managing members who are like kind of in charge, they were embarrassed that he was able to take all this money from the company. They took it personal. If they fired him, they'd be like, Well, people are going to start asking questions if we fire him, What? And they and they didn't want to they didn't want to lose face in front of the other members.

Adam Broud: [00:24:31] What a weird concern.

Greg Kyte: [00:24:32] It was the weirdest, like the interpersonal and company dynamics involved in that whole thing were bizarre. But wow, the baseline. This guy was hardcore. He was like, Do you have my back? And I and I was like, I have to tell you, I do. But at the same time, I got to make sure that I get this stuff out. Because it was the right thing to do.

Adam Broud: [00:24:51] I had to rock the boat. I had to.

Greg Kyte: [00:24:53] Rock the CENSORED boat.

Adam Broud: [00:24:55] Hey, an accountant's role is to be both be the waves, but help help the boat make it through the storm. That's my inspirational quote for this. It felt terrible saying it.

Greg Kyte: [00:25:04] Dude, that was.

Adam Broud: [00:25:05] Like, very good. That was so good.

Greg Kyte: [00:25:07] Can you say it again?

Adam Broud: [00:25:08] The accountants role is to not only create the waves, but help the boat. Help the boat make it through the storm. That's really.

Greg Kyte: [00:25:14] Good. Thanks, man. That's quality.

Adam Broud: [00:25:16] You guys, if this sounds really cheesy to you, take five shots of that. We're really for it. Are we? How many have we done? We're only four. No.

Greg Kyte: [00:25:25] Please. Okay, so this is why it's good that we have notes. Because my brain is not working well anymore. People can use loyalty to coerce other people into colluding with them in the in in their unethical behavior.

Adam Broud: [00:25:39] Which is what it felt like. That guy was trying to do that clearly. Right. Because he was like, do you have my back to the degree of $605,000? Exactly what he was asking. Exactly.

Greg Kyte: [00:25:49] And I was like, well, I'm not going to call for your resignation, but I might eventually. And I actually ended up doing that, which I'll tell you what, that was a that was an action that I took because I this guy hired me and I and finally I got to the point and it wasn't just his loan. His loan was part of it, but he also was just massively overspending our budget every year at the company. And I'm the CPA.

Adam Broud: [00:26:13] I'm this is the CEO.

Greg Kyte: [00:26:15] This was the basically.

Adam Broud: [00:26:16] That's her main job, bro. Yeah. Overspend. No, thank you.

Greg Kyte: [00:26:19] And he was way over spending and I was like, Dude, we overspent last year. We overspent by $165,000. Plus you spent $400,000 on a on a capital improvement project at the at our company. So between both of those, we don't have the money to do this. And And what tell me how let's start working at ways where we can rein in the spending. He didn't want to hear any of my ideas of how we could like rein in the spending.

Adam Broud: [00:26:44] He hired you, which meant when he interviewed you, I mean, you mentioned that you're not necessarily a very loyal person, but he saw something in you that was like, This guy will lie for me. That's what that means.

Greg Kyte: [00:26:54] Craig Right.

Adam Broud: [00:26:55] Something in your interview told him, right.

Greg Kyte: [00:26:58] So this is.

Adam Broud: [00:26:59] Five this is.

Greg Kyte: [00:27:00] The first time I've been like, Oh, please, dear CENSORED, not another one.

Adam Broud: [00:27:03] This is same, same. This is the only time that I'm like, I'm going. I'm going to hurt myself. Yeah. So that was five.

Greg Kyte: [00:27:11] Okay, here's another thing. We got to keep going. We got to keep tackling this, these, this content trains moving.

Adam Broud: [00:27:16] Woo woo, Let's do this.

Greg Kyte: [00:27:18] So people can use loyalty to coerce other people into joining them in their unethical behavior.

Adam Broud: [00:27:24] Frequently they do.

Greg Kyte: [00:27:25] But also if we both if we both do something unethical together. Ooh, that can create loyalty. Oh, between us. Yeah. Because let's say we rob. We rob a.

Adam Broud: [00:27:37] Bank, let's do it.

Greg Kyte: [00:27:38] And we and we murder the third guy in our in our team.

