Working with other business people, my team and I get very involved with how people work. Working with those business people’s money, we often have to figure out how they can work better.

David Zweig’s book The Invisibles also looks at how people work and says we can find the best ways to work by looking at the people whose work we never see.  Zweig hypes the premise that “receiving outward credit for your work is overrated.”

People who work that way, those “Invisibles,” all share three traits in Zweig’s opinion, and I think it is best to let his words speak to them before commenting on them:

“[T]he first of the Three Traits-an ambivalence or even indifference toward recognition for their work. … If there is one underlying message of this book, it is the value of reaping reward from the work itself, not recognition for it.”

Then there is being meticulous:

“Several meta-analyses of studies on personality and job performance conducted by the Notre Dame business professor Timothy Judge, along with others, show that conscientiousness-which in the studies is defined as being ‘cautious, deliberate, self-disciplined, and neat and well-organized,’ in other words meticulous-is a core predictive trait for successful business people.”

And finally:

“[P]eople who want responsibility, who truly revel in it, are more likely to move into leadership roles within an organization. This desire for and even savoring of responsibility-the third of the Invisibles’ Three Traits-is apparent in nearly every Invisible I interviewed.”

All of these things sound like great things to find in a worker, but they also seem rather obvious. Working with other businesses, after all, leads to hearing horror stories of bad employees, so sure, we would all love all our hires to embody those three traits.

So what is Zweig really doing here?

I think that he is starting from a view that everyone is seeking celebrity and placing that over the value of work.  As we travel through the age of reality stars and the accessibility of social platforms like YouTube, the availability of, and grasping toward, fame is greater than ever before. We may then sometimes see people who we feel are undeserving of reaching great heights. However, I don’t think that this means some of them have not worked hard or that it is driving many others to not work as hard because they feel huge fame is an easy destination

It seems that the concept of recognition lies behind all this discussion. Sure, there are plenty of Invisible workers out there, but are they really only working for the work? Even those who work behind the scenes are receiving recognition of some sort; seeing the completion of a project, watching it enter the world, even just getting an ‘atta boy,’ or receiving a paycheck are recognition of work.  Not everyone wants to be on the cover of People, but no one wants to feel useless.

Let me now try to wrap up a lot of these ideas. First, for those of you reading these who are in positions of power, let those who have you helped you get there know that you appreciate their part of that journey. Let this also be a time to give personal thanks to our clients and express appreciation for being part of that journey together.

Personally, even as a public part of a business, I understand that I am an invisible piece behind many other (often much more prominent) businesses. There is much to enjoy in this and it is very fulfilling. All of our team takes pride in doing what we do, but more so in doing what we do well.

Now in the midst of tax season, we all are forced to engage with a bevy of numbers that quantify our work. Here is to hoping that what you do is fulfilling and brings you happiness. Otherwise, those numbers may feel quite daunting (though, sure, we can help with that, too).

This is an especially interesting time for those of us who work with taxes. Forms, schedules and deductions are on everyone’s mind and when one knows you have some knowledge, they want to pick your brain. This is not a complaint, for we do this because we enjoy it and there is a level of satisfaction that comes with knowing you provide a service that others need.

Well, this at least applies to those others who go about it in the right way. There are also those who are simply looking to take advantage of those services, getting as much as they can without paying for it. I don’t have any numbers to back this up, but with the increased access to do-it-yourself tax-preparation services in the last decade or so, the number of those questions may have increased.

(And should that not be a warning to any who use such means to handle their taxes? If you still think there are secret ways to bigger refunds, maybe you should be working with someone who could give you access to that “hidden” knowledge to start.)

Amazingly, the people who are most intent on getting that information out of you are often the ones who are most upset when you do not give them the answers they were seeking. On some level, they feel they already know the answer and just need someone to back them up. Even if the first nudge toward that knowledge came from an undignified source three degrees of separation away, they so much want it to be true that they ignore mounds of evidence to the contrary to find the one small piece that backs up their preconceived notion.

This phenomenon even has a name – the Confirmation Bias. This is the tendency to interpret and favor information in a way that proves your worldview correct. Beyond that, it also includes an active search for such material. It helps explain why conspiracy theories can take such a strong hold; if you will not be satisfied until you find evidence that proves your point of view, then you will find it.

Social network analyst Valdis Krebs has done research on what political books people purchase, finding that those who read liberal-leaning books tend to largely buy only other liberal books, while those with conservative leanings overwhelmingly buy books written from the perspective of the other end of the spectrum. And if one prefers to get their news from MSNBC or Fox News, there is a reason beyond which station has prettier graphics.

The mental pull to seek out self-affirming knowledge probably gets a little stronger when it can have an effect on one’s finances.  Making a mistake there, however, can have larger implications. Do you want to just believe than claiming a deduction is allowed by the IRS, or do you really want to know?

On most levels, I think everyone benefits from being willing to be wrong; that is how we learn, that is how we experience new things. Our brains, though, do not always make this easy. This means there can be peace of mind in having a qualified, disinterested third party handle some things for you.

If you then are finding the tax world maddening as you search information that can lead to greater benefits – and maybe ignoring knowledge that goes in the other direction – why not instead enlist the help of someone who knows? We love this stuff after all.  Give us a call 508.791.7982 

Iowa and New Hampshire have not cast their votes, and whether you are pleased or not with the results, the presidential race is about to heat up even more. Combine that increased bickering with the ever approaching date of April 15^th and talk of “The Tax Code” is about to become much more prevalent.

It is folly to think that a candidate will be able to get into office and flip a switch or wave a magic wand and largely alter this Code. (And there are times when everything they say sounds like folly, but that is a subject for elsewhere). Sound-bite politics, though, make tax law seem much easier than it is and we should remind ourselves of that when quick fixes are promised.

If you need a reminder of just how complicated it is, note that The Economist reported in 2010 that the head of the Internal Revenue Service, Douglas Shulman, has someone else do his taxes.

In that same article, it was reported that the US Tax Code is over 70,000 pages long. That is a ludicrous number, and if it were true the IRS should provide tax preparers with free bookcases. To put it in some perspective, a 32-volume set of the Encyclopedia Britannica published in 2003 that I found on Amazon was only listed at “only” 32,640 pages.

This 70,000-page number, though, has been reported by such respected news outlets as CNN and the New York Times.  So could it really be true?

Andrew L. Grossman, an attorney with Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation, has reported that the number is much less than the mythical 70,000. And although his purpose is to points out that tax law is simpler than the popular conception, I am not sure he achieves it.

Grossman says that he has a copy of the Tax Code that starts on page 100, skips 500 pages in numbering somewhere in the middle, and ends on page 4,037. When removing some outdated information, Gross estimates that the actual Tax Code is around 2,600 pages. I can conceive of that number better than then 70,000, but it is still astounding and intimidating.

I also would have preferred that those in charge of tax law knew how to count better than that story says they do.

Although it appears impossible to derive a real answer to the Tax Code’s length – the real answer probably lies somewhere between the two extremes, as it usually does - it can be concluded that it is long and it is complicated.

Yet, there are ever-growing ways for people to go about handling their taxes on their own. Yes, one can use them and file a reasonable, legal return. That can also put you at risk, though, as evidenced by a TaxSlayer data breach that was recently revealed.

You do not have to be overwhelmed, though, for there are people out there that can help you navigate these waters (whether they be 70,000-pages deep or not). If you want some of that help, we would love to hear from you.