According to Mary Erdoes, CEO of JP Morgan’s Wealth Management business, graduates should expect to work 72 hours each week if they want to quickly master their profession in record time. This would therefore represent 12 hours of work per day, 6 days a week.
Assuming that perfect mastery of a field requires 10,000 hours of work, it takes about 5 years to excel in a particular activity for a person working eight hours a day. This is why profiles who have more than 5 years of experience in a field are often considered “seniors”.
For her part, Mary Erdoes said working longer would help analysts learn their trade faster and bring the process down to less than three years. Could this be the secret to breaking into the biggest companies?
10,000 hour rule, myth or reality?
Many psychologists have looked into the question of the 10,000 hours and have confirmed that mastery of a domain is closely linked to the effort that the person provides and not to the talent or innate gift that he or she possesses. The rule of 10,000 was popularized in 2008 thanks to the book All Winners: “Understanding the Logics of Success” by Canadian author Malcolm Gladwell. However, he was not the first to mention it.
Initially, the idea of the 10,000 hour rule was theorized in 1993 by psychology researchers in the American scientific journal Psychological Review. One of the professionals, K. Anders Ericsson, looked into the question of “role of practice in the acquisition of expertise”. His research demonstrates that intense training, accompanied by discipline, trumps talent.
The authors of the study followed the trajectories of thirty apprentice violinists from the West Berlin Music Academy. Result ? The best students had worked on average for at least 10,000 hours before the age of 20. Violinists classified as “less skilled” had trained on average for 6,000 hours before their 20s.
Mary Erdoes’ opinion on the 10,000 hour rule
Before joining JP Morgan in Asset Management in 1996, Mary Erdoes was employed at Meredith, Martin & Kaye, an advisory firm, where she was responsible for credit research, brokerage and individual portfolio management. In March 2005she holds the position of CEO in Private Banking. Four years later, she was appointed CEO Asset & Wealth Management at JP Morgan. She was also one of the potential successors to Jamie Dimon, president and CEO of the famous investment bank.
Mary Erdoes describes each day at JP Morgan as an opportunity to learn more and continually expand her knowledge. The day begins with a meeting at 8 a.m. She explains: “I call it a mini-university. It’s not just about knowing the headlines, it’s about understanding how all of these elements fit into a client’s business. »
As part of their job, wealth managers provide financial advice to clients, usually on how to manage their assets. 2,200 interns have already joined JP Morgan this summer and Mary Erdoes said 3,600 analysts will join the group by September.
Wall Street heavily criticized for its “inhumane” working hours
The banking and finance sector remains heavily criticized. This world has a reputation for imposing long working hours on its employees.
Last March, bankers working at Goldman Sachs gave executives an internal document describing the “inhumane conditions” to which they had to submit. The bank then revised its official working hours in response to their request.
In 2013, an intern at the London office of Bank of America Merrill Lynch died after suffering an epileptic seizure. Although it was unsuccessful, an investigation concluded that overwork may have contributed to Moritz Erhardt’s death. He was only 21 years old.