Adam Broud: [00:27:43] Who helped distances about that part.

Greg Kyte: [00:27:45] Let's just say I mean, it's just a thought experiment. Sure. If we do that, you and me are going to be pretty loyal to each other. Yeah, Because if either of us narcs, either of us out, we both go to jail forever.

Adam Broud: [00:27:57] I've seen Goodfellas. I know how it works.

Greg Kyte: [00:27:59] Yeah. There you go. So, so, so, so. Here's what I'm saying. Yeah. Loyalty is seen as a virtue, sure. But loyalty can easily either be the result of unethical behavior, or it can be the cause of unethical behavior. So. So ask yourself this. Is loyalty really a virtue?

Adam Broud: [00:28:17] Uh, it feels like we're in the same spot. It's the right amount of it. Because too far along the spectrum. And what's the extreme of.

Greg Kyte: [00:28:25] I'm trying to. I'm trying to get all, like, like, preachy. And you're like, Actually, we already answered this question at three.

Adam Broud: [00:28:31] Yeah, we've been there.

Greg Kyte: [00:28:32] So an interesting interview that I heard. This was a long time ago on a podcast that no longer exists.

Adam Broud: [00:28:38] Called Oh, that's Too.

Greg Kyte: [00:28:39] Bad. Oh, what was it called? I can't even remember what it was called. It was with a dude named Chris Marquette who who was the host of the podcast. It was called Fraud Talk that just came back to me.

Adam Broud: [00:28:51] The marketplace of Marquette Ideas that in the future, Chris Marquette.

Greg Kyte: [00:28:54] He had a guest on his show who he interviewed. This guest was the district attorney of Northern California, who were part of his job, was investigating white collar crime, embezzlement, those sorts of things. Oh, Northern.

Adam Broud: [00:29:09] California, like San Francisco. Is that what we're talking about? I think.

Greg Kyte: [00:29:11] San Francisco to Redding is where we're talking.

Adam Broud: [00:29:14] About. That's like that's kind of that's close to where I'm from. So now I'm excited.

Greg Kyte: [00:29:17] Wait, where are you from?

Adam Broud: [00:29:18] I'm from Medford, Oregon.

Greg Kyte: [00:29:19] Oh, okay.

Adam Broud: [00:29:20] So southern Oregon. But the great state of Jefferson shout out to everybody who lives there.

Greg Kyte: [00:29:25] Awesome. So you're like, I'm from California, by which I'm from Northern California, by which I mean.

Adam Broud: [00:29:32] No, it is state of Jefferson. People listening.

Greg Kyte: [00:29:35] Will know. I don't know what that means. So. Okay, so here's the thing. His his district attorney like legit. He was like one of the best things you can do for your company is make sure that everyone in the accounting department just hates each other. Oh, he's like. He's like, team building. Forget team building. You need to make, like, animosity building. You need to make these you need to you need to instill just just vile hatred among your team because you.

Adam Broud: [00:30:03] Watched Hunger Games use that as the jumping off point for your next company activity for this specific division.

Greg Kyte: [00:30:09] Because his idea was if these people don't if they hate each other, they don't trust each other. If they hate each other, they're not loyal to each other. And if they're not loyal to each other, they're going to narc each other out. They're like, bad CENSORED.

Adam Broud: [00:30:22] Where'd that $0.05 go, Greg? It was $0.05 to you. But it's ethical behavior to me where the $0.05 go.

Greg Kyte: [00:30:28] And there's no materiality threshold for fraud. That's hard to throw that in. That was for the accountants. Know what I'm talking about. So I think that was the end of my story about the DA from Northern California. Here's here's the how. I don't even know how much time we this is how bad. 505 So we're about 40 minutes in. I'm going to say we've got one in completely other topic. We got another topic we need to get into. And we're not even done with loyalty yet, but here I am so sorry, Kylie, that you had to see me like this. Here's the here's the solution to the loyal. Here's the here's.

Adam Broud: [00:31:04] Solve my problems.

Greg Kyte: [00:31:05] Greg The the solution to the problem of the loyalty conundrum is this. It's transparency. Again, we've talked about transparency. And transparency is the solution to the loyalty conundrum.

Adam Broud: [00:31:16] Get.

