Leading Organizational Learning

study, Pine Street has completed or is working on studies investi-
gating the pitfalls and best practices pertaining to expatriation and
repatriation, keys to successfully hiring senior people from other
firms, and the circumstances leading to the success or failure of
divisional heads serving individually or jointly.

Pine Street Services for Goldman Sachs Clients

The fastest-growing aspect of Pine Street’s activities is the array of
programs and services offered directly to the firm’s major clients.
These activities serve to leverage Pine Street’s expertise in leader-
ship development and strengthen the firm’s client relationships. In
the first two years, Pine Street has reached more than two hundred
of the firm’s key clients, with services ranging from individual dis-
cussions with senior leaders to training sessions for these leaders to
joint Goldman Sachs–client leadership programs. The latter pro-
grams, which entail clients learning side-by-side with GS counter-
parts, facilitate the free exchange of ideas and often lead to broader
and more interesting discussions than are possible with participants
from a single firm. The programs are led by senior GS leaders,
external consultants, and faculty from the client organizations.
These client service programs in many ways exemplify the
broader methodology through which Pine Street, in what is still its
early days, tries to create and spread applied intellectual capital:

• The programs seek to diminish boundaries among the busi-
  nesses of the firm and between Goldman Sachs and its clients.


• The Pine Street faculty, which frequently includes the chair-
  man and the operating heads, consists largely of leaders
  teaching leaders, plus a few longtime consultants and clients.


• Initiatives are focused on commercially productive activities.


• The effort builds on Goldman Sachs’s historic strengths (in par-
  ticular, powerful client relationships and an exceedingly strong
  client service ethic), while seeking to introduce and spread new
  ideas and new ways of operating throughout the firm.

DEVELOPING ALEARNINGCULTURE ONWALLSTREET 329