 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Gaining the Edge Avital Hahn for IDDMagazine.com IDD Magazine Cover Page
Despite having Trinity church at one end, spirituality and Wall Street aren't a common match. But investment bankers have been flocking to a course taught at the Columbia Business School by business professor Srikumar Rao, who teaches how to be the most creative, ethical and vibrantly alive person one can possibly be. Such claims may seem over-the-top for erstwhile Masters of the Universe. Yet Wall Street and corporate types who took the course, called Creativity and Personal Mastery, report a deep change in outlook that they say has given them an edge in business. They say they are more satisfied at work and are better team players, better relationship builders and better problem solvers. That may sound great in theory, but it's also good practice, because at a time of increasingly fierce competition in investment banking, a close relationship or a creative approach can win or lose a client. "Dr. Rao's training results in students being better communicators, better team players and more confident in what they want to do and how they want to do it," says Mark Tercek, a managing director at Goldman Sachs and a guest speaker at the course, which is also taught at Long Island University and at London Business School. "These are skills that should make them more successful in their careers and on Wall Street." Creativity and Personal Mastery (CPM) has been consistently oversubscribed at Columbia's business school. Rao, who first introduced his personal development theme at LIU in 1994, uses lectures, essays and exercises to make participants deeply examine their values, aspirations, thought patterns, strengths and weaknesses. Rao also injects a strong ethical vein into the curriculum, getting students to re-examine the meaning of success and leadership. Many conclude that success is not about money alone and that true leaders have a commitment to making the world a better place that goes beyond their immediate bottom line. So can such soft ideas resonate in a place like Wall Street? Or in C-suite corner offices? Rao says that in recent years, he has seen not only more Wall Streeters in his course, which will debut as a workshop at University of California Berkeley's Haas School of Business, but also a larger number of senior executives. He attributes the phenomenon to a renewed emphasis on ethics in this post-Enron era. Plus, he says, long hours and work pressures have become more grueling, leading people to search for alternate ways of being fulfilled. "Somewhere along the line, you come to the realization that if you are not really passionate about what you are doing, if you are not fulfilled, you just can't carry on, and you get burned out very fast," Rao says. "So your option is either you get burned out or you dig deep into your wellspring to come out with a meaning which then infuses every part of your life." This dynamic is also behind the increasing use of personal coaches by executives, as well as behind companies' growing emphasis on leadership and personal growth training. As people seek to become more fulfilled, they often become more effective. "If you and I believe that the world we are in is becoming commoditized, then working on yourself is a differentiating factor that gives you an edge," says Jean-Yves Fillion, head of investment banking at BNP Paribas and a firm believer in coaching. "If you want to think in terms of investment, it is time to reinvest in people, because products don't make as much of a difference as they used to." Fillion says that over the past two years, BNP has expanded training programs to include junior-level employees. Your Strengths Are Where You Shine One important aspect of a person's fulfillment has to do with success. Until recently, traditional wisdom dictated that fixing a person's weaknesses was paramount to achieving success. But now coaches and others involved with human potential reject that approach and focus instead on bolstering people's natural strengths. Focusing on one's natural strengths is one of the main tenets of the recently published Success Built to Last by Jerry Porras, Stewart Emery and Mark Thompson, and it is strongly emphasized in Rao's course, which teaches that a person is more likely to achieve greatness in his or her area of strength. Rao's teaching argues that trying to be good at an area of weakness is a waste because the person is not likely to achieve greatness in it. This is not to say people should ignore weaknesses, but rather become competent enough so that their shortcomings don't hinder them. This causes participants in Rao's course to re-examine where they put their energy. CPM alum Regina Reale had already made a career change by the time she took the course last spring. After leaving GE Capital in 2002, she became senior vp in corporate development at Comprehensive NeuroScience, a privately held healthcare company in New York. Reale says her strong suit is analytical skills and project management, yet she had been trying to work on managing people, which is not her strong suit. Not only was she not having an easy time at it, she also ended up doing less in the more analytical area in which she excelled. A 1998 graduate of Columbia's business school, Reale says her thinking completely changed after taking CPM. She began shifting her work to focus more on analytics and is delegating more of the functions that involve managing people. Good Relationships = Good Business John Patton, a director in Merrill Lynch's emerging markets group in London, credits the course with enabling him to build better relationships. One of the exercises in the course has participants do acts of kindness for people who are not in a position to reciprocate. The skill has helped Patton in making better connections with people - a crucial skill, he says, because "relationships are what deliver opportunities to me every day." Patton does not claim to win business from every relationship or every time. But because he learned to build relationships for their own sake, he gets more satisfaction from his work and is better at dealing with disappointments. "It's about implementing your life so that it is not only about whether you win," says Patton. "Of course, you want to win. But if you open up on a micro level and treat people with respect, my experience is you have a more satisfying experience and are more successful." Strong relationships are also a main part of the presentation that Goldman's Tercek gives at CPM. Participants recall that he provides an example of a Harvard Business School study in which a banker forges an especially good relationship with a lower-level employee of a large corporation. In time, that employee goes on to become CFO and rewards the banker's firm with a large mandate. Changing Paths, a Better Fit Before Winnie Man moved to Aberdeen Asset Management in April, she had been running a 15-member derivatives confirmation operation for Deutsche Bank in London. Working 12-hour days or longer, she liked her job and employer but had a nonexistent personal life and a nagging feeling that something was not right. She missed seeing friends for dinner, she missed playing piano. She also knew that to continue to advance, she would have to make a commitment to her career path. "To progress, I would have to embrace that culture," she says. "I felt incredibly guilty for wanting more." A friend told her about the course, and Man decided to take it at the London Business School, completing it in December 2005. She says she realized through the course that a successful career was not enough, and that she wanted a personal life, too. More importantly, she realized it was possible to have both. "The course helped clarify I didn't have to stay in same organization and role to have enjoyment." In January, with ideas discussed at CPM resonating in her mind, she wrote a description of the ideal job, which included working for a good organization with people she respected and liked. Soon after, her former boss at Deutsche, who had moved to Aberdeen after Deutsche acquired it, called to say they were looking for a manager in the fixed-income area. It took her about 15 minutes to accept. Not only does she have a predictable 10-hour day that includes a lunch break and visits to the gym; she makes more money to boot, she says. Man, who says she wanted a job that made use of her love for making things happen and fixing things, is now in charge of the merger integration. "It fit all the boxes," she says. Moreover, Man says that the course helped her develop the confidence that she was free to choose opportunities and that she would always be able to get another job. "I've become a lot surer of my skills and what I am able to do," she says. Some are able to make changes within their job, says Talane Miedaner, coach and author of Coach Yourself to Success. Miedaner has recently coached a Wall Street trader who complained of working long hours and not spending enough time with his family. The solution was simple: put "dinner with family" on his calendar several times a week. It worked, says Miedaner, who had recalled from her own days in banking that "people on Wall Street are good about keeping appointments. They just get up and say got to go, I have a dinner appointment.'" Deal Values As a senior vp in corporate development, Comprehensive NeuroScience's Reale is the in-house person in charge of M&A. She says the course reshaped the way she thinks about deals and cites her reaction to two recent acquisitions she worked on. The first got stuck at every turn until the deal fell apart and got snapped up by a competitor. The second flowed smoothly from start to closing. Before CPM, whenever Reale analyzed why one deal did or did not succeed, she would look at such factors as her presentations and the speed at which her company moved. But after taking CPM, she began to think in new terms, particularly moving outside herself and focusing on the greater value of deals beyond enriching the few. Reale says she realized that the terms of the unconsummated deal were not all that beneficial for the company and its employees. The second deal, however, spread benefits more broadly. Now, she says, how much good a deal does is a part of her thinking. "I continue to think of business in terms of what we are doing in the world," she says. "How it is benefiting employees and customers. The best business opportunities are the ones that provide the greatest benefits to other people." Dealing With Frustration One of the major lessons people learn at CPM is to observe what Rao calls "mental models." These are various forms of self-chatter that mold our world view to our unique preconceived notions. Since we invent these notions anyway, we may as well see the world through alternate views that better serve our purpose, Rao says. Seeing the world through a wider prism has been a valuable lesson for Harps Sidhu, a senior manager at Ernst & Young in London. Sidhu does management consulting work for investment banks and maintains relationships with them, and develops new products and business opportunities. "The work can be difficult and fast-paced," he says. "You keep bumping into the same frustrations and problems." But since he took the course in the fall, he says he is more in control of his reactions. Tragically, much of life is spent on reacting to misinterpreted events, says Stewart Emery, one of the three authors of Success Built to Last. "I'm dismayed by how many people's lives are tyrannized by the beliefs they have formed followed by the decisions they made based on things that have never occurred." In addition to teaching CPM participants how to change their mental models, Rao also lays out his method in his book Are You Ready to Succeed? The book captures the essence of CPM and provides an extensive reading list for those people that are interested in more fully developing themselves but can't get to one of his classes. Not All People Are Whole People For all the effort one may put into self-growth, there are always those who don't care about anyone but themselves and do well anyway. "There are people who are real jerks and who bring in the business," says one senior banker who did not want his name used. It is best, however, to go about business the right way, he says, because you then have both a higher likelihood of doing business and a higher likelihood of feeling good about it. "But it is not the only way." Similarly, if a person excels at building relationships but does not bring in business, "that would not be valued, because we are a commercial enterprise," the banker says. And when it comes to politics, especially the variety practiced in higher management levels, kindness, respect and idealism may not be enough. On one hand, building alliances and deep loyalty on Wall Street is extremely important. But the other side of the political coin is the price that is sometimes exacted in order to preserve one person's interest over that of another. One banker says that throughout her career, she built alliances that often, but not always, paid off. "I have had people who would give me their kidney, but when I needed something small that would help me greatly, sometimes they wouldn't." At the same time, alliances are indispensable. Emery, who is also a veteran of the human potential movement, says that the one common characteristic of great leaders like Steve Jobs is that they created deep alliances with people. Rao, whose course has its own alumni club and retreats, intends to create a network of highly motivated, ethical people who are not only committed to being personally fulfilled, but who also care about the fulfillment of their own employees. He says he is about to launch a course geared to the needs of top executives, and he will also start individual coaching on a highly selective basis. He says his coaching differs from that of others who work on personal effectiveness: "I am only interested in working with senior executives who care deeply about their people and want each person to develop and prosper." He says he will even start working with no retainer or contract. This supports the view that the best things in business often have no impact on the bottom line. BNP's Fillion says some of the best business relationships he and his staff have nurtured developed from spending quality time with clients and talking about everything but business. Yet indirectly, good relationships often reward the business. "My bankers are successful only when the clients speak with them," he says. And that's an edge any Wall Streeter can appreciate. (c) 2006 Investment Dealers' Digest Magazine and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.iddmagazine.com http://www.sourcemedia.com |
|
| © 2005 areyoureadytosucceed.com. All Rights Reserved. Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy | Sitemap | Contact |
  |