Greg Kyte: [00:31:17] Invisible. Here is why get visible. Here's why. Yeah, you can come in. So if I'm in if I'm in this interview, I say, Listen. Interviewer I am fiercely loyal, but I am also fiercely ethical and I demand both of those in return from the company that I work for.

Adam Broud: [00:31:38] That's Sasha.

Greg Kyte: [00:31:39] Fierce. How would you know? But seriously, as an HR guy, how would you feel if somebody came in hot like that to an interview?

Adam Broud: [00:31:44] If someone used the word fierce that many times, I would be terrified for my life? Would you be like, there's there's a little too much going on. Okay. But but here's.

Greg Kyte: [00:31:52] But here's the thing. I'm going to say this.

Adam Broud: [00:31:54] The hardest thing to find in an interview is someone who's just a normal, functioning human being. As weird as that might sound, really honestly, that's the majority of interviewing is just like, can you just hold a basic conversation without like, my little like those vibes going off? And that's like, that's most normal.

Greg Kyte: [00:32:11] You're hired.

Adam Broud: [00:32:12] That's so much of it.

Greg Kyte: [00:32:13] Wow, that's good. We're going to do. We haven't even.

Adam Broud: [00:32:16] Poured the We.

Greg Kyte: [00:32:16] Are we're doing an AB again. Are you doing.

Adam Broud: [00:32:18] Yeah I'll keep with that.

Greg Kyte: [00:32:19] Okay. We're going to do an.

Adam Broud: [00:32:20] Air podcast at some time and it's going to be super.

Greg Kyte: [00:32:23] That would be such a fun. I'm going to cheers you with this one just because that's how fun.

Adam Broud: [00:32:28] That's green. I like it.

Greg Kyte: [00:32:29] It's a weird green. That's six.

Adam Broud: [00:32:34] It's the only that tastes worse, right?

Greg Kyte: [00:32:37] The other one we've had, we've been like, Oh, this is, this gets easier to the further you get.

Adam Broud: [00:32:41] It feels like it's mad at me. It feels like it's like, how did I not kill this guy already? And it's actively trying to more with each right.

Greg Kyte: [00:32:48] If loyalty requires reciprocal loyalty, does that make sense?

Adam Broud: [00:32:53] Ari Recipients. How do you spell reciprocal? It's right here. Reciprocal. L That's what it means to me. That's right. Rbc. I can't do this.

Greg Kyte: [00:33:05] Because if you're not loyal to listen, if you're not loyal to me.

Adam Broud: [00:33:09] Reciprocal Just a little bit.

Greg Kyte: [00:33:11] If, if you're not loyal to me, if you know I am if you. But I know. I know you are. But let's say.

Adam Broud: [00:33:15] The question thought.

Greg Kyte: [00:33:16] Experiment.

Adam Broud: [00:33:17] Different person if.

Greg Kyte: [00:33:18] Okay, if you use your daughter that your.

Adam Broud: [00:33:21] Daughter.

Greg Kyte: [00:33:21] Listen, if Zack Frank is not Zack, Zack Frank, the producer of the show.

Adam Broud: [00:33:26] I hope he's not. He's going to edit this to make us sound like such two idiots. And I love that. I hope you're not loyal to.

Greg Kyte: [00:33:32] If he's not loyal to me, I don't have, then that frees me from my responsibility to be loyal to him. Yeah, right. If you. If you stab me in the back, then it's stab.

Adam Broud: [00:33:42] You in the front.

Greg Kyte: [00:33:42] It's exactly. That's how loyalty works. CENSORED.

Adam Broud: [00:33:49] Started off as a fun thought.

Greg Kyte: [00:33:50] Experiment, turned into.

Adam Broud: [00:33:51] A real threat.

Greg Kyte: [00:33:52] I'm so we got to cover the content. Please do. Despite the with can you.

Adam Broud: [00:33:58] Of content does your.

Greg Kyte: [00:34:00] Does your mouth feel tingly.

Adam Broud: [00:34:02] Oh so tingly.

Greg Kyte: [00:34:04] Okay. I just want to make sure it was both.

Adam Broud: [00:34:05] My tongue is dancing on its own so it's the salsa.

