Faridinama

What makes a good life?

2016-02-03T08:46:00.000+05:00

Just listened to a wonderful TED talk by Robert Waldinger, a psychiatrist and a director of a 75-year-old study on adult development. In his kind, soft-tone talk, tells us that the clearest message they that the study gives us is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier.

The study also teaches us three lessons about relationships:

Social connections are really good for us
Loneliness kills
Good relationships don't just protect our bodies, they protect our brains

Watch the lovely talk:

The Elements of Style - learn basics of English language

2016-01-19T12:16:00.002+05:00

The Elements of Style is a marvelous book for learning basics of English language. It is concise and easy to read. It is a must for all of us who constantly struggle with English.

You can get text or HTML version from the Gutenberg project or a PDF version from University of Washington. You can learn more about the book and get a printed copy from Amazon.

Prophets of India

2015-11-23T00:16:00.000+05:00

Muslims believe that Allah has sent prophets to all people of the past (35:24) and that some of these prophets are named in Quran but many are not (40:78). That means Allah must have sent prophets to the people of subcontinent of India, well before He sent prophet Mohammad (May Allah Peace Be Upon Him).

My uncle, Dr. Khalid Hasan Qadiri, has written a booklet on this topic. This booklet goes beyond the basic topic and -- probably in response to someone's baseless claim -- answers three questions: 1) what does Islam say about apostles sent to India, 2) what are Hasrat Mohani's views on this topic, and 3) what are the views of the saints of Bansa Sharif.

I had a copy of this booklet so I typed it up to share it with you.

Prophets of India

Rough Notes on Urdu: Tracing the Roots of Urdu Language

2015-02-09T22:13:00.000+05:00

Do you think Urdu language originated from the army camps of the Mughals or, may be, from the social contact of Muslim "invaders" and natives of "Hind"?

If you do then you would be wrong, of course.

A number of scholars have tried their luck in finding the true roots of Urdu language and among the more successful ones was my uncle, Dr. Khalid Hasan Qadiri. We will talk about him some other time, but, today's topic is his notes on the origins of Urdu language. I had a copy of the notes so, with permission from Dr. Qadiri's family, I typed it up to share it with you. You should know the history of our national language.

Rough Notes on Urdu

Invoke Pólya, Solve Problems

2014-10-24T11:39:00.000+05:00

"We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them” --Einstein

If you are alive then you must face problems and if you face problems then there must be many of them that remain unresolved.

Is that so?

It doesn't have to be.

George Pólya was a Hungarian mathematician who immigrated to the United States in 1940. He worked at Stanford University and made significant contributions to mathematics. His mostly prized contribution is his work on solving problems. He presented four basic principles of problem solving in his 1945 bestseller How to Solve It. These principles are:

Understand the problem
Devise a plan
Carry out the plan
Look back

You can read the summary of these principles from here. You can also learn more about Pólya from his memoir at National Academy of Sciences.

Happy problem solving.

10 Common Communication Mistakes

2014-04-09T08:37:00.001+05:00

The most important key to successful leadership is effective communication. Here are 10 common mistakes that we should avoid in our communication:

Not Editing Your Work
Delivering Bad News by Email
Avoiding Difficult Conversations
Not Being Assertive
Reacting, Not Responding
Not Preparing Thoroughly
Using a "One-Size-Fits-All" Approach to Communication
Not Keeping an Open Mind When Meeting New People
Assuming That Your Message has Been Understood
Accidentally Violating Others' Privacy

Read the complete article from MindTools here.

Punctuating the Quotation Marks

2014-03-05T09:21:00.000+05:00

Does a comma go inside the quotation marks or outside?

The answer depends -- to some extent -- upon whether you are using American English or British English.

Here is a short and sweet guide on punctuating the quotation marks:

Semicolons and colons are always placed outside the closing quotation mark
The placement of Exclamation points and question marks depends on the context of the quotation; outside if they apply to the whole sentence and inside if they apply just to the quoted portion
Commas and periods always go inside the quotation marks in American English and relative to the context of the quotation in British English

Source and inspiration of this guide is an article from Grammar Girl. Grammar Book's 7 rules of quotation marks are also very helpful.

If you have too much time on your hands then you can learn all about British English from The King's English and about American English from The Chicago Manual of Style.

You can learn to speak well in days. Learning to write well takes a life time.

Work, Work, and Work; But What is Work?

2014-02-11T22:22:00.000+05:00

Note: This write-up is my ninth Competent Communication speech project that I delivered at Islamabad Toastmasters Club on February 11, 2014.

I insist you to strive. Work, work and only work for satisfaction with patience, humbleness and serve thy nation.”

–Muhammad Ali Jinnah, All India Muslim Students Conference, Jalandhar, November 15, 1942.

Fellow Toastmasters and guests, the topic of my speech today is Work, Work, and Work; But, What is Work? We all understand the importance of work in our lives. We have been hearing about it since our childhood. Yet we chant the mantra kaam, kaam, aur bus kaam (work, work, and work) without understanding what work really means.

There are two common myths that are to be blamed for our misunderstanding.

Myth #1: With efficiency and hard work, we can complete all our responsibilities

Myth #2: Our work is done when we complete our workresponsibilities

I would like to bust these myths today.

Myth #1: With efficiency and hard work, we can complete all our responsibilities

No matter how hard or smart we work, every night we go to bed with more things to do than we had the night before. The most common complaint these days is that of shortage of time. That reminds me of a quote that someone sent me after I got my first job and that I still remember:

“God has put me on Earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die.” –Bill Waterson, Calvin and Hobbes

There have been some people among us, however, who have been very successful in doing more with less time. Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter and CEO of Square used to spend 8 hours a day at Square and 8 hours a day at Twitter, every day. Thomas Edison only slept three to four hours a day. So does Indra Nooyi, chairman and CEO of PepsiCo. Imam Ghazali wrote more books in 40 years than a person can read in this timeframe. Despite their unparalleled efficiency and magnitude of accomplishments, these short sleepers – as they are called – were not able to accomplish all what they wanted to accomplish. But they achieved a lot and that is what we remember them for. The secret of their success was not just in their efficiency but also in their priority. They prioritized what they wanted to accomplish and worked really, really hard to achieve it.

That shows that we can never complete all our responsibilities, no matter how hard or smart we work. No one has ever been able to do it. Not even the most successful among us.

Myth 2: Our work is done when we complete our workresponsibilities

Harry Potter had a near-death experience in Deathly Hallows Part II. Let’s assume for a moment that he really died, and you are able find Platform Nine and Three Quarters, hop on to Hogwarts Express, locate the Ollivanderswand shop, convince the Phoenix wandto choose you, and are able to use it to catch up on all the work that your boss assigned to you. Do you think then you would be done for the day?

Of course.

Not.

While our bosses may want us to believe that our employment contract is like the one that Johnny Blaze signed with the Mephistopheles, our work responsibilities are only a subset of our total responsibilities. There are other responsibilities we have to answer for.

What “other responsibilities”?

I am glad you asked.

You know, there are these people who live with us. The ones we call: the family. While we may not agree to this in public but there are responsibilities that we have to fulfill as a family member; to our parents, to our spouses, to our kids, and to our relatives. If we don’t spend time with our family then we are not fulfilling all our responsibilities. Aren’t they the real reason we work for in the first place?

Then there are professional responsibilities. No matter what profession we are in, we are responsible for contributing to our profession. As a certified PMP, I am required to give back to the profession of project management. I can do that by volunteering for PMI Islamabad, giving presentations on project management, or by contributing to project management newsletters. As Toastmasters, we are required to not only learn for ourselves but to also contribute to the learning of our fellow Toastmasters. Coming to the meeting doesn’t count; standing up and giving a speech that will inspire others does.

Last but not the least, are the social responsibilities. These are our responsibilities toward our neighbors, our friends, and those who have been less fortunate in their lives. When was the last time you asked your neighbor or a friend if they needed help? Those who really deserve may never ask themselves. 280,000 children die every year in Pakistan due to malnutrition. Some of them may have lived very close to our homes. There are calls for blood from hospitals every day. When was the last time you donated blood? Just in case there is any confusion, Facebooking is not a social responsibility.

That means when we are done with our work responsibilities, we are done with only work responsibilities. We are also responsible for our family, our profession, and our society.

Life demands balance in all what we do. We must realize what all our responsibilities are, prioritize these responsibilities, and then work, work, and work, through our priority list. We may not be able to complete all our responsibilities, but, we will complete all those that matter the most.

And that’s all that counts.

Adoption verses Adaptation

2014-02-09T12:56:00.001+05:00

When you adopt something, you embrace it completely, without conditions. When you adapt to something, you adjust yourself, keeping within the limits of previous and new environments.

That is why you adopt a religion and adapt to a culture.

Happy Birthday to Pakstan

2014-01-28T09:46:00.000+05:00

81 years ago on this very day Pakstan was introduced to the world; 14 years, 6 months, and 17 days before the country's independence from British rule. No, I haven't misspelled the name of my beloved country; that is how Choudhry Rahmat Ali introduced it in his paper Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever?. This paper is also referred to as Pakistan Declaration. The 'i' was added later for ease of pronunciation.

This is how Choudhry Rahmat Ali introduced 'PAKSTAN':

At this solemn hour in the history of India, when British and Indian statesmen are laying the foundations of a Federal Constitution for that land, we address this appeal to you, in the name of our common heritage, on behalf of our thirty million Muslim brethren who live in PAKSTAN—by which we mean the five Northern units of India, viz.: Punjab, North-West Frontier Province (Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan - for your sympathy and support in our grim and fateful struggle against political crucifixion and complete annihilation.

Learn more about the declaration and its author:

Pakistan Declaration: Wikipedia, Scanned Copy
Choudhry Rahmat Ali: Wikipedia, ChoudhryRahmatAli.com
About the house where Pakistan Declaration was drafted

Reading the Leadership

2014-01-22T17:36:00.000+05:00

Note: This write-up is my eighth Competent Communication speech project that I delivered at Islamabad Toastmasters Club on January 21, 2014.

“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

Fellow Toastmasters and guests, while Shakespeare was specifically talking about greatness in his message, I believe the same can be applied to leadership. Leaders are not just born; they are also made or forced into becoming leaders.

Are you all born leaders? If not, then how do you learn leadership? You ask this question around and soon realize that the more you ask the more different answers you get. Most of the answers are correct, unfortunately, but, there is one that is the easiest of all; you can learn leadership through reading good leadership books. This is not the only way to learn leadership and may not even be the best way; but this is by far the easiest. It is also the topic of my speech today; Reading the Leadership.

Okay, so you have decided to learn leadership through reading; but, where do you start from? You search on google.com and get 358 million results. You limit your search to amazon.com and still get 110 thousand results. You post your question on Facebook and get manageable replies, but, each with a different suggestion. The truth is that there are so many books on leadership that it is extremely difficult to decide where to start from and how to categorize them. Someone has to bring some sanity to this chaos.

I have a solution. I have devised a simple tool that will help you decide how to read leadership books. This tool is called Faridi’s Hierarchy of Leadership Reading. The hierarchy is represented by a pyramid that is divided into three layers. Each layer represents a category of leadership books while the size of layer represents the amount of time you should spend on that category. These layers are called The Experience, The Framework, and The Core.

Let’s look at these layers in detail.

The top-most layer is The Experience. This layer is for the collection of biographies of leaders. This is where you learn from the experience of great leaders. Let’s look at some books in this layer:

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
The Autobiography of Malcolm X as Told to Alex Haley
Straight from the Gut by Jack Welch
The Auto Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr edited by Clayborne Carson
A. Lincoln: The Crucible of Congress by Paul Findley
Jinnah of Pakistan by Dr. Stanley Wolpert

More importantly, our own history is full of greater leaders:

The Khulafa-e Rashideen
Hazrat Khalid Bin Walid (RA)
Sultan Salahuddin Ayyubi
Muhammad Bin Qasim

And the list goes on and on and on.

These are the most interesting and heart-warming books. You get energized by reading them. But when you read a few of these books you realize that they don’t really teach you leadership; they only tell you what the great leaders did; and they all did different. Then you realize that what they are trying to teach you is that you need a vision and courage to be a leader. Above all, you have to be yourself. You will never become Steve Jobs or Nelson Mandela or Muhammad Bin Qasim because they were unique. But, so are you. Why do you want to become Steve Jobs or Nelson Mandela when you can become what you were meant to become? They had their situations and you have yours. They chose paths that suited their situations and you should choose a path that suits yours.

Don’t spend too much time on these books. Read them now and then to get energized and to remember that all great leaders were humans. If they could do it, so can you.

The second layer is The Framework. This layer is for books on theory and framework of leadership. This is where you learn the crux of leadership. Let’s look at some books in this layer:

The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Straight from the Gut and Winning by Jack Welch
First, Break all the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
Good to Great by Jim Collins

These books are not as exciting as those in the layer above but they teach you what you need to do to become a good leader. Spend more time on this layer than on the previous one. Read them more than once to remember the details and incorporate them in your daily life.

The third, and the final layer, is The Core. This layer is for books on the building blocks of leadership. This is where you learn how to prepare yourself for the above two layers. So what books come under this layer?

Books that help you gain control over the language
Books that teach you the basics of communication
Books that help you understand people
Books that teach you the technology of the field you are working in

You must spend a lot of time on this layer. Start on these books at the earliest in your life. These are probably the most boring of all the leadership books – and may not seem like they are related to leadership – but they prepare you for the higher layers.

So what did we learn?

Read books to learn leadership;
Use Faridi’s Hierarchy of Leadership Reading to sort and categorize leadership books; and
Be not afraid of leadership.

You can become a leader if you want to; it depends more on your sweat than on your genes.

Committed vs Involved

2014-01-20T13:14:00.000+05:00

Are you committed in a project or just involved?

10 Common Leadership and Management Mistakes

2013-10-25T09:30:00.001+05:00

Lack of Feedback
Not Making Time for Your Team
Being Too "Hands-Off"
Being Too Friendly
Failing to Define Goals
Misunderstanding Motivation
Hurrying Recruitment
Not "Walking the Walk"
Not Delegating
Misunderstanding Your Role

Read the complete article here.

Garner's blog series on business writing

2013-03-19T09:43:00.000+05:00

Over at HBR Blog Network, Brian A. Garner has written simple but very informative posts on business writing. If you want to improve your writing, read them.

Missing Courtesy?

2013-01-11T09:07:00.000+05:00

HBR has a nice blog post on breakdown in courtesy and respect in workplaces.

Highlights of the post:

Today's college students are less empathetic than those of past generations.
Remoteness has resulted in breakdowns in courtesy and respect which in turn is resulting in reduced employee engagement and management motivation.
To prevent further breakdown... c'mon, just read the post. It's very short.

HBR: Bring Courtesy Back to the Workplace

Nostro, Vostro, Loro

2012-08-29T10:20:00.000+05:00

A nostro is our account of our money, held by you
A vostro is your account of your money, held by us
A loro is our account of their money, held by you

Now don't say I didn't warn you before.

Surviving the PMP Exam

2012-03-07T11:36:00.000+05:00

Everyone's experience with the PMP exam is different. I'll share with you my experience and also what I suggest to others.

This is what I followed:
I took a prep course because I never had a formal project management (PM) course and needed 35 contact hours for the exam. Otherwise, this course is not required for the exam (see PMI's site for more details on the requirements). I found a study partner from the course and from then on we both met at least once a week until the exam to discuss problem areas and do a few questions together. I went through PMBoK and Rita's book. I first read a chapter from PMBoK and then the same chapter from Rita's book, followed by questions at the end of the chapter. I read through her answers and reasoning for each answer for all questions, whether I answered them right or not. Once I completed the course, I did questions from Rita's Fast Track CD and the ones from O'Reilly's Head First PMP. Then I tried repeating the course but didn't have much time so just scanned through it.

This is what I suggest to others:
0. Get PMI membership. The cost of the exam without membership is higher than the cost of the exam with membership, including the cost of membership. And the membership will get you the electronic version of PMBoK for free.

1. Go through PMBoK and Rita's book quickly, chapter by chapter, doing end of chapter questions. You can ignore the reasoning for the answers at this time.

2. Take a course. This is optional if you already have 35 PDUs and are comfortable with your PM knowledge. Good to have a study partner at this time.

3. Apply for the exam. Application is painstakingly long and so is the approval process, especially if your application is selected for audit. (Audit is very easy. All you have to do is to get your support material verified). I have created a spreadsheet to compile PM experience data for the application. You can download the spreadsheet from http://bit.ly/pmpappcalc. It will save a lot of your time. (Note: It was created for the previous version of PMBoK but I am told that it is still valid)

4. Repeat the course again, slowly this time. Do the same questions again (which means you must not mark the answers with pen the first time you took them). This will help you compare your results. This time, go through the reasoning for each answer carefully.

5. After completing the course, do Rita's Fast Track questions and any other questions you are able to find.

6. Take the exam.

There is tons of information available online. That's good and bad. Bad because its hard to decide which to go through and which to ignore. Rita's material is worth the cost. Much better if you can borrow it from someone. O'Reilly's book Head FirstPMP is also good. They give out questions and answers for free, even if you don't buy their book. I recommend Rita's book because it is easier to read and because it was written with one objective; to make you pass the exam. It tells you where to concentrate and what to ignore.

That's it. Hope this will hep you. Good luck with the preparation and the exam.

Blog often or don't blog

2011-09-02T02:03:00.000+05:00

Someone told me to refrain from starting my own blog unless I had something to say very often. I laughed at him. Looking at the dates and contents on my posts, I am sure he must be laughing at me.

The history of email and I

2011-05-27T09:42:00.001+05:00

I received an email from Yahoo! that started with: "We appreciate that you have been with Yahoo! Mail for the past 13 years." I had to stop. How long did they say? Thirteen years? Have I been using Yahoo! that long?

Then I realized that I have been with Hotmail even longer; over 14 years. I created a Hotmail address on March 29, 1997, just 8 months after it's initial release by Bhatia and Smith and 9 months before it was bought by Microsoft.

Then I remembered the good old days when I hated ccMail and Pine so wrote my own email system using Bash around mail (the Unix email client) and vi (a Unix text editor) to send emails (it managed contacts and group emails) and elm to read them. That was in 1996.

Then I remember that the first time I actually used email was on an IBM mainframe using green scary eye-soring monochrome monitors. That was in 1991.

Then I realized I am getting old.

Appropriate Communication

2011-03-16T08:46:00.000+05:00

"Communication is the key to success"

We all have heard this before and – probably – believe in it too. In the age of information overload, however, communication can itself become a problem. A lot has been written and said on how to communicate. I won’t bother you with my rant on that. I just want to reflect on the appropriateness of the method used in any communication.

So, what are the methods of communication anyway?

Business communication revolves around the following communication methods:

Face-to-Face Talk
Telephone Call
Instant Message
SMS
Email
Letter

Face-to-Face Talk: Use this method when the matter is urgent or grave. This method results in an immediate response but is intrusive. Use it carefully. For example, when informing management about a project delay or when terminating an employee. Removing access to the office building without first informing the employee is not an effective communication method.

Telephone Call: Use this method when face-to-face talk isn’t possible or when the matter is urgent but not grave. While less intrusive than a face-to-face talk (receiver can choose not to take the call), it also results in an immediate response (if your call goes through, that is). For example, when cancelling an important meeting or when calling in sick (see SMS for more on calling in sick).

Instant Messaging (IM): Use this method for quick, short, and informal communication. For example, when asking a colleague if they are ready for lunch.

SMS: This method is losing its importance in the corporate world because of BlackBerries (meaning free instant messages and cheaper telephone calls). This method is used for all the same reasons when IM is used but when IM isn’t an option. Note: Don’t call in sick by sending an SMS to a friend so they can inform your boss. That’s inappropriate.

Email: This method is probably the most abused method in the history of communication. Use it carefully. Don’t treat it like an IM or a face-to-face talk (meaning neither they should be shrt msg tht r hrd 2 undrstnd nor in long comprehensive stories that demand considerable time of the reader).This method must not be used when immediate response is needed, even if the receiver has a BlackBerry device. Unless it is absolutely urgent and important, never write an email and then call to check if your email has been read.

Letter: While you might think letters are non-existent these days, they in fact aren’t. Use this method for all communication that requires royal formality, documentation, and is not time bound. For example, when writing to a government official or when serving a legal notice.

All methods, except the first two, are asynchronous. You must not expect to get a reply immediately, even if you know the message has been delivered and read.

Irrespective of the method used, always think before you communicate. Failing to communicate appropriately will result in a failure.

I think it’s about time that we rephrase the original quote.

"Appropriate communication is the key to success"

The Egyptian Revolution and the Askari Bakery

2011-03-14T08:56:00.000+05:00

Egypt has recently gone through another revolution (has it, really?). The pace with which the change happened (was there a real change?) has encourage other oppressed nations in the Arab world. They too are struggling for a change.

I was reading an article on HBR that reflected upon the Egyptian Revolution and stopped at the following two sentences:

"In Egypt, little has changed with Mubarak's ouster by the military, which plays a major role in the Egyptian economy. A third of the economy is under military control — military activities range from bakeries to appliance factories."

The first sentence shows that even after such a "big change" in Egypt, nothing has changed -- at least yet. So long for the hopes?

The second sentence reminded me of something similar back home in Pakistan. Askari Bakery!

Both scary.

Don't Jump to a Solution

2011-02-20T14:42:00.000+05:00

Problem solving requires patience. Patience requires time. Time is something we tend to have the least these days. So when confronted with a problem, we tend to jump to a solution, quickly. That almost always results in us solving the symptoms instead. Before we solve a problem, we must understand what the problem really is. This is not an easy task. It requires that we dig into the problem and keep digging until we get to the root of the problem.

So how do we do that?

We use 5-Whys.

Developed by Sakichi Toyoda and perfected by Toyota Motor Corporation, 5-Whys is a technique that helps you to get to the root of a problem. This technique involves looking at any problem and asking: "Why?" and "What caused this problem?" Very often, the answer to the first "why" will prompt another "why" and the answer to the second "why" will prompt another and so on until we get to the root of the problem.

Then we solve the newly discovered root of the problem.

Learn by doing

2011-01-11T09:58:00.000+05:00

Every Tuesday at exactly 6:30 pm we all rise and recite the following mantra to start a meeting of Islamabad Toastmasters Club:

For better listening, for better thinking, for better speaking, we learn by doing

There are two valuable lessons to learn from this statement:

1. We must speak only after we have listened to and pondered upon the topic; and
2. We can only learn by doing things ourselves.

We procrastinate in doing but hasten in speaking. Let's start doing it in reverse.

Communication Tips from Children

2010-11-22T10:23:00.000+05:00

Are you afraid of public speaking? Don't be shy, you are not alone. Studies have shown that fear of public speaking ranks up there with the fear of death. Yes, that's d-e-a-t-h as in "end of life."

But is it really because we can't speak well or is our unwillingness to try the culprit? We did so well speaking in front of any audience when we were children. What happened now?

Whatever happened, it's time that we learn back from our children.

"We can learn a lot from a child", says Garr Raynolds, a well known writer on multimedia presentation skills. "Plenty of adults engage in childish behavior, but not enough adults allow themselves to truly become childlike and exhibit an approach and display behaviors that exemplify the very best of what being a child is all about."

Garr gives us 13 communication and life tips that we can learn from our children:

(1) Be completely present in the moment
(2) Allow for spontaneity
(3) Move your body!
(4) Play and be playful
(5 ) Make mistakes
(6) Do not concern yourself with impressing people
(7) Show your enthusiasm
(8) Remain open to possibilities and "crazy" ideas
(9) Be insanely curious, ask loads of question
(10) Know that you are a creative being
(11) Smile, laugh, enjoy
(12) Slow down
(13) Encourage others

I particularly like the 11th. Don't make your presentations boring. Kick them up a notch and may be you will get your point across.

Which one do you like?

Read the original article here.

Are you Auditing or Checking?

2010-11-02T22:04:00.000+05:00

"It is prudent to have an occasional audit to everyone's expense accounts to be sure people are not unwittingly erring in reporting, or are up to date on tax regulations, or are properly coding re-billable expenses. But checking expense accounts is a waste of time. Checking expense accounts signals mistrust, or undermines trust. Having to check expense accounts means you have the wrong people" -- Jeffrey J. Fox

Know the difference between auditing and checking. Hire the right people and trust them.