Customer Reviews

Final Accounting: Ambition, Greed and the Fall of Arthur Andersen

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Final Accounting: Ambition, Greed and the Fall of Arthur Andersen is sort of like a hamburger served at a cheap fast food restaurant. It has plenty of bread at both ends but not much meat midway through.

Barbara Toffler gives a good introduction to whats it is like to interview and train for Arthur Andersen. She gives valuable insight of the mentoring relationships as well and how things sometimes changed rapid fire for her. In addition, it was quite interesting to note how the Audit and Consulting groups never seemd to play for the same team.

However, midway through the book, the reading becomes quite a chore. Way too much repetition about the author's inability to generate sufficient revenues. Toffler does not distinguish herself as a Big Person within Arthur Andersen as she merely makes excuses that anyone reading this review could make. The chapters on massive billing are such a bore. This issue happens everyday at law firms. Anyone who has every watched LA Law would know this. The repeated obstacles that Toffler faced really could have happened anywhere.

All of a sudden, Toffler jumps into the Enron and MCI incidents without sufficient detail. Why did Duncan order the paper shredding? Furthermore, the dry writing style makes it nearly impossible for an outsider to maintain their attention span. Its like you had either work for Arthur Andersen or a similar firm to even relate.

The conclusion to Final Accounting is decent. Toffler is fair in her judgement and places some blame on her own shoulders. However, there are way too many questions left unanswered. Overall, a better book still needs to be written on this subject that will appeal to the average worker in a large corporation.

I had the displeasure of meeting Ms. Toffler a number of times at Andersen. Her personality made Leona Helmsley seem like Miss Manners by comparison. She was abrupt and rude to almost everyone she met and would never have fitted in at any large professional firm. Her antipathy to Andersen makes her book so biased as to lack credibility. It seems oriented more to profitable revenge than to providing insight. I know at least one of her descriptions in the book is factually untrue but her fiction makes for a more entertaining read. A pity this "ethics consultant" didn't walk the talk herself. A career as a writer for the National Enquirer seems a better fit.

If you want insights rather than insults, buy "Inside Arthur Andersen" instead. It is written by people skilled in analyzing organizational behavior, appears to be far more objective despite the authors' positions within Andersen, is better researched, and identifies and explains the issues well. It also shows that the key issues affect other firms too, not just Andersen. That book should be required reading for all CPAs, accounting professors and students.

This is an odd book, because it's actually two separate books in one cover. The first book, which is essentially a short history of the rise and fall of Arthur Andersen, was no doubt written by the ghostwriter, Jennifer Reingold, and is actually fairly informative. This is the part that gets the three stars - not great by any means, but at least informative.

The second book is interspersed with the first, and purports to be a scathing indictment of the culture of Arthur Andersen, a respected American institution that was subverted and destroyed by arrogance and greed. It's easy to read a lot into this story, since it's really just the current American business ethic in microcosm. Nothing matters here but greed and taking pleasure in stepping in the other guy's face.

What's interesting here is the fact that Barbara Toffler, who clearly considers herself to be an "ethics expert", openly confesses that she was just as ruthless and greedy as everyone else at Andersen. But the reader is left wondering if she ever really quite gets it - does she understand she's just as morally culpable as the Andersen partners she eviscerates? She certainly doesn't seem to be too troubled by her own long list of questionable actions, in any case. The old joke about the definition of "chutzpah" being a person who murders his parents and then pleads for mercy because he's an orphan gets an update here: an unethical peddlar of "ethical services" who turns a quick buck by selling her story. You might feel like taking a shower after you finish this one.

I used to work for Arthur Andersen and happily call myself an Android. As a manager in the consulting practice for over 7 years, incidentally three years longer than Toffler, I saw how we collectively worked exceptionally hard to serve our clients. At no point in my career did I experience anything other than think straight, talk straight...and by the way I too intereacted with many of the Partners Toffler refers to. The bottom-line is this...Toffler is trying to make a buck on the fall of the firm. Her inability to assimiliate and contribute to the firm has manisfested itself in her speculative and unsubstantiated rhetoric. Finally, Toffler tries to establish herself as intelligent and credible by citing her work at Harvard, etc. Hey Toffler, I had a professor in college who said "be wary of those of try to convince others they are smart by simply stating so." DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!

I am not a former Android, nor am I a CPA, but I am a Harvard MBA who has served in various chief financial positions with smaller organizations. The book is interesting and fascinating reading, that's for sure. It confirms many of the reprehensible practices that I eyewitnessed even in nonprofit arenas, where attorneys and CPA's are in bed together and do all they can to take advantage of their client's ignorance. Their goal is to build a dependency to annuitize their fees. I was actually fired for confronting these egregious acts.