Greg Kyte: [00:34:08] But listen. So if you're not loyal to me that then I don't have to be loyal to you. But we.

Adam Broud: [00:34:15] Are loyal to.

Greg Kyte: [00:34:15] Each other. Okay? If Zach's not loyal to me, I don't have to be loyal to Zach.

Adam Broud: [00:34:19] Zach.

Greg Kyte: [00:34:19] And if Zach's unethical, I can. I can make a contract, a social contract with.

Adam Broud: [00:34:24] Zach that says.

Greg Kyte: [00:34:25] If you're. If you. If you want me to be unethical. Yeah, If you're unethical, that breaks you. The only way you're loyal to me is if you're ethical. You got to be ethical. Otherwise, you're breaking my loyalty.

Adam Broud: [00:34:37] That's got to be ethical. Or you're breaking my loyal.

Greg Kyte: [00:34:39] I'm. I'm loyal to you. And if you're unethical, you're not being loyal to me by your. Your. You're CENSORED unethical.

Adam Broud: [00:34:46] I encourage every accountant to do what Greg just did and try to at least virtually, but ideally, physically poke your coworkers in the chest and say, if you're not loyal to me, then I'm not. But only with Ethicality. And I think it'll go over great.

Greg Kyte: [00:35:02] It'll go.

Adam Broud: [00:35:02] Good and you'll definitely not be.

Greg Kyte: [00:35:04] Fired if you.

Adam Broud: [00:35:05] Listen. This is what our experience says, that you won't be brought into HR in the slightest.

Greg Kyte: [00:35:08] This is what I have written on the paper, is this is like if it's this is the scene in the movie that's really good. What guidance.

Adam Broud: [00:35:15] Did Greg give us, if you.

Greg Kyte: [00:35:17] Right, because Greg wrote the notes. If you ever expect me to be unethical, you're breaking your loyalty, your loyalty to me. And if you break your loyalty to me, I will burn your house to the ground. But then I. But then I struck that through.

Adam Broud: [00:35:33] Oh, that's fair.

Greg Kyte: [00:35:33] So the burn your house to the ground and said, Then I will break my loyalty to you.

Adam Broud: [00:35:38] Feels very Batman. Like you expect me to be unethical. You are breaking your loyalty to me. And if you break your loyalty to me, I will burn your house to the.

Speaker3: [00:35:51] Break my loyalty to you. I will avenge my parents.

Greg Kyte: [00:35:55] So I think that's the end of our topic. According to my cheat sheet.

Adam Broud: [00:36:01] This isn't the end. This is the beginning of ethics. This is this is a path that we've all gone down and we've all walked down this path of ethics. Within four simple podcasts, you went from a horrible human being to the wonderful ethical person that you are today. Isn't that wonderful? Think about it. You you binged all these in four hours and four hours ago, if we would have asked you, Do you want to steal from your company, you would have been like, That was my primary goal. But now. Now look at you. You're so grown up, You're so much ethical. You're a narc. I'll give it. That's for sure. We're so.

Greg Kyte: [00:36:34] Still. We're so proud of you.

Adam Broud: [00:36:36] I'm so proud of you. Accountants. Hey, go count something. But. But count something for yourself. You know, Don't count. Don't use basic math for someone else. Do it for you, you know?

Greg Kyte: [00:36:48] And your job is to create the waves and also to help that boat get through the storm. Now, here's the next thing we need to talk about.

Adam Broud: [00:36:55] On the lake of business.

Greg Kyte: [00:36:56] You go ahead on the. So what are.

Adam Broud: [00:37:00] You going to say.

Greg Kyte: [00:37:00] Here? The other thing, people didn't understand this from the top, from the title of this episode. Yeah. So the title of this podcast is.

Adam Broud: [00:37:08] Loyal to No man, I will do it. No, no, I can't.

Greg Kyte: [00:37:11] I'm loyal to you and I will not let you do that. The title of this episode is Loyalty Stories. And probably people.

Adam Broud: [00:37:18] Like what.

Greg Kyte: [00:37:19] The stories have to do with ethics. Let me tell you what stories have to do with that. First off, you're an MBA. I'm an MBA, correct? Hell yeah, dude. Hell yeah.

