Because of where I was born, I display certain characteristics and I have some habits that puzzle and perplex and sometimes infuriate those who know me and even those few who love me. I observe some customs and practices that others find difficult to understand and which occasionally cause conflict. But I can’t help it.
I’m talking about being a football fan. And another consequence of where I was born is that I hate Chelsea. In my household, “Chelsea supporter!” is among the worst insults one can hurl.
I naturally take great delight when misfortune or controversy engulfs this club, and that’s what’s happening as I write, even if it is a controversy being conducted in that peculiarly civil (that is to say, English) way. And it just so happens that this episode contains some interesting pointers for the financial planning community.
But first, to recap: during the opening match of the new season, late in the game and with the score locked at two-all, a Chelsea player hit the deck, apparently injured. It’s always difficult to tell in football if a player is truly hurt or just putting it on, but in this case the referee signalled not once but twice to the Chelsea bench that the player needed medical attention, and the club doctor and the club physiotherapist went onto the pitch to help.
So far, so mundane. But the reaction of the Chelsea manager to the doctor’s actions has been, well, “disproportionate” hardly begins to describe it. The manager of an English football club is a powerful and influential figure, and that’s doubly true of the individual who manages Chelsea. He chose to publicly berate the doctor for … actually it’s hard to say what for, but it’s got something to do with wasting time treating a player when the time could have been better used trying to score the winning goal (despite the fact that when play is stopped for an injured player, the referee adds time on).
The salient point here is that the doctor fulfilled her professional responsibilities by attending to the well-being of a player, and did so at the behest of the referee. But she has been demoted, relieved of her match day role and sidelined from other duties as well.
You’ll have noticed that the doctor in question is female and that none of the manager’s ire seems to have been directed at the male physiotherapist. The sexist undertones in this episode should not be glossed over. They are there they are deplorable.
Professional responsibilities
My interest in this, beyond the glee of watching Chelsea embroiled in a self-made and entirely avoidable controversy, is what’s happening to someone who fulfilled her clear and unambiguous professional responsibilities and as a result came into conflict with the “interests” of her employer.
It’s interesting, because if financial planning wants to be recognised as a profession then its practitioners inevitably will, from time to time, encounter conflicts with other interests, including their own and those of their employer.
This episode is instructive because it demonstrates, in quite a public arena, how an individual instinctively put her professional obligations first. The doctor was called upon to treat an injured player and did so without hesitation. If she’d refused or even paused because of what this might mean for her personally, or for her employment, she’d have been derelict in her duty and she’d rightfully receive, I should imagine, the opprobrium of her peers – who, by the way, are not necessarily her workmates or colleagues or employer, they are the other members of her profession. They’re the only ones who matter in this context.
A profession is bigger than an individual. It’s bigger than an employer, and it’s certainly bigger than a football club. The doctor might lose her job. That would be a travesty, but it’s a potential consequence of being a professional. It’s sometimes a consequence, albeit regrettable, of adhering to true ethical and professional standards. And it is a stark illustration of how every professional financial planner is expected to behave when faced with a similar situation.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what your employer wants you to do, or what is in your own interest (whether personally or commercially), a professional’s first obligation is to the well-being, or the “best interests”, of their patient or client.
It’s pretty simple, even if it can be pretty challenging to live up to. Some people have to learn that, while some people will never get it – like a certain football manager who would have no place in a profession. And some people get it instinctively. People like Eve Carneiro.
