This is a three-part series. If you're new to this blog post, please feel free to start at Part 1 of the series referenced below.
What is the Culture at the "Big Four"?
Stepping into any establishment there is a vernacular, principles, hierarchy and overall vibe that makes up the defining culture of either working there or interacting with people in that sphere. For eight years of my career, I worked at an accounting firm, EY (formerly called Ernst & Young). In accounting, it's considered one of the "Big Four"largest accounting firms in the world. For those that don't know, the others are PriceWaterhouse Coopers (PWC), Deloitte & Touche, and KPMG. I can't speak to KPMG, PwC or Deloitte beyond rumors so it wouldn't be appropriate to talk about their culture through hear-say. Thus, I'll speak about EY's culture from my experience which has definite parallels to the other Big Four.
1) Emphasis On People and Experience: At EY, there is a lot of emphasis on having the best colleagues you could ever find or being one of the best places to work. That's because people, their expertise, and the services they provide contribute to the bottom-line. A pitch from a Big Four Accounting Firm usually includes a methodology or honed best practice that's developed by individuals with impressive credentials and experience in that subject matter.
2) Certifications Matter: Most of EY's clients have either regulatory requirements that the work must be performed or "signed off" by someone that has a certification, like a Certified Professional Accountant (CPA), or they can be assured that the person is able to execute the cyber security optimization modeling or assessment if they come with a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). People, their certifications, and the experience they bring are the building blocks of a firm. Additionally attracting more and more talent that has this skillset is paramount.
3) Great Foundational Basis: For those new to an industry, Big Four provides the structure for learning the fundamentals broken down based on your level in the firm. When you're first in the Big Four, you're shipped off immediately, sometimes for two weeks, to intense training with other cohorts starting in your group. From an IT Audit perspective, training includes a breakdown of risk management, general controls, IT specific control areas (i.e. Access Management, Change Management), writing a work paper, conducting interviews, and providing a report. You eventually bond heavily with your cohort class and keep up with each other long into your next milestones. Pre-COVID, training would be conducted at least twice a year to reup on old or new skills (i.e. SAP, Cybersecurity, GRC, Privacy). If you're new to an industry, the training and fundamentals offered by a Big Four are unparalleled.
4) Your Workplace Dress Code and Culture is a Direct Reflection of Your Industry: I used to complain a lot about the "stuffy" nature of a Big Four environment. Suits, ties and shined shoes for men and pant suits, blazers, and stylish heels for women were the status quo (that has since changed, casual clothing became more embraced a year before I left). It wasn't until I worked on a tech engagement in Seattle that I realized the workplace culture was more-so indicative of the industry and office location that we served. Working in McLean, VA and servicing government customers generally in the baby boomer generation, a polished and professional look shouldn't have been a surprise requirement. In contrast, my colleagues on the West Coast servicing tech companies were allowed to wear jeans and a nice shirt beyond casual Fridays. My West Coast colleagues were a lot more casual in general: speech, mannerisms, open to take off in the middle of the day for an outdoor excursion. But that's what they were reflecting from Twitter, Uber, Microsoft and Amazon clients.
5) Top Down Hierarchy Influence: The picture below best describes the typical hierarchical structure of an EY account. The bold text are the positions and the regular text are the purview and responsibilities that the position has. Traditionally, it's a one to many relationship where one senior consultant/associate has multiple staff/consultants/associates reporting to them. Of course, there are caveats, but this is generally the structure.
What's the Culture at Amazon?
Funny enough, in "Tech" there's an entirely different "Big Four". It consists of Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and...you guessed it...Amazon. People also reference the FAANG: Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google. Now there are a lot of tech companies that are reputable world-wide in the tech space, so it's not everyone's goal (like in the accounting world) to land in one of these four behemoths. However, when we're talking about the giants in tech, we're really talking about these four. Amazon is a completely different animal than the "Big Four" world that I was accustomed to. Besides the obvious cliches about casual dress (believe me it's real! One week I wore sweatpants every day), these are only some of the differences that smacked me in the face within the first year.
1) Emphasis on Products: Products drive everything in tech. For AWS, cloud services, their benefits, their upcoming features and integrations are all the rage and can define people's careers. We even have a whole conference centered on our products, reInvent. The only emphasis on people are how fast or how innovative a person can get to the solution to the problem or provide the right product that suits the customer's needs. Once you get into Amazon, certifications become more of a personal achievement but there's not too many requirements for them beyond the credential needed to obtain the job (if applicable). You'll find that a lot of the leadership or VPs in tech do not have certifications at all or had them and allowed them to lapse. The emphasis on products and solutioning and the experience solving unique problems becomes more important than cementing it with a certification.
2) Data Drives Change: Emphasis was on data, data and more data to make decisions. If you want to make a change at Amazon, you have to write a "doc". Many of the Amazon enthusiasts or Jeff Bezos worshipers are very familiar with this concept. A "doc" can be a one-pager, three-pager or six-pager and at high-level has to include the problem you're trying to solve, your approach and the solution. Overall, it must include data to back up the assumptions made all throughout. You can pull data from anywhere some of which are no limited interviews, articles, system-sourced metrics, or questionnaires. Either way, without the data to back up the "so what" that you're presenting, your argument falls apart. The hardest part is knowing what data is important to drive the conversation, and what data is just "noise".
3) Strategic Thinking At the Forefront: Two key leadership principles (honestly they're all important) are Think Big and Invent and Simplify. These were cornerstone to driving strategic thinking at Amazon. Think Big involves foresight and solving a problem beyond just your day to day. Invent and Simplify is about mastering your current arena and then figuring out how to replicate regardless of the resources at your disposal be it human or machine.
4) Single-Threaded Ownership: Once you're tasked as the owner of a program, concept or workstream, there is NO ONE else that owns it more or cares about it more than you. You live and breathe it. You're looking around the corner for it's benefit. If anyone in the company needs assistance in that space, they can come to you. You build internal websites guiding stakeholders regarding it. You're sending up status reports on it. It's your baby and you drive the progression of it until it's fully realized.
5) Flat and Matrix-ed Organizational Structure: Most tech companies are a matrix like organization where everyone actually works together between organizations and departments to complete various projects and objectives. I have included an example of a matrix like organization below (please don't read into it, this is not Amazon's structure internally). As you can see, the levels end up becoming arbitrary because the communication and feedback loops (represented by the black arrows) are not indicative of title or role, but moreso of operational needs.
Yes, there is a natural level system or a hierarchy with privileges and pay bands indicative of each level. However, based on #4, it shouldn't come as a surprise that as an Amazonian, you're finding yourself speaking to a Director or Vice President regarding an update on your program/project. If your project/program is big enough, there's no reason why you're not speaking to a company's CIO, CEO, or VP to assist them based on your scope or purview. There are no invisible or physical barriers between teams and leadership, because we are all operating as leaders internally.
Now that we've explained the key differences between the two environments, let's close this out with the similarities between the two, what advice I can give to anyone preparing to make the transition, and what I personally prefer in Part 3!
Stay tuned...
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