Adam Broud: [00:37:28] And what's up?

Greg Kyte: [00:37:29] Mba? Mba for life. So when we took our MBA, when and even before that, we'd all known about mission. Mission, vision and values. Yes. Right. Those are like, big time. Plus, we're from Utah. That's from the land of Stephen Covey, which for some reason I feel like UGG, it's that's that's all.

Adam Broud: [00:37:46] Stephen Covey is the cloud that surrounds all business here in Utah, which is great. He's great. I love.

Greg Kyte: [00:37:52] Him. Yeah, he is. He's cool. I love.

Adam Broud: [00:37:53] His principles.

Greg Kyte: [00:37:54] But here's the thing. What do you think specifically? What do you think those ideas are? Are just business books or do you think that they're legit important.

Adam Broud: [00:38:04] When it comes to core values in a company, you're saying? Yeah, I think it depends on the company for sure, because there are some companies live by it. I was fired once by a company that said that they are family. Let's be honest, I would never fire my family. I would just find a different place.

Greg Kyte: [00:38:18] They were so unloyal to you.

Adam Broud: [00:38:20] They were very disloyal. They were disloyal. They actively fired me for terrible reasons, which I cannot talk about. Because. Because that's maybe too much, actually. Oh, let's go on.

Greg Kyte: [00:38:30] Let's move on. Don't Google Adam proud now to see what company? Don't look at his LinkedIn.

Adam Broud: [00:38:35] That's true. I didn't specify which company, so I think I'm safe.

Greg Kyte: [00:38:38] Okay, good.

Adam Broud: [00:38:38] So are they legit or are they. Yeah, it depends on the company.

Greg Kyte: [00:38:42] They legit are.

Adam Broud: [00:38:43] Oh, my CENSORED. Please, Kylie.

Greg Kyte: [00:38:45] Both hate.

Adam Broud: [00:38:45] Everything. Terrible daughter making us do this.

Greg Kyte: [00:38:50] I think it was a lapse, in my judgment, to to think it was the right idea.

Adam Broud: [00:38:55] That moment in Harry Potter where Voldemort or Dumbledore is like, No, don't make me drink it, Harry. Harry keeps feeding him the water. Do you know that part? Kylie Bummer. Because you're Harry and that's.

Greg Kyte: [00:39:07] Not that's not a scene from the movie.

Adam Broud: [00:39:09] It is. It's number six. No. Okay, So.

Greg Kyte: [00:39:13] Okay, so you think so? It depends on the company.

Adam Broud: [00:39:15] Yes, depends on the company. Depends on the value. Some of them are absolute CENSORED.

Greg Kyte: [00:39:19] Okay. And here's my thing. Here's here's my 100% take on on core values because, yeah, forget mission, forget vision. Let's talk about core value here. Mission, vision. They can be legit. Here's the only only way that if you say your company has core values, the only way those core values are legit. If you've got a story where you sacrifice something, where you risked and sacrifice something to maintain that core value, sure, if you don't as a story, then that's not a core value. Yeah.

Adam Broud: [00:39:51] If you're oh, if your core value is family. But then you fired anybody who's around, then who cares? Yeah, who cares about that? You got to have an example that shows that you're.

Greg Kyte: [00:39:59] Yeah, yeah. Show me. Show me how you lost some money. Yeah. To maintain your core value.

Adam Broud: [00:40:04] Show me how you invited me to Thanksgiving. And I made a mess of it. And yet you invited me back the next year. And family is your core value.

Greg Kyte: [00:40:11] That's exactly right. I love this. This guy. Yeah. Dude, can I tell you listener, this guy was.

Adam Broud: [00:40:16] He's been and I love Thanksgiving. He's mashed potatoes.

Greg Kyte: [00:40:20] Like we do a lot of comedy together. This guy he's he's been a I was lucky. I'm lucky. I'm lucky that I found you, man. Um, so there's an article it may or may not be in the show notes for this podcast because I don't know if there are show notes for this podcast. There's an article where some guy who I guess is a PR guy talks about. Talks about values. Yes. And he says there's different kinds of values. Yes, there's core values. Sure. There's aspirational values.

Adam Broud: [00:40:49] Okay.

