But when I reached Goldman-and what’s worse, even after our analyst orientation-I had no sense of what was expected of me, how to navigate the organization, or even how to make the best first impression. Heck, I’d even delivered Donnelley Directories. I’d worked as a retail associate, a waitress, and a bookkeeper. I was wholly unprepared-surprising, given that I graduated from Stanford University and Goldman wasn’t my first job.
This lesson was paralleled in my work life when I entered my first full-time job as a financial analyst for the investment banking firm Goldman Sachs & Co. Being thrown into a pool did teach me how to survive in the water-but learning through surviving tends to teach only that learning has to be hard. I never had swim lessons, and it wasn’t until I was a teen that I had enough experience to swim a full lap. I learned to swim by being thrown into a pool at the age of seven. The “sink or swim” reference to workplace progress is a good analogy because it reflects the overall flaw in the system: learning to swim can be treacherous. To become a “natural” swimmer, a young person needs professional development as soon as she joins a company-not just at the manager or executive level. Employees need training in order to glide through organizations. Swimmers rise to the top and only then do companies invest in them.īut this is a fallacy. Most companies expect employees to sink or swim, the idea being that those who can swim as soon as they hit the water (enter an organization) are somehow better-the A players, the star performers.
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