Executive Rant

This is an illuminating clip into the mindset of not just Jamie Dimon, but also others who feel and express similar sentiments.

As a former JPMer myself, who took advantage of mobility programs to live and work in 3 global cities, two countries, collaborating with colleagues across multiple continents, in more than one non-English language, I always appreciated Dimon’s Standard American bluntness, including his use of profanity.

It comes off as authentic, and therefore credible, helping to maintain the culture of a first-class business culture that doesn’t settle for less.

Blind Spots

Now, that being said, I think the CEO blind-spots here are apparent, because these observations could ring true for the front-office (i.e. bankers, traders, sales, etc) who likely get more face-time with the head of a global Fortune 100 bank than other areas of the company.

Context

After 9/11, all NYC-based financial firms made a concerted effort to move out middle and back-office operations to Brooklyn, Jersey, Ohio, Florida, Arizona, Utah, South America, Eastern Europe, or Asia, in the name of business continuity and resiliency, but also significant cost-savings.

If face-time with clients wasn’t required, the real estate cost and overhead didn’t make business or economic sense.

Teams distributed globally, work got done over email, phone, chat, and conference calls (that is what we used to call Zoom…without the camera!)

Someone shared a screen and people collaborated virtually, and effectively.

Front-office staff developed best-practices for handling business via BlackBerry. It’s why people got used to putting “,,,” after the conference line number and before the passcode, to let the device wait before trying to “enter the room.”

Reality Check

Not everyone had the privilege to practice that discipline of “working from anywhere”, but the technical capabilities existed for a couple decades before COVID.

The pandemic was a forcing-function to enfranchise all knowledge workers with the privilege.

But, without practice nor discipline, and with the “ambient social anxiety” of a once-in-three-generations global health crisis, surely…mistakes were made.

As Uncle Ben said, with great power comes great responsibility, and it shouldn’t be a shocker that some colleagues were irresponsible with their enfranchisement into “working from anywhere.”

Executive Awareness

In the clip, Dimon betrays a lack of self-awareness. The board of directors wants to hear about the Chairman and CEO working 24/7; he’s being compensated - very well - for that time.

However, that is not true for everyone at any company, especially a multinational corporation like JPM.

Attempting to set that expectation steps on the already hollow message of “work-life balance”, producing more cognitive dissonance, resulting in a reduction in organizational credibility.

That is especially true when recruiting talent still seeking to grow earlier in the career lifecycle.

Some (most?) people do have families, friends, and a social life that they value on the weekend.

For them, the clip comes off as cringe.

Friyay Experience

In my own experience across three Fortune 100 financial services companies, on Fridays, layers of corporate hierarchy model the behavior of the executive and also work from home.

Fridays earned a reputation for being productive by not getting dragged into useless meetings, being able to schedule meetings back-to-back, or blocking off time to do actual work and complete deliverables.

For at least a decade, colleagues were aware that working away from the office could - and did - enhance productivity.

Depending on the manager, personalities, and function, it’s plausible to be creative with a small, focused group on a Zoom, sharing a screen, than amongst dozens of people in an open-floor plan, with increased cognitive load, more distractions, and additional context-switching costs.

Not everyone gets to work - or be paid - like Jamie Dimon.

My $0.02.

YMMV