 It’s Only Money
As I sat doubled-over in pain, tubes coming out of my arm, doctors hovering over me in the emergency room with looks of concern on their faces, fear shot through me. I thought, “This can’t be happening.” Yet this surreal event was as real as anything I ever experienced. I had just spent the last few weeks of my twenty-eight-year Wall Street career as a financial recruiter interviewing the bankrupted fixed income desk at Lehman Brothers. In all my years with the top athletes on Wall Street (with the possible exception of September 11, 2001), I had never seen so many grown men crying. I felt like crying myself.
Dead men walking. That is how one of the top managers described the tremendous loss these shattered financial stars were feeling. “It’s like an economic 9/11,” he told me referring to the collapse of the investment banking giant, Lehman Brothers. I stood to make lots of money on their demise placing displaced bankers with my hedge fund clients. Yet I would have wished for it never to have occurred. I could not shake the sadness I felt, the overwhelming sense that something great had just ended—the era of American financial supremacy and the Wall Street I had known for almost three decades.
Three weeks later I found myself wheeled off a plane from an international business trip barely able to breathe and asking myself, “Is this IT?” Doctors found me in superior health. “A heart like a 19 year old,” my cardiologist quipped. Stress was the final diagnosis. I suddenly realized how unbelievable it was to witness the world’s most powerful financial institutions crumble and vanish in a matter of weeks.
I had lived through 9/11 as a New York businessman losing dear friends, dozens of colleagues, and millions of dollars in revenue. I had experienced the unspeakable horror of death and destruction personally as did many of my associates. Lehman Brothers stood across from the giant gaping hole that was once home to the Twin Towers. I knew many of the Lehman employees had witnessed victims jumping eighty stories to their deaths.
I kept reminding myself that no one had died in this historic moment. “It’s just money,” I thought. Yet I knew it was much more than money. The entire global economic system and the stability and comfort of American life were at stake. It begged the question, if you lose your entire life savings in a single moment, what do you have left?
I have thought of this question often in the past several months. It first surfaced when the former mortgage securities powerhouse Bear Stearns was sold for a song over a weekend. Long term employees lost every cent they had worked for in a single moment. When the share price of $2 was raised to $10, employees and investors felt at least they got something. My office was filled with top Bear producers shell-shocked by the events that brought their seemingly solid world crashing down.
I attended a Benefit a few weeks later for a children’s foundation funded by Lehman and Bear stars. The uneasiness was palpable. A Lehman derivatives salesperson whispered, “It is so terrible about Bear.” We both looked in the direction of a group of young men huddled around the bar. She knew as did I that Lehman was whispered to be “next.” We blocked that thought out immediately; in our view that was impossible. Unthinkable. When the impossible and unthinkable occurred a few short months later, the stunned response was heard around the world.
After Bear’s fall and dozens of meetings with devastated colleagues, I had thought, “I never want to go through that again.” When I found myself interviewing the bankrupted Lehman employees it was overwhelming. One by one their stories unfolded. I can’t remember how many said, “I have lost everything.” Somewhere along the line I lost count.
So again it begs the question: what do you have left if all your amassed wealth disappears in a single moment?
No matter how much material prosperity we lose no one can take away our respect, integrity and honesty. People always remember someone who did the right thing for them. People will always go out of their way to help someone who never tried to hurt or deceive them. The essence of who we are does not lie in the amount of money or material things we accumulate. It lies in the way we treat others as we amass our fortunes and climb up the ladder of success.
If we take our bank account, stock and bond portfolio, houses, cars, private schools, Ivy League Universities, designer suits and country club memberships and put them on the shelf; who are we? What are we? We are simply human beings striving for happiness and success just like everyone else. We seek the love and respect of our family and friends and colleagues. No matter how devastating market conditions become these things can never be taken from us. These are what I call permanent assets. With these assets firmly in place we can always make the money back again. PETER RESSLER is Chief Executive Officer of the Ressler Mitchell Group in New York catering to Wall Street's Elite. Peter's legendary reputation as the "best in the business" in financial recruiting combined with international renown as a leader in values-based and socially responsible business makes him one of the most unique voices on the Street. He is also a volunteer firefighter and a member of the Firefighter Assist Search Team in his local community. As a business ethics expert and Wall Street veteran, he has been called, "The Sage of Wall Street." RETURN TO TOP **********************************************************
From the Trenches: Business is Personal “Forgive them Father; they know not what they do. “ Where have I heard those words recently? Not the Big Book—I haven’t read that for longer than I can remember. Church? I haven't been there for even longer –with one exception—September 11, 2008. I found myself in morning mass at St. Frances of Assisi on West 31 Street surrounded by several hundred uniformed firefighters from midtown Manhattan’s Battalion 7. The words of my good friend, Father Chris Keenan, Chaplain of the New York City Fire Department, rang across my ears. “Christ asked God to forgive what he could not.” These were his words of comfort for the heartbroken men after seven long years of suffering.
Three days later I watched alongside my stunned Wall Street brethren as the shock heard around the world hit the news alerts. The unthinkable collapse of a venerable investment banking institution the size and scope of Lehman left anyone watching breathless. Every one (except for short sellers and those who view Wall Street as the enemy) mourned the loss of Lehman. On the Street in the last few weeks, it feels a lot like a state funeral as we buried one of our own. I remember stories from September 11, 2001. Lehman employees, whose building stood directly across from the Towers, watched helplessly as colleagues jumped to their deaths. Seven years and four days later, the Lehman that survived that world-changing event was gone.
While Dick Fuld filed for bankruptcy for the firm that sustained him for forty years, outrage and frustration filled the streets and airwaves. Word had it that Fuld turned down a $26/share offer for Lehman just one month before. Even worse, Street sources claimed Fuld had offers for Lehman at both $8 and $12/share as late as a week before bankruptcy. Bankers, brokers, and traders relayed tales of shouting matches between top managers and Fuld. All the while, those of us watching wondered why Dick Fuld would orchestrate a bankruptcy when he could have sold the firm weeks if not days before. The UK Guardian attributed his actions to “hubris.” Nocero of the New York Times called it “denial.” A frustrated trader in commercial real estate who lost his entire net worth in Lehman stock said, “They took down 25 million plus year after year, piling on risk after risk, greed after greed, and never thought of their people.” As Fuld brought the employer of nearly 26,000 to its knees, a senior banker who sat in on the negotiations exclaimed, “The humanity of what’s happening here is lost on these people.”
The words of Father Chris’s sermon echoed. Forgive him Father; he knows not what he does. I have to believe that the humanity (or inhumanity) of this event was lost on Fuld. My reverie is interrupted by an email from a Berlin colleague. “It's a great shock to see what is happening to seemingly untouchable financial companies like Lehman Brothers.” Another colleague said of other investment bankers in the line of fire, “They’re scared s---less, as they thought they were impenetrable.” Untouchable, impenetrable—these words hit me hard. We all thought Wall Street’s elite firms were impenetrable. Dick Fuld must have thought so too, right down to the very end.
The events of the past several months since Bear Sterns’ collapse have shown us that Wall Street is as vulnerable as Main Street to recklessness, mismanagement, and human unpredictability. It took us all by surprise. Maybe that’s the lesson. None of us are really untouchable.
As CEO of a Wall Street recruiting firm that serves investment banks and global hedge funds, I am privy to the human impact of these events. The recent words of a former Lehman superstar came back to me. “They sucker punched me. I got knocked down, but it’s not over yet. I will get back up.”
Father Chris closed September 11 mass with Christ’s words on the cross that still resonated with the pained heroes present. “Why have you forsaken me?” He explained it is only human to feel frustration and rage against man or God, in times of deep loss and crisis. The key, he said, “is to remember we are never forsaken.” Those who were lost seven years ago in the terrible moments of that tragic day live on in us. Father Chris called all of us who remain, “their living legacy.”
I think of all of this now as I field calls from the panicked, the worried, and the outraged. Seven years ago so much life was lost. We are their living legacy. For their sake and our own we will rebuild. We counted bodies then; we are only counting numbers now. I offer words of comfort that might shock some of my colleagues…it’s only money. There are no body counts this time around. We still have our minds, wits, families, and friends. Okay—we were sucker punched. But it’s not over yet. We will get back up. RETURN TO TOP **********************************************************
The Credit Crisis: Business is Personal August 2008 EVERYTHING WE DO IN BUSINESS IS PERSONAL. In my 27 years working in financial recruiting on Wall Street I realize that my career was built through the relationships and trust I established with other people.
The late Michael Mortara is a perfect example of how business is personal. Mike was a partner at Goldman Sachs in charge of Global Fixed Income. He was also one of the founders and creators of the Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) market. I worked with Mike for over a decade as CEO of the sole retained search firm for the Fixed Income Division at Goldman.
When we first began working together, Mike wanted to know all about my background, where and how I grew up, my interests and passions. He was as interested in who I was as a person as my ability to perform my job with excellence. In many ways, his understanding of the personal aspect of a business was the secret to his enormous success. Colleagues and associates loved Mike personally and professionally. Many of the Goldman partners he introduced me to twenty years ago are still my clients today. Our relationships are based on trust - the glue that holds all successful business relationships together.
In November 2000, Mike died suddenly of a brain aneurism. At his funeral, senators, heads of investment banks, hundreds of Wall Street colleagues, long time Goldman partners and approximately half the janitorial staff of Goldman Sachs were in attendance. From janitors to senators, people memorialized Mike with stories of the impact he made in their lives. It seemed he helped thousands of people in his brief life. Tents were set up outside the church to accommodate the large crowds gathered to pay tribute to a man who understood that everyone we come in contact with, regardless of their station in life is a human being first and should be treated with dignity and respect.
Forgetting the personal aspect of business can be career suicide. The current credit crisis is a great example. Homeowners, speculators, bankers, investment bankers, traders and investors all contributed to the meltdown of the subprime mortgage market. Record numbers of foreclosed homes, tens of thousands of jobs lost, and careers ruined. People’s lives have been forever changed. Mike as one of the founders of the MBS market never forgot there was a human being at the other end of the transaction. His view of business was that everyone could win, the investor, the banker, the homeowner, if you treated them right.
When we forget there is a human being on the other side of every transaction in business the results are disastrous. To avoid another catastrophe in the global markets like the current credit crisis each of us must remember individually and collectively that business is always personal. © Good Business International, Inc. 2008 RETURN TO TOP
|
