For this section of my book report on “Liar’s Poker” by Michael Lewis, I will be focusing on the second and third chapters of the book. I chose to pair these two chapters together because I felt that they both discussed the culture of Solomon Brothers that Michael was exposed to.
Chapter 2, which is titled “Never Mention Money,” starts out with Michael telling how exactly he was first introduced to Solomon Brothers. While finishing a master’s degree in economics in London, he received an invitation to dine with the Queen Mother. Once he arrived at the dinner, he realized that he was seated between the wives of two Solomon Brother’s managing directors. Throughout the course of dinner, one of the wives discovered that Michael was about to begin searching for a job in the investment banking field. After this point, she turned the rest of the dinner into a round-about interview. At the conclusion of the dinner, the managing director’s wife promised she would talk to her husband about getting Michael a job, and sure enough he was later invited by her husband to the London Solomon Brothers Office. He had a successful office visit, and was later invited to a business breakfast with the managing director later in the week. Despite how successful both of these events were for Michael, he was astounded by the fact he did not receive a formal job offer. Eventually, Michael learned that Solomon did not make formal offers. Instead, they gave hints that they wanted to hire an individual. Knowing this, Michael called the managing director, and told him that he accepts, and the managing director replied with, “Glad to have you on board.” Michael loved the fact that many bankers at Solomon brothers were crude, rude, and socially unacceptable. In the later part of the chapter, he tells how he previously interviewed with Lehman Brothers. During the interview, he said the only reason he wanted to become an investment banker was because of the money, and the Lehman Brothers interviewer said that money was not the driving force behind the investment banking industry. Consequently, Lehman Brothers went out of business years later, and Michael felt that it may have been caused by the firm not admitting that its sole purpose was to make money. For this reason, he named the chapter “Never Mention Money.”
As I am going through the internship interview process, I can definitely relate to the boldness that Michael exhibited during his Solomon Brothers interviewing days. If it was not for him boldly calling the managing director and saying he accepts their offer based on the hints they were giving, he would have never got hired by the firm. I can relate this to a similar situation I was in when interviewing for an internship position for the spring of 2012. After forty minutes of intense conversation and countless questions, the interviewer asked me if I had any final questions. I responded by basically asking for the position by asking what else I could do to help secure my internship for the spring of 2012. Impressed by my boldness, the interviewer responded by saying that I could help secure the position by attending the final round of interviews, and then proceeded to give me the when and where of the final interviews. I then attended the final interview, and received the spring internship offer that I wanted. If I did not act boldly at the end of my first round interview, much like Michael did after his meetings with the managing director, I do not know if I would have gotten the position I wanted, just as Michael would not have gotten the position he wanted if he had not called and said that he accepted.
Chapter three is entitled “Learning to Love Your Corporate Culture,” and discusses Michael’s first days with the firm in regards to the training sessions he was required to attend. It was at these sessions that he learned what the corporate culture of the investment banking world was really like. The chapter starts with Michael giving an overview of why Solomon Brothers was so successful in the 1980’s, and how exactly they operated to achieve this success. He then goes on to describe the training he and 127 other new hires had to endure. He described the training room in a way that relates to a typical classroom, where there were the very attentive individuals in the first few rows, followed by those less attentive individuals in the back row. He then went on to say that the training process was the equivalent of being beaten by the neighborhood bully every day. Also, the leader of the training denounced each trainee by saying that once they hit the trading floor, they will be at the bottom of the food chain, regardless of how much of a big shot they think they are. At the end of the training, a diagram was posted on the board that showed which individuals were assigned to which office. Once this chart was posted, the trainees immediately attempted to befriend a managing director, so that they could be traded to the office they truly wanted to work at. At the end of the chapter, Michael discussed how Solomon brothers relied on its training program to make the trainees more like the rest of the employees, ergo establishing a common culture. Michael, along with the rest of the trainees, was constantly told that he was not nearly as special as he thought he was, and that on the trading floor, he was the absolute bottom. This “brainwashing” helped establish the rude and crude common culture that is shared among employees of Solomon Brothers.
This idea of corporate culture is relatable to the subject of organizational behavior. IF a new hire does not fit the established culture of a company, conflict will arise between the individual and the employer. This is represented by the Wal-Mart discrimination case that we read about in class earlier in the semester. Many women were upset because they felt that they were not given the same opportunities for advancement as the men were. Whether Wal-Mart was guilty of this or not, they have gained a reputation over the years of discriminating against certain employees. Prior to this, the company was in trouble for pay and benefit discrimination against certain minorities. Now, they are discriminating against women in terms of advancement opportunities. It can be said that Wal-Mart has developed a discriminating culture over the years, whether they want to admit it or not. With that being said, employees should be aware of this fact before seeking employment with the company. If they do not like this culture, as many women in the reading did not, conflict will arise, which is shown in the reading by the lawsuits that resulted from the cultural differences between the company and certain employees.
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