Greg Kyte: [00:40:50] And there's permission to play values. Let me.

Adam Broud: [00:40:53] Explain. The hell does that mean core values? They're in your core. They're right in your gut. They're in your abdomen. You can feel them. They're necessary for a company. Let's move on. What's the next one?

Greg Kyte: [00:41:01] Right. And they guide all of a company's actions. That's a core value.

Adam Broud: [00:41:06] Aspirational. You want to be it. You're not there yet, but you're working.

Greg Kyte: [00:41:09] It's like you can.

Adam Broud: [00:41:10] Do it, buddy. We love you and accept you for who you are, but we prefer the person you could be.

Greg Kyte: [00:41:14] Yeah, I wish this was a value. Yeah, that's an aspiration. Value. Now, permission to play Value. That's an interesting one. Permission to play value. That's one of the things. It's like this is the minimum standard behavior. Minimum. Minimum. Standard of behavior and social interaction that you have to maintain for us to not to fire your ass.

Adam Broud: [00:41:34] That's fun. Oh, that's very but.

Greg Kyte: [00:41:36] That's also a value because it's like if you if you pull your pants down.

Adam Broud: [00:41:40] Bare minimum.

Greg Kyte: [00:41:41] If you pull your pants down in the break room.

Adam Broud: [00:41:43] I would not. Gotcha.

Greg Kyte: [00:41:46] So that's permission to play values. So but that was just fun to talk about.

Adam Broud: [00:41:50] Because permission to play that's that's actually very fun. I like that because that could be someone like you interviewing and being like, I'm not a very loyal person and I'd be like, To what degree is an accountant? And you're like, I'm going to sell you down a river if you do any sort of fraudulent activity? And I'm like, That's exactly what I want an accountant, bring it in, bring it in. And you'd be like, a core value of mine is to not have too much physical touch with my employer because that creates awkward circumstances. And I'd be like, You passed around to. So let's hire you. Right? That's what I would do.

Greg Kyte: [00:42:18] So. So I passed your core value and your permission to play value.

Adam Broud: [00:42:22] Absolutely. Exactly. Play, bro.

Greg Kyte: [00:42:24] All values are aspirational values unless you have a story to back them up. A story where you where you for you forwent you forgoed.

Adam Broud: [00:42:34] Forwent.

Greg Kyte: [00:42:35] You for went yeah money. Oh to maintain that value. That's a core value for dollar.

Adam Broud: [00:42:42] Dollar bills y'all. Now here's.

Greg Kyte: [00:42:43] The thing.

Adam Broud: [00:42:44] Yes.

Greg Kyte: [00:42:45] With with CPAs and CPA firms.

Adam Broud: [00:42:48] Cpa.

Greg Kyte: [00:42:48] They always are like a core value of ours is that we will we will uphold the highest level of ethics and integrity in the job that we do. That's. Did you know that?

Adam Broud: [00:42:59] I didn't know that.

Greg Kyte: [00:43:00] That's true. If you and really most companies will have some kind of like lip service to ethics.

Adam Broud: [00:43:06] To ethics.

Greg Kyte: [00:43:07] In their in their.

Adam Broud: [00:43:08] That makes sense. I feel like that's most MBA programs where they're like, hey, we're super ethical. Part of that feels suspicious where it's like you wouldn't have to specify how ethical you are constantly if people didn't suspect you of not being ethical, which feels like maybe there's some weirdness there.

Greg Kyte: [00:43:24] Yeah, but kind of a thou doth but contest too much.

Adam Broud: [00:43:28] Oh, great. But I guess that is that is the case for accountants because the thing that I don't envy from you guys is that man, do you guys have so much of a burden upon you because you're the final checkpoint, right? So you got to be ethical more than anybody else because you got to check everybody else's work. Kudos to you guys. I'll be honest, I have never respected an accountant in my life. Besides, Greg and I still don't respect him because of his accounting abilities. But now what this podcast has taught me, this is what it has taught me, is I met a lot of people in my MBA who would ask questions and I would be like, Oh my gosh, you, oh, someone's going to work for you eventually. What a terrible person you are. Yeah, and now I'm going to pray nightly, if I did that, that the accountants would double check their work because you guys are sincerely the last check towards ethical behavior for so many CEOs who 12% of which are psychopaths and the extra 88% are just hiding their tendencies. Well, so go out there and be ethical ethic Ethic it up, man. And that's one ethic today.

