Old Men Have Broken our World and then there is Warren Buffet

As an educator I am privileged to meet 20-30 new people every month for their undivided attention for 2 days at organizational development soft-skills training workshops; or 2-4 hours when I am invited to present to universities and think tanks on topics such as mindfulness, business and sustainability.  I get a pulse of what is going on in people's minds through these sessions.  

I began the most recent talk at University of Ottawa 4^th year International Development undergraduates on the topic - Business, Sustainability and Personal Leadership with a Hopes and Fears session.   

I was surprised as there were more fears voiced over hopes – the state of the economy and their future, wars and violence, climate change, corporate irresponsibility, poverty and disparity in the world, and more.  When I asked them whether they had the Power to change any of these, only 3 out of 20+ students raised their hand.  

This is a pattern emerging in the last two years from the many presentations I have made at colleges and universities.

This is disturbing as universities are where political and social change originated through the likes of Flower Power, Black Power, Anti War, Gay Movements and more over the last 75 years.   

Students being stifled through a huge workload, high fees and cost of living, workload and the fear of an uncertain future leaves them with no time to think and be creative.  The very system they should be railing against to improve things to create a better world is stifling them.      

If this is the case, our political leaders, usually "old men", who run this neo-liberal western world have failed this future generation.  Clearly, the government-corporation unholy alliance strengthened since World War II is only working for a few privileged in the democratic world.  The old men in ivory towers seem to not be in touch with the ground realities, even in a prosperous country like Canada.

We cannot generalize on old men though, as there are many wise old men around too.  One shining example is the "Oracle of Omaha", Warren Buffett.  When Duke University surveyed their MBA students for the most influential person, many voted for Buffett, after their fathers.   

I have followed Buffett as a business leader over the years and consider him one of the most emotionally intelligent human beings, and an antithesis to our preconceived image of a billionaire.  Unlike most others, he has always spoken for fair-play over self-interest.

Tap Dancing to Work, Warren Buffett on Practically Everything, 1966 – 2012, an amazing compilation of articles and stories by Carol J. Loomis provide deep insights into this incredible man.    

Another wise old sage J. Krishnamurti, in his The Book of Life says, “Right thinking comes with self knowledge.  Without understanding yourself, there is no basis for thought”.

Warren Buffett embodies self knowledge when he says; “We don’t have the skill to be above all, I guess you would say, we have strong sense of our limitations” of both his partner Charles Munger and himself.  

This makes Buffett a mindful, emotionally intelligent and a rational person with his life’s lessons on a full spectrum - starting from parenting, business leadership, investments, governance and social consciousness.

Buffett humbly says he was born in the right country to the right family at the right time that provided a platform for his success.      

Buffett leveraged this fate by making sound choices based on a set of values and rational thinking.  He is a brilliant intellect and a consummate critical thinker constantly asking questions and testing assumptions, comparing the past with potential new scenarios.  Yet, the most important attribute Buffett has is self-awareness.   

Buffett has built his wealth not by prescribing and controlling others but by managing himself – his integrity, ethics, knowledge, temperament, words, and acts.   

This is emotional intelligence, which enables him to think critically and rationally.  

Our thoughts represent feelings – excitement, confidence, fear, vulnerability, aversion, yearning, sadness manifested by needs, when unmet, gives us stress and anxiety.  Buffett has found ways to detach emotion from the thought process to become extremely rational in his investment decisions and running businesses.  Yet he knows that human relationships enable all this and he is a very sociable person.

His simple tip to making money - “Rationality is essential when others are making decisions on short-term greed or fear.”  Being rational, Buffett runs against the herd.  He buys fundamentally sound investments and when others are getting out of the market out of fear and greed, and holds on to them patiently.

This patience has given him longevity and the consistency.  For a billionaire and owner of so many varied businesses, he leads a very slow life.  He loves to read and learn and does not do email.

Buffett learns a lot from being a consummate reader.  In a speech in 1999 he cited a 1924 book called Common Stocks as Long Term Investments by Edgar Lawrence Smith based on researching stock price movements for 56 years.   

Buffett quotes from the book;

“These studies are the record of a failure - the failure of facts to sustain a preconceived theory”.  

It goes on;

“The facts assembled, however, are worthy of further examination.  If they would not prove what we had hoped to have them prove, it seemed desirable to turn them loose and to follow them to whatever end they may lead to”.    

What he got from this book on stocks is an education on the human mind.  Our natural inclination is to be emotionally attached to myths, ideology, beliefs and generalizations that prejudice and render us powerless, as they embed in the subconscious mind.  He lets go of those old assumptions by thinking critically and getting to the root cause.

I am fascinated by how Buffett learns this psychology from a book on investments and applies it to his practical world. This is highly emotionally intelligent, mindful and aware - a critical thinker par excellence.  

He discovered another interesting corporate phenomenon called the “institutional imperative”. 

 In one of his famous letters to shareholders (1989), he states;

 “In business school, I was given no hint of the imperative’s existence and I did not intuitively understand it when I entered the business world”.   This imperative is the organizational momentum that is resistant to change, the institutionalized inertia protected by the people – the culture of “the way things have been done” – the greatest barrier for rational decision making and action.

Mining Industry on the Old Imperative

I see this imperative at play in the mining industry, for instance, ignoring the risks of not engaging with local and indigenous host communities up front for mutual benefit. 

Power and money enabled the myth in earlier times for  mining corporations with host governments, at times, to do their bidding to get people out of the way, so it can go about its business.  

Faster this myth is done away the less risky it will be for the mining industry, as a few community members aided by an international civil society organization and social media can ruin a company and its reputation.  

Buffett understands the danger of these myths and the inertia of the imperative and learned to work around them.  He picked companies with businesses he understood with quality products and services the market will need for a long time to come.  He stayed away from the high tech world, which he did not understand.

Then he found right people to run them.  “He is the best judge of human talent there is” says Rick Santulli, CEO of Netjets, one of Buffett’s more innovative companies in the shared ownership of business jets.  This is confirmed by all his other company CEOs, who love to work for him.  He is not your alpha- male boss as his personal assistant Debbie Bosnak says, “I have never seen him get mad”.

Krishnamurti says; 

“Self knowledge comes into being when we are aware of ourselves in relationship