Class of 2013: Be a Superhero!
In 1996, I became the youngest woman and first female trader to
become a partner at Goldman Sachs. I was 32 years old. In my 14 years at
Goldman, I rose from an analyst at age 25 to associate, vice president, managing
director, and partner, all while working as a trader and desk manager in
mortgage-backed securities. In addition to trading responsibilities, I was actively involved in Goldman’s recruiting efforts, mentoring programs, and just about everything else you can think of. This included the firm’s Partnership Committee, which was composed of the most senior and respected leaders of the firm who were accountable for all people processes at Goldman Sachs. It was indeed an honor and a privilege to work at one of the most respected and successful firms in the world.
The year
was 2001. At that time, I was a partner, and had recently been moved from the
position that got me there (a trader and desk manager) to a role in the
Executive Office reporting directly to the heads of the firm. My job
description was an interesting one: to help manage the careers of the firms’
managing director population. In doing so, I became involved in many aspects of
the firm’s human capital management processes including compensation, promotion,
lateral hiring, succession planning, performance measurement, diversity, and
leadership development.With no prior training in HR, I began to read everything I could get my hands on and consult with internal and expert experts. I became particularly obsessed with the area of leadership development.
With that, my first piece of advice is this:
Do not be afraid to take a job that you know nothing about. If someone who knows something about it thinks you can do it (and it is of interest to you), go for it. Then learn everything you can about how to do that job well.
What leadership development meant at Goldman was how we teach, nurture, and support our most senior people to be great leaders. It is important to note that being a senior person did not necessarily meant he or she was a great leader. In fact, in a highly commercial organization like Goldman, it was at times quite the opposite. Some people—too many in my view—were promoted almost exclusively based on commerciality, or how much money they made for the firm. That of course was, and still is, incredibly important, but it was also critical for the person
to be a good
‘culture carrier’ too. In other words, that he or she lived the values of the
firm. So, one of our biggest challenges was to try and convince those kinds of
people—highly successful people who did just fine being who they were—that they
should want and need to change because it was in the best interest of
others.This brings me to my second piece of advice:
It really, really matters whom you work for. It is extremely important, especially early on in your career, to work for someone who is not only good at what they do but is also a good teacher, manager, leader—and well (if you’re really lucky), human being.
I was really lucky. When I joined Goldman as an analyst, I worked for a brilliant guy who took the time to teach me how to do my job well. What I later noticed is that senior people who were not great managers or leaders did not develop their people well, which did them and the firm a huge disservice. In fact, the opposite often happened. By following the bad example of someone senior to you, it often got you into trouble later. While those individuals often had the track record, the talent, and/or the relationships to insulate them, the more junior person did not.
I have a third piece of advice.
Just because you see other people do questionable things in the workplace, do not assume you can get away with it too. Be the best you can be all the time. Hold yourself to the highest possible standard.
In effect, my job at Goldman was to identify those senior people and try to get them to self-improve while holding them accountable for doing so. This was super hard. It made me crazy to see people get promoted and rewarded financially when I knew, because I read their performance appraisals, that they were in fact damaging the culture of the firm.
Were the vast number of people excellent producers, managers, and leaders? Yes, they were, which is why I would unequivocally say that if you are considering a career on Wall Street and in finance to consider Goldman Sachs. However, for me personally, I believe we could have been doing so much more. Looking back, I see now that idealism often got in my way, but it was also who I was. Almost every day of those 14 years that I worked at Goldman, I loved it but toward the end, I did not. When the bad days started to outnumber the good days, and you have a choice, it is time to leave.
My fourth piece of advice:
Live your values. Live your values! Which also means work in alignment with your values.
I realize that when you are starting out, you do not often have a lot of choice. In fact, your work in high school, extracurricular activities, how you perform in college, and how you spend your time in general is very much about getting you the best and most options possible for that first full-time job. When you are starting out, you have fewer choices than when you have built up a successful track record of performance. But if you do have options and believe in your talents and ability, do not be afraid to walk away from a job that is not making you happy. In the long term, you will be much happier and fulfilled working with people who share your values, and at a firm that is doing work that you believe in, and in a way that you believe in.
As mentioned earlier, I became obsessed with leadership development and read everything I could on the subject. Tom Peters wrote one article I particularly liked, and it appeared in Fast Company magazine in 2001. It contained 50 leadership principles of all sorts and at the end, he invited readers to submit one of their own. Sitting there in my big, beautiful office on the executive floor of Goldman Sachs (just a few doors down from the CEO at the time, Hank Paulson), I reflected on what would be the principle that would guide my life, and that could be shared more broadly. I wrote this:
So I know this might seem a little hokey, very idealistic, and more than a little naive. But so was I. Believe it or not, writing that principle was the beginning of the end for me at Goldman Sachs. I was trying in that role, as were many others, to be a "superhero" in some way at the firm. I tried very hard to put the needs of others ahead of myself, to hold myself to the highest possible standard, and to fearlessly protect the culture of the firm to the best of my abilities. Was I perfect? Of course not. I look back now and think of all the things I could have done much better. At that point, however, I knew that my life had to be about doing work with people who shared my views and my values.Remember what it was like to jump out of bed on those Saturday mornings and rush to turn on the television to get another dose episode of Superman, Batman or in my case Wonder Woman?* We loved these characters because they inspired us to change the world, do the right thing, and fight evil wherever it reared its ugly head. They hid their true identity, as it was not about personal glory but about the common good. They never asked, “What’s in it for me?” They never let the bad stuff get them down. They had a job to do and damn it, they approached it with absolute enthusiasm and discipline. Be a superhero!"
When and if you start having angst about your work, and especially if you have the resources to make a change, you may find that you start asking yourself: “What is my highest and best use on this planet? What is the work that I am meant to do?” That is what happened to me. My dissatisfaction regarding the impact I was having in my role at Goldman lead me to ask those questions and as a result I left, and now find myself in a role I was destined to be in.
So my last piece of advice:
Don’t wait to ask yourself that question.
You may not know the answer, but make it a habit to ask yourself that anyway. Why? Because it forces you to think about your unique talents alongside the question of what gives you joy. It has been my experience that the two go together. When you are using—really using—your talents, then you are likely to be good at your job, which leads to success and job satisfaction. This is not about working in the for-profit versus non-profit sector or doing well versus doing good, as I believe the two can and do go hand in hand. This about doing meaningful work, whatever that might be.
Whatever you choose to do, whatever the level of responsibility you have, commit to learning all you need to in order to do a job well. If given the opportunity to leap into something bigger, leap. Before you do, know who your boss will be and make sure she will be committed to your further development. Be in touch with your values and live them out in your work.
Lastly be both reflective and self-aware, which will lead you to the career you were meant to pursue, whatever that may be. In all of this, add a touch of superhero, which means caring about and for others. Hold yourself to the highest possible standard. By doing that, I promise success is inevitable.
*When I was growing up there were no epic superhero movies. If I wanted to see superheroes, it was through comic books or cartoons. For more on the history of superheroes and particularly Wonder Woman, see my report, “Why No Wonder Woman?”
Photo: Jacki Zehner, Halloween 2004
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