The Sunjay Times

Excerpt from a book I was reading while on my flight yesterday, a little story about Warren Buffett a.k.a the oracle of Omaha:

Corporate culture is highly competitive. We need to know who is winning and why. The score is kept on Wall St. But neither of us is very good with numbers—in fact, quite the opposite. So we need someone who can take all that raw data and put it in a human context that even we can understand, absorb, and use.

Whoever can do that is our hero. All we really need is a few wise words to set us in the right direction. We are like tourists in a strange land, and we are looking for that scenic overlook, the place where we can pull off the road for a moment and get our bearings. All we need is the right point of view. After that, the rest falls in place.

If you want to understand the American economy as it moves into a new and increasingly global century, Warren Buffett’s point of view is the clearest and cleanest. And as the over fourteen thousand shareholders in his company, Berkshire Hathaway will attest, Buffett is very generous about sharing it.

These events are more like down-home county fairs than your typical proxy-filled corporate snooze-a-thons. Most of Berkshire’s subsidiary companies have booths set up selling their products at substantial shareholder discounts. There is even a not-to-be-missed barbecue. The main event is when Buffett, and his investing sidekick Charlie Munger, take center stage for six hours and answer any and all questions from the audience. These sessions are so open, honest, and informative that many parents have ponied up the almost $100,000 that a share of Berkshire Hathaway costs just so their kids can attend these meetings and see how the world of business works when it is done right.

Comparing his annual meetings to those of other companies, Buffett says, “Many annual meetings are a waste of time, both for shareholders and for management. Sometimes that is true because management is reluctant to open up on matters of business substance. More often a nonproductive session is the fault of the shareholder participants who are more concerned about their own moment onstage than they are about the affairs of the corporation .. Under such circumstances, the quality of the meeting deteriorates from year to year as the antics of those interested in themselves discourage attendance by those interested in the business.

The $100,000 “barrier-to-entry” makes sense, it serves as a waste-my-time-people filter.

“Berkshire meetings are a different story. The number of shareholders attending grows a bit each year and we have yet to experience a silly question or ego-inspired commentary.”

So as the ringmaster of this circus, how has Buffett managed to pull off such a long string of meetings that never go sour?

By very carefully listening to the stories contained in the questions he is being asked. When he responds, he responds with great good humor and not only with facts, but also with the emotions that surround them and make them matter. He puts things in a context that can be easily understood. He can do this because he is not trying to impress anyone. He isn’t trying to get you to see things his way and prove that he is right. He is just opening up his considerable store of experience and intellect and sharing it. That way, when you do naturally see things his way, the awareness arrives with a sense of discovery. You trust that discovery because you are the one who made it. You trust him for helping.

That is what heroes do. They open up complex stories, welcome you in, and make you feel at home. They do it by letting you see the world through the hero’s eyes.

Investing done right, with full transparency straight from the top.

I’m no money-expert like Buffett is, but even in my industry, within the technical circles, a knowledgeable-peer can always suss out the peer who isn’t as honest, sometimes using technical knowledge to take advantage of the less-knowledgeable. I prefer to do business honestly, and rightly. Doing business isn’t about screwing the other guy over (ignore this sentence if you are a used-car salesman)