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Abstract
Despite devastating losses in the September 11th attacks, Sandler O'Neill, an investment bank formerly based in the World Trade Center, emerged stronger than ever within one year. The combination of moral work and the pull of opportunity released extraordinary physical and psychological resources that fueled this astounding recovery.. The case shows that in an organization that permits advancement through moral work, people feel exceptionally energetic and psychologically available.
"If we possess our why of life, we can put up with almost any how."-Nietzsche (1968, p. 23)
Sandler O'Neill & Partners
The Disaster and Recovery
On September 11th, 2001, Sandier O'Neill & Partners, formerly of the 104th floor of the World Trade Center's South Tower, lost thirty-nine percent of its people, including nine partners and two-thirds of its management committee, and nearly all its physical assets and corporate records. Neither industry experts nor organizational scholars could have been optimistic about the future of the firm. Yet within one year, the firm not only had recovered but was doing better than ever, with record profits and revenues and new highly desirable lines of business, while also taking care of the health and well being of the surviving employees and the families of the deceased.
Academics ... Skepticism... How We Came to Study It
Scientists are skeptical by nature and training. We tend to see concepts such as power of purpose as imprecise, unverifiable, and intractable-especially when these concepts include moral claims. But we are also open to evidence. The authors had been invited in autumn 2001 to document the organizational losses of the World Trade Center attacks. It soon became apparent, however, that valuable as this task might be, the biggest story here was explaining how one decimated firm carrying an extraordinary burden could rise with astonishing alacrity to unthinkable heights.
Sandler O'Neill and September 11th, 2001
Sandler O'Neill & Partners
Sandler O'Neill is an investment bank that specializes in thrifts, community banks and savings and loans.1 The firm was founded in 1988 by six partners who referred to themselves as the "3-2-1 gang" (three Jews, two Catholics and a Protestant). It became a mostly Caucasian, Catholic firm that grew by hiring friends, the sons and daughters of friends, and the sons and daughters and...