Gordon Gekko's High-Performance Work Practices In The Film Wall Street

During the Movie “Wall Street” Gordon Gekko is constantly stating that greed is good. Bud Fox, who idolizes this man, is fascinated at Gordon Gekko’s high-performance work practices. Bud notices that Gordon is regularly closing deals and wants to become just like him. While closing deals are the sole point of working on Wall Street there, there are laws that all stock brokers must abide by. In watching this film I looked for the long term goals and what I found interesting was that everything seemed to be random. The market fluctuates at such a fast pace that the only way to deal with setting up any long term goals was to make a plan for only a short period of time. Gordon Gekko was a shark in his field, and as he took on Bud as an apprentice he showed him all of the wrong ways to make a quick sale. Any type of long-term

goal Gordon Gekko had was to find out his competitors business moves by any means necessary, and try to step in and take the rug out from under his competition. Gekko’s main long-term goal was to make as much money as possible by buying up older companies, stripping them down, and selling them for parts. Buds main confrontation arose when Gekko bought Blue Star airlines and was trying to keep secret that he was stripping it down and selling it off while putting hundreds of innocent workers out of their jobs. Bud’s father who worked at Blue Star Airlines and who was also a labor union representative there, fought hard to keep Gekko from buying the business but no one listened because they were in financial disparity. However, in order for Gekko to achieve his long-term objectives he stuck by his motto greed is good, and stepped on anyone he could to make his next sale.
I believe the Short term goals of this company and of Gordon Gekko should be to abide by the law, come up with a very detailed plan for achieving their sales quota instead of having these informal communication meetings about best ways to obtain insider trading information.

Gordon and Bud should have had a Strategic plan in motion so that they both knew how to close any deal without having to break the law. I also feel that Gekko and Fox could have used directional plans to close their deals because the way the stock market fluctuates. I feel, it is really important for a stock broker or trader to be flexible, so they can adapt to the fast paced lifestyle of Wall Street. However, I also think that when Fox decides to be Gekko’s apprentice he should have stuck to his morals and beliefs. Bud had his individual goals that he wanted to achieve and although they seemed to be fairly difficult, he still knew that obtaining them was a reality. As Bud began to be more close to Gekko he also became more ruthless and unethical every sale he made. I think that individual goals should be difficult, but not to the point of breaking the law to achieve

them.