Jamie Fiore Higgins believes that what helped her last for 19 years at Goldman Sachs, before she left and penned Bully Market: My Story of Money and Misogyny at Goldman Sachs, was more than just a very strong work ethic and a head for numerical reasoning. Rather, she was also good at keeping her mouth shut, she told HBR journalist Nicole Smith. Higgins spoke with Smith in a fireside chat at From Day One’s November virtual conference, Making Your Company a Magnet for a Diverse Workforce. “Once I left, I did a lot of thinking and considering what I've been a part of,” said Higgins. “I did a 180—in this process, I did a 180 back to myself. I wanted to take that muzzle off.”

Her main intention was not just to shine a light on the way these organizations wield their power from a methodical and company-culture perspective. She also wanted to spotlight “the dust bunnies no one wants to talk about. Although my setting was Goldman Sachs, the themes in my book transcend any industry and company,” she explains. “The most amazing part was the impact I could see on my readers—from Wall Street to medicine.”

For her, it really started from day one. “They lock the doors,” she explained. This meant that, if an employee happened to be late, they were not allowed to come in unless the boss’s boss accepted some form of apology. In addition, being called upon during a meeting to provide an answer could result in an expulsion from that meeting if the answer happened to be wrong. “We’d be congratulated one day, disparaged the next day: this gaslighting situation was giving you a bad case of impostor syndrome.”

Higgins noticed that the company excelled at convincing employees to fully identify with it, and to see their successes as defining markers of their identity. Examples of toxic behavior perpetrated within the company included her being told that she had only gotten promoted because of her gender; having her colleagues moo at her after she pumped for her fourth child—which, was, in itself, an act of defiance against the superior who had advised her not to breastfeed; and the fairly liberal use of racial epithets in meetings without any repercussions.

Even after 9/11, when Higgins and some coworkers witnessed the attack, while others never came back to the office, Higgins decided to stay. “My mentor Molly told me: respond, don’t react,” she said. “Knowing that I could only leave Goldman once, believing that phrase, I tried not to be impulsive. My impulse was that, but big decisions need to be honored with time and consideration: even though pressure was mounting, I had to be comfortable with the discomfort.” At the time, she realized it was more valuable for her to stay.

She no longer believes in this rhetoric. “You’re an at-will employee,” she said, adding that she sees career as a pie consisting of many slices: compensation, challenge, fulfillment, and life. In time, she learned how to push back on the toxic attitudes. “The most important real estate is between your two ears,” she said.  

Still, Higgins does not see herself as blameless. She was, in equal parts, a victim and a participant in that culture. Her family history had led her to live with a scarcity mindset, so she stayed year after year, to reap bonuses and promotions. “The irony is [that] I wasn’t spending it,” she said. “I saw the bad things that money did to people. I had this aversion to the material part, yet [an] attraction to it.”

Owing to the company’s structure, there was also harsh competition among women, and Higgins was, by her own admission, not blameless in that aspect. “If you bring one up, she’s gonna eat your lunch,” is how she describes the general antagonistic attitude. “All the women were crowding around the same four guys, because [the men] were the ones in power.” In fact, upon the release of her book, Higgins heard from the very same women whom she herself did not help. “I now get why what happened to me happened,” they told her.

Angelica Frey is a writer and a translator based in Boston and Milan.