Aiming Wall Street Brains at Skid Row

She’s a rich girl. She don’t try to hide it,  diamonds on the soles of her shoes

Paul Simon

Diamonds on the soles of her shoes.

OK, let’s get it out of our system. All the pent up rage against the finance industry for impoverishing the country, not to mention our own individual portfolios and retirement accounts.

Retirement??? Ha! Remember when your biggest concern was what you would do with your leisure time when you retired (and the earlier the better)? Now you consider yourself lucky if you can hold on to your job so you can pay your bills or have enough time for the stock market to recover before your nightmare about becoming a bag lady in your old age becomes a reality. 

Who are these greedy bastards who stole your peace of mind and your dreams of a comfortable and fulfilling second half of life? And how can we make them suffer?

(I can’t resist one last populist joke. So, did you hear the one about the investment banker who was looking at himself in the side mirror as he drove off the car lot in his new top of the line Beemer? Suddenly another car sped by and ripped the driver’s side door completely off its hinges, sending it hurtling down the street. A passer by rushed to the banker as he was cursing about his brand new car. The man said, “But sir, your arm has been torn off and it’s lying on the street.” 

“Oh my God,” cried the banker, “My Rolex!”)

I got a good laugh out of this one, but I really do think it’s time to get a grip. Sure investment bankers are paid way too much for their utility to society and yes, there are some blood suckers who make even the most ardent liberals among us cry out for the application of capital punishment in the most painful and humiliating form conceivable.

But let’s try to be rational about this. Even in our angriest moments, we should acknowledge that the vast majority of employees of the investment banking firms were not engaged in the scurrilous practices that have brought the economy to its knees. If 1% of these folks were consciously involved, that’s probably a lot. Most are bright, young, ambitious men and women who were just doing their jobs. (For an example of an investment banker turned social entrepreneur to benefit women in Afghanistan, read about Connie Duckworth in a blog I wrote last year, admittedly, before we fell into the economic abyss).

Forgive me, but I even think most of them come to work every day, believing that they share a strong set of values with the rest of us in American society. At least they started out that way. 

Giving them the benefit of the doubt, perhaps they think to themselves, “I just have to work in this environment until I pay off my huge school debt/ mortgage/kids education, and then I’ll have the financial resources to make a significant impact on making the world a better place.” In the meantime, I assume most are generous with their time and money for good causes. Given half a chance, some would happily leave Wall Street behind and go forth to do good for society.

To test my theory, I spent some time with Adlai Wertman, Professor of Clinical Management and Organization and Founding Director, Society and Business Lab at USC’s Marshall School of Business. Prior to joining the faculty at Marshall, Adlai spent eighteen years as an investment banker before changing lanes to serve as President and CEO of Chrysalis the nationally acclaimed non-profit in Los Angeles dedicated to helping the homeless become self-sufficient through jobs.

Surely this poster child for the possibility of transformation from Wall Street to Main Street (make that Skid Row) social entrepreneur, would validate my theory.

Well yes and no.

“Wall Street is completely addictive,” he explains. “You are part of a collection of the best and the brightest, best speaking and energetic people you can imagine. If you’re not putting out 115% every minute, you’ll be left in the dust.” They might write checks to worthy causes, but they work way too hard to have any time left over to nurture a passion for public service. Ultimately, you need to get some distance from this environment if you want to apply your talents to improving the world.

Adlai should know. When the word got out that he planned to leave investment banking for public service, the reactions ranged from incredulity to mockery. “He must be having a nervous breakdown,” said some. “Maybe it’s a religious thing,” others offered. Always competitive, some even suggested, “He’s just trying to out-good us.” 

But Adlai persevered, planning carefully how to make the break in a responsible way towards his family so that he could fulfill his calling. For it is a calling, Adlai believes. “I knew from age five I should be in public service.” He fell into a job at Bear Stearns after getting his MBA from Wharton and selected public finance as his way to water down the greed motivation. “At least I could tell myself the benefits of the transactions I worked on went to tax payers rather than to corporate entities.”

