Top bankers are born, not made…

He didn’t use those words, but that’s what one of Goldman’s top execs implied.

We talked about if Tiger was born to play.

Or did honing his craft from 6 months old make him a champion of the game?

That said, he was right, Goldman doesn’t need this.

It’s Too Easy To Win…

When you’re the market leader.

The business card pulls the sale.

You attract top talent.

Long, deep relationships.

Enormous resources.

Market dominance.

Some celebrity execs.

Talking up recent deals.

It’s a winning formula, but no top franchise endures that way.

Continue

At Goldman it’s called the Junior Banker Problem.

Specifically, junior bankers lives get destroyed.

Banks have tried plenty things to solve it.

It’s all pig lipstick…

Because the root cause of the Junior Banker Problem is…

The Senior Banker Problem

Because few senior bankers get their job is selling.

They fail to build winning processes and skills.

The best they know is to wind up the printing press producing those awfully big, boring banker books.

Burning down forests and junior banker lives…

They run around having “Great Meetings.”

Mostly failing to drive results.

They produce too little value for the firm.

Too little success for themselves.

And after all those years in the business, still fail to succeed.

Continue

I didn’t get it.

For years at Goldman I still didn’t get the job.

I was good at doing it.

But I still didn’t get what the business was really about.

Making Money…

In some ways I’m naive.

And I may have been a total dimwit starting at Goldman.

But my sense from 20+ years around the business is that many bankers still fail to get their job is selling.

A great aspect of working at Goldman and some shops is it’s a team culture.

At least up until the senior ranks, it’s all about what we’re doing together in best serving our clients.

That’s a powerful mindset for delivering your best service…

But it leaves many bankers confused what the business is actually about.

Continue