#MeToo at Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon is alleged to have bragged to colleagues about receiving oral sex. Several other men at Goldman were accused of making dismissive or boorish remarks about female co-workers, including discussing their weight, apparent fitness levels and the necklines of their clothing. These disturbing incidents come from a Bloomberg business report revealing that Goldman paid “well over $12 million” to a female executive who objected to the toxic environment created by senior men at the firm. Perhaps the most surprising part of the report is that most of these events seem to have taken place in 2018 and 2019 when Goldman — and specifically Solomon himself — was publicly pushing the firm to hire more women. The alleged incidents occurred not that long after the 2017 #MeToo movement toppled several prominent men from positions of power and made many men more aware of how widespread such behaviour is and how unacceptable it should be.

(Adapted from “Goldman Payout Shows #MeToo Message Failed to Sink In,” by Sarah Green Carmichael, published on November 16, 2022, by Bloomberg)

Social jet lag

Groggy and disoriented on Monday morning after a weekend of late nights? “Social jet lag” may be to blame, sleep experts say, as research suggests inconsistent sleep schedules could have as much of an impact on health as how much sleep one gets.⁠ Almost half of US adults experience some social jet lag, according to a new study published in the journal JAMA Network Open. The term refers to the mismatch between a person’s biological time, which is determined by circadian rhythms — the roughly 24-hour cycles driven by an internal body clock — and their social clock, which is influenced by obligations such as work, school and social activities. Like travel-related jet lag, which one might experience when visiting a place with a different time zone, social jet lag is a type of circadian misalignment in which the body’s circadian rhythm becomes out of sync with the environment, experts say. Earlier research shows that social jet lag has been associated with higher risks for depression, obesity, Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular problems.

(Adapted from “Sleepy At Work? You Might Have Social Jet Lag,” by Dominique Mosbergen, published on November 8, 2022, by The Wall Street Journal)

The great crypto meltdown

Only recently, Sam Bankman-Fried was in the stratosphere. FTX, his cryptocurrency exchange, then the third-largest, was valued at $32bn; his own wealth was estimated at $16bn. Today there is nothing left but 1m furious creditors, dozens of shaky crypto firms and a proliferation of regulatory and criminal probes. The more that comes out about the demise of FTX, the more shocking the tale becomes. The exchange’s own terms of service said it would not lend customers’ assets to its trading arm. Yet of $14bn of such assets, it had reportedly lent $8bn worth to Alameda Research, a trading firm also owned by Mr Bankman-Fried. In turn, it accepted as collateral its own digital tokens, which it had conjured out of thin air. A fatal run on the exchange exposed the gaping hole in its balance sheet. To cap it all, after FTX declared bankruptcy in America, hundreds of millions of dollars mysteriously flowed out of its accounts.

(Adapted from “Is This The End Of Crypto?” published on November 17, 2022, by The Economist)

Why am I not getting promoted?

Here are a few steps you can take if you’re ready for a promotion: 1) Understand how your organisation perceives you. Gain feedback across five main areas of growth: self-awareness, external awareness, strategic thinking, executive presence, and thought leadership. Reach out to people who can give you unbiased and honest feedback. 2) Understand your company’s approach to your specific role. Set up a meeting with HR or your manager to learn about the job hierarchy. 3) The hard reality is that, sometimes, a promotion has nothing to do with you. If the company has reached its limits on the number of people it can hire or the compensation it can pay out, it may take time to get budgets approved to promote someone. 4) If you feel like you’ve hit a dead end, decide if you’d like to explore lateral roles within the organisation, wait for a promotion, or look for roles in other companies.

(Adapted from “Ask an Expert: Why Am I Not Getting Promoted?” by Amii Barnard-Bahn, published by the Harvard Business Review)

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, November 21st, 2022