You see, Adlai always believed that his success wasn’t due to anything special that he did. “Everything I had was a gift. I was born white, with parents who valued education, a high IQ, reasonably good looks, leadership skills and ability to B.S.” With all these going for him, Adlai thought, “How can I not use these gifts to change the world and not just to enrich myself?”

But the siren call of the Wall Street is tough to withstand. The tendency is to say “one more bonus and then I’m going to quit.” Every year, it’s one more bonus; one more promotion. Yet, Adlai heeded two wake-up calls which drowned out the voice of the seductress. His beloved brother died in his arms and a few years later, Adlai himself survived a mild case of melanoma. He realized he might not live long enough to do what he was meant to do.

At 37, Adlai moved his family out of New York. He grabbed the opportunity to run Prudential Securities West Coast public finance operation and started reconnoitering for the right vehicle to invest his energies and talents. He joined the board of Chrysalis and became its Chairman. He promised himself a year off before making any commitments, saying he wanted to “get reacquainted with my family and to deal with my ego.”  His wife also left the practice of law and became a grant writer, so their family income was downsized considerably.

Adlai knew he had made the transition successfully and overcame the withdrawal symptoms when he could respond without cringing to the dreaded question, “What do you do?’ with the honest answer—“Nothing.” Even better was the feeling he had when for the first time he could tell his kids, “We can’t afford that,” and know that they got it. The entire family understood that it was a collective decision to modify their life style so they could give back to the community. The sacrifice was positively ennobling.

(For my own retirement struggles to deal with the dreaded question “What do you do?” read my blog My New Business Card .)

Before his sabbatical year was up, Adlai agreed to take the position of CEO and president of Chrysalis. His background in public finance and his leadership skills were invaluable to the task of procuring employment opportunities for his clients. He successfully won over the developers around Skid Row by understanding their business needs. “I didn’t ask them for a charitable contribution. I knew they needed to clean up the neighborhood to increase their property values and to garner favor with the government. We needed jobs. So we partnered with them to provide the labor they needed to make this happen.”

Suddenly, doors started flying open to him. “My path was extraordinarily clear.” Even Hollywood, a notoriously tough nut to crack, began to respond to his passion and his ability to stimulate the passion in their lives. “It was the best job I’ve had in my life, and the hardest,” says Wertman.

Adlai always loved teaching. After a fellowship teaching entrepreneurship at UCLA’s School of Social Work, he has established a social entrepreneurship program at USC, preferring to teach to business people how to apply their skills to the social sphere rather than the other way around.

With Wall Street in a tail spin, his timing couldn’t be better. All those investment bankers whose intentions to give back to society were perennially put on hold until “after the next bonus,” may be open to changing lanes sooner than expected.

Investment banking plays a critical role in our economy, but for years, it has attracted a disproportionate share of our best and brightest talent. William D. Cohan, author of House of Cards, recently wrote in a New York Times Op Ed piece, “There is a reason Bill Gates once said Microsoft’s biggest competitor was Goldman Sachs. ‘It’s all about I.Q.,’ Mr. Gates said. “You win with I.Q. Our only competition for I.Q. is the top investment banks.”  

Wouldn’t it be great if more of these Masters of the Universe aimed their considerable talents at solving the world’s problems rather than enriching their firms’ and their own portfolios? Wouldn’t it be great if more bright, young, and competitive people defined success in terms of technological and scientific breakthroughs rather than on the design and sales of inscrutable financial products?

“A life of public service isn’t for everyone. It’s a calling,” as Adlai said. But if more of our best people heard and heeded the call, this would be a good thing.

For more on "paying it forward," read our chapter by this name in Changing Lanes: Road Maps to Midlife Renewal. And if you have a story to share with our readers, please send it to us in the comment box below.

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