Money doesn't Grow on Trees

I have heard a number of conversation stoppers, but this one really beat them all. A couple of days ago, my young daughter came over and after a bit of chit chat asked me for some money. As usual I used my routine defense, “Money doesn’t grow on trees”.  Pat came the reply, “I know, that’s why I am asking you, else I would have been climbing some trees”. Behind her I could sense her mother smiling and knew that in future I was in trouble. My daughter in the meanwhile, got what she wanted.

When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is. - Oscar Wilde

Later as I thought this over, I just asked myself, how many people really understand the value of money, as either revenue or cost? Here by revenue I do not mean the one in excel sheets, such as accounts receivable, but actual possession of money. Many a company has gone down because they couldn’t manage their cash flows. It’s always good to know that you are entitled to receive money, for services or products rendered, buts it of no use if you do not have it when you actually need it. You just have to read the papers to understand what I mean. Greece owes a few hundred billion dollars, but it’s all paper money.

The other thing I often hear is the urgency of cost control. I have seen so much fanaticism about it. Just the other day we came across a company which was thinking of doing training for a group of employees. This company was planning to have business transformation by converting their application development from the waterfall methodology to an agile methodology. And guess what, they wanted to train the senior people for two days, and the junior people for one day. The logic being that the less experienced guys needed less time “for a mindset change” hence train them for one day and in the process save money. Yeah you’d save money in the short term but probably waste the whole amount in a failed transformation.

Money actually does not grow on trees. It needs to be earned judiciously by the application of mind, firmness of resolve and consistent hard work. There is only so much you can save by “cost control”, but to grow it you have to earn it.