Greg Kyte: [00:44:37] And that was what felt like should have been the end of the podcast.

Adam Broud: [00:44:41] Keep going.

Greg Kyte: [00:44:41] Don't care. That was Adam going on a going just on a I felt like I was preparing.

Adam Broud: [00:44:47] People for battle.

Speaker3: [00:44:48] Man. There are unethical people on our front frontline. There are men who will look into the whites of your eyes and will they? Will they place their budgets on the wrong line? They will. And if you find.

Greg Kyte: [00:45:01] Yourself riding through feats of fields of wheat, you have found yourself.

Speaker3: [00:45:06] In Valhalla. Will they look at their goods and will they falsify the records thereof of the cost? They shall, based on a handshake.

Adam Broud: [00:45:17] And.

Speaker3: [00:45:18] A deal. But will you keep them from it? Yes. Yes.

Adam Broud: [00:45:22] You shall go forth and be ethical.

Greg Kyte: [00:45:25] So here's the thing.

Adam Broud: [00:45:27] If you don't have a story.

Greg Kyte: [00:45:28] So so basically what I'm going for is this.

Adam Broud: [00:45:30] I'm so far out of it, so much farther out of it than your wife is to be single episode.

Greg Kyte: [00:45:36] Of this, your wife is going to be so mad at me.

Speaker3: [00:45:38] Ate an old biscuit for nothing before this podcast.

Adam Broud: [00:45:41] No. Think of where you've been to the listener, but everything to you.

Greg Kyte: [00:45:44] He ate a biscuit to make sure there was some carbs in his tummy before he ate this boot. And just think where you'd be if it weren't for that biscuit, which was homemade. I made that myself, so you're welcome. That was made with love. Now we got we got to wrap this up because we are not in a good position right now. You if you if you think you have a core value and you can't back it up with a story, it's not a core value. But don't be afraid. Don't be ashamed. Don't don't despair. No way. Because there are ways for you to create stories to back up your these things that are aspirational to to turn an aspirational value into a core value. Here's the thing. There's a way. I'm going to just list a few of them. First off, if if ethics is a core value of yours, fire a client that you think has bad ethics that you think is like.

Speaker3: [00:46:28] Get them out of here.

Greg Kyte: [00:46:28] If they're sketchy, why are you doing business with them? Yeah, get rid of them. And then essential.

Adam Broud: [00:46:34] Oils. Get it out of here. And they're.

Speaker3: [00:46:35] Like sketchy.

Greg Kyte: [00:46:36] My company that I work for, the CPA firm, they knew we were sketchy as well. They knew that my boss was doing the that he was doing.

Adam Broud: [00:46:46] Oh, not the one you currently work for the previous one.

Greg Kyte: [00:46:48] Well, the he it's the company I work for, but it was the old boss. I'm the boss now. Oh nice is what happened.

Adam Broud: [00:46:55] Hell yeah. And you're ethical as you do a whole podcast.

Greg Kyte: [00:46:57] And I'm disloyal as CENSORED because I threw. Because I got rid of him. But. But that's the thing. I needed to. I needed to rock the boat. Now, listen. So fire, fire a sketchy client. If my CPA firm get him out of here. If I fire my client, and then they tell everybody, Hey, why did we get rid of that $100,000 a year client? And they said, because we thought they were sketchy. That would have been a great way for them to create a culture of ethics and how to back up their core value. The ethics are important. Here's another one. Back it up.

Adam Broud: [00:47:27] Now.

Greg Kyte: [00:47:28] If you have a vendor, if you're in industry, if you're a CPA in industry.

Adam Broud: [00:47:32] You got a vendor, imagine it.

Greg Kyte: [00:47:33] You've got a vendor who's who's like a brother or a sister or a dad, a.

Adam Broud: [00:47:40] Kiss on the cheek. And it's not awkward closely around the mouth because that's incest.

Greg Kyte: [00:47:44] You need to you need to fire them.

Adam Broud: [00:47:46] Get them out of here.

Greg Kyte: [00:47:47] Because that's a way where fraud can happen. And then they're like, why did you why did you fire your dad? And then you go, because, listen, that's how important ethics are to us as a company. I fired my mother. That's what that's. You just created a story.

Adam Broud: [00:48:03] Also make your accountants hate you as a person, and then you can keep your dad on the payroll and you can just make people hate you. That's another option we learned earlier, I.

Greg Kyte: [00:48:12] Think disregard what he just said. He gets drunker than I do. It's the other one. Listen, the last one, I think I feel like that sort of relates to something we talked about earlier, like.

Adam Broud: [00:48:21] He could bench press you right now. That's where my confidence level is at. If I held you in my arms like a baby, I could lift you the bench, press you.

Greg Kyte: [00:48:29] The third way to create a story is this. Listen is if you work in a CPA firm.

Adam Broud: [00:48:36] Which you likely do.

Greg Kyte: [00:48:37] Don't require your staff to work to do 60 billable hours.

Adam Broud: [00:48:42] No one needs that one week. No.

Greg Kyte: [00:48:44] What are you doing? Stop it. Because we. And another. Do you remember when we talked about ego depletion? Adam Brown?

Adam Broud: [00:48:50] Everything about that. Yeah.

Greg Kyte: [00:48:51] Because if you cause them, you're going to if you make somebody do 60 billable hours a week.

Adam Broud: [00:48:57] They got to make so many decisions. And at the end of it, they're going to be questioning themselves so much or they're just going to be passing it off and being like, if I care, yeah.

Greg Kyte: [00:49:05] And they're not going to have the self control to make ethical decisions if you're working on that. And then if people are like, why did you reduce the number of required billable hours per week during busy season? Because you.

Adam Broud: [00:49:17] Ethical.

Greg Kyte: [00:49:18] That's right. And then guess what? You just created a story. You just you just story.

Adam Broud: [00:49:22] Because I'm ethical.

Greg Kyte: [00:49:23] You just forwent money for ethics and.

Adam Broud: [00:49:28] You just ethical.

Greg Kyte: [00:49:28] That's how you create a core value. Am I too aggressive when I'm.

Adam Broud: [00:49:34] I think it's I think it's balanced out by my R&B speaking over which let's be honest. Oh, my CENSORED. We just we full loop. The virtue of all things is found in the center. And so when you've got me doing R&B lyrics over the top of Greg's.

Greg Kyte: [00:49:52] Going.

Speaker3: [00:49:53] To be you aggressive, finger pointing.

Adam Broud: [00:49:55] Story. This is where the virtue is found and the virtue is found in ethics. What an interesting path that accountants have to lead. This is the new ending that accountants have to lead in, that they have to be well, in some ways potentially the most ethical person because corporations are supposed to. Here's the only thing that keeps capitalism alive is capitalism. Don't give a CENSORED about what people are doing. But but the ethics of accountants will allow them to be able to compete in a world that is trying to find profits without exposing them to unethical treatment, I think. Or they're either their employees or their practices or whatever it is. Man, it is so hard to make a point when you're so.

Greg Kyte: [00:50:41] You made it. You made.

Adam Broud: [00:50:44] It. Listen, man. Accountants. I do have a newfound respect for accountants. Every accountant that I meet, I'm going to be like, Dude, I know that you have the responsibility to be a narc in your real life, and I respect it and that sucks and it's great and that's really hard. And I'm glad that I can meet you outside of your business. And I'm never going to do business with you because I don't want to be one more stressor on your life. Okay. I'm going to say, I.

Greg Kyte: [00:51:05] Don't know if that ended exactly how I wanted it to, but it was pretty CENSORED close. Guys, thank you so much for.

Speaker3: [00:51:11] Being here for this Greg Kite and I though I'm loyal to him. I will say he's a great guy.

Adam Broud: [00:51:17] But if he steps a toe out of unethical behavior, I'll stop him.

Greg Kyte: [00:51:22] And I'm loyal to Adam Browde. He's the coworker.

Adam Broud: [00:51:25] Loyal to you, but not as much because you're faceless.

Greg Kyte: [00:51:29] Ethics.