The hypocritical part is that Ms. Toffler succumbed to some of the tactics for the sake of her job. Although she's admittedly ashamed now, she is still presumably profiting from her Andersen connections (through book sale proceeds), just on the other side of the table now. No criticism to her--she's obviously seen the light now. But that's just a recurring thought I had as I was reading the book. It was an oxymoron that she was brought in for ethics and yet succumbed to the pressures and did unethical acts. I'm sure the pressure can be amazing--I've been there. But in the end, I chose to walk away to my own harm rather than join the club where you make lots of money, but you must silence your conscience and become someone that you flat out don't like.

Overall, it's still great that she wrote the book. People need to know what really goes on. She's highlighted the serious problems in the industry. It's also great reading. Were it not for her being a part of the wrongdoing and continuing to profit from it, I would have rated the book a "5". (If she has donated the book proceeds to some of the investors she helped bilk, then good for her. She has TRULY seen the light, and she gets a 5+!)

This purports to be an insider's view of the demise of Arthur Andersen written by the person who ran the business ethics practice. Over and over, the author writes of her own lapses in judgment and then derides the actions of others who, more or less did the same thing --e.g. looked the other way for financial gain. The book is poorly edited and reptitive. There are a few interesting observations regarding the way AA attempted to teach ethics to others wihtout applying the same standards internally and an explanation worth thinking about as to how the culture of AA devolved from rigidly ethical to slavishly driven by revenues. The author has a strong academic background but my overall impression was that she saw an opportunity to write a book with commercial appeal and rushed out to do so --in some ways I felt this was the exact type of behavior which got AA into the trouble it was in in the first place. One thought I could not ignore --if things were so bad and the author saw so many problems and she was committed to business ethics --why did she not resign earlier rather than lasting there for 4 years. She gave some explanations but frankly this was superifically handled in light of her position.

I have had this book for a couple of months and haven't been able to finish reading it. It started out OK, but it soon became obvious that Ms. Toffler's main purposes in writing the book (beyond the $$ generated from its sales) were to try to salvage her reputation and to be able to explain to future potential clients that she TRIED to make Andersen shape up but was overwhelmed by dishonest, money-grubbing, nasty management types. (They might have been all of those things, but Ms. Toffler clearly failed in delivering her message to them -- and she says she had plenty of access -- but, of course, it wasn't her fault they wouldn't listen). The book drags and becomes exceptionally "preachy".

Ms. Toffler apparently wasn't in the loop and admittedly was encouraged to depart the firm before the debacle at Enron became front-page news. She really doesn't have much to offer, certainly nothing newsworthy or even particularly insightful.

This one's a bore. It adds little to what those who followed the Enron and Andersen collapse in the WSJ already know.

The book provides an indepth analysis regarding the real story behind the inner workings at Arthur Andersen. As a former Andersen employee, I was still searching for answers as to what went wrong and couldn't continue carrying the company line of "we did nothing wrong." Sure, we all didn't work at Enron or Worldcom, but her perspective forced me to question the ethics and driving forces (both historical and current)behind what really did happen. In fact, once you read the book and abstract yourself from your own personal experiences and convictions regarding AA, you'll start to say "Yeah, we were greedy and the constant struggle to sell more and more work caused us to neglect the core reason we existed- to protect the investing public."

The book explains things such as the infamous inner battles fought among offices for billable time. The weird implications for our astronomical rates and associated PFAs. The inside scope on many of the partner meetings that we never got to attend- much less hear about. The book does a wonderful job of explaining the historical, political, and current events that unfolded to lead to Enron and World Com. I'm sure many of your experiences will be similiar to the authors. However, she neglected an important component of what made Andersen so great. For the most part, the people from Staff to Manager were intelligent, personable, driven, and natural leaders. It's something I haven't been able to replace in my current position and frankly don't think it will happen again. It's ashame that we had such poor leadership and that we lost sight, as a Firm,of our ultimate purpose- to protect the public via real AUDITS and not "business" audits!

Someday someone will write an insightful look into the fall of Arthur Andersen. This isn't it.

I was very disappointed in this self-serving and surprisingly shallow work. It seems to have been written to generate a fast buck and to push the inflated self-view of the author. It does not contain any new inside stories or analysis...if that's what you're looking for, you'll do better pulling out a few old Wall Street Journal articles. The author was a junior direct-admit partner at AA. She did not grow up in AA and as such isn't qualified to describe the culture. Nor was she high enough in the firm to really know what was going on.

Save your money...wait until a real inside story gets published.

I read this and was very interested in the first few chapters. Prior to midway through the book I just wanted it to end. When reading it, I felt like I was reading something an outsider to AA was writing. I don't think the author was imbeded enough in AA to really know what was happening. Based on her limited tenure with AA, she wrote about what she saw, which really doesn't give too much insight. I didn't find out anything new about AA's demise that I didn't already know. Check this one out from the library. Sorry to say, I wouldn't buy it.