Last week, I interviewed a managing director within one of Wall Street’s large investment houses. I asked her what observations she had about the new analysts the bank has been hiring over the past few years.
She was very generous and complimentary about their willingness to work hard, solve problems, and attack what is a very challenging job fresh out of school.
But there was one thing in particular that got my attention. “A number of them,” she said, “don’t seem to understand when it is not appropriate to share certain information.”
I asked her for an example. “We deal with lots of highly confidential data,” she responded, “both the information that our customers share and the analyses we develop. It does not seem to occur to them that in addition to our competitors wanting to see this information, it is unethical, even criminal, to allow it outside our offices. Yet we find that they take it home, discuss it with friends and, in one case, even send it to a former finance professor for his thoughts and insights.”
I asked her why she thinks it is happening. “They seem so used to sharing everything on line, thoughts, emotions, class notes, research, whatever, that it does not occur to them that this could be damaging to the firm. It’s sort of like, ‘This is interesting, I should share it.’” She said.
“So what’s the solution?” I asked.
“We developed a protocol and training session about what can be shared and what can’t,” she said. “But that produced all kinds of questions about specific issues so we clamped down and told them nothing can be shared. But that’s not an answer because now they’re paranoid. They have trouble discerning what’s appropriate and what’s not.”
My thoughts? I think the protocol is a good a good start in order to better define the broad categories of information. But rather than delivering this protocol as a set of rules, it is better to teach them to reason though the situations they might face. Begin by reviewing why this is important. Believe it or not, this may be the first time some may have considered the ramifications. Then have them discuss a series of case studies or situations involving different choices. While they may be reluctant at first, persevere.
Learning to reason in unfamiliar waters with your boss watching can be intimidating. But it must be done. No amount of lecture or video instruction will accomplish the task. Finally, cut them loose. When they ask for clarification, work it though with them making sure that they do the work, not you. Discernment is the result of experience which produces insight. Experience these insights and confidence and personal discernment will evolve. There’s no other way to do it.