A young trader named David is about to lose his job and does not see the end coming. Losing his job will be a great personal, professional and financial blow. Because of his loss, he will probably lose his apartment and credit. It will take him a long time to get back on his feet.

I happen to be friends with the top management of the company where he works and I am privy to his impending fate, but I am unable to warn him.

The two questions that have been nagging at me for days are:
• How did this happen?
• And why is he unaware of it?

Actually, I know the answer to both of these questions. The answer is that despite all of his hard work and good intentions, David has failed to play by the rules of the game he is playing.

The Players and the Clueless

Every human endeavor operates on the basis of a set of unwritten rules. In the modern world, we often resist the notion that we must adhere to a set of rules that we did not establish.  Each of us has the illusion of being in control of our lives, but those who are “streetwise” are well aware of the nature of the games, what is at stake and what the rules are. These savvy men and women are the “players.”  The rest of the participants in the games of life are the “clueless” ones. These are the individuals who fail to understand that they are playing a game, what the rules are and the consequences of not playing by those rules.

No game I know of is as cruel to the clueless as the school playground. From personal observation, it appears that some of us are hardwired to catch on early (the players) and others are hardwired to never catch on (the clueless). Players do not chafe against the rules. They learn them, master them and win most of the games they play. 

In the prestigious company where David works, the unwritten rule is – It does not matter how much money you are making for the clients. What matters is how well you communicate with them. David is a very good trader who has consistently made a respectable return for his company’s investors. Unfortunately, he is a particularly poor communicator. 

To make matters worse, he does not see the point of being a good communicator. Despite all of the advice he has received about returning calls to the company’s clients to provide them with updates and feedback, David sees it as a waste of his time – time that is better spent doing his research and making better trades. One could easily assume that the bottom line is what the investors care about most, but in this particular game, one would be wrong.

Although each game has its own rules, there are some general rules that should always be kept in mind. Sadly, David has flaunted nearly all of these general rules, to say nothing of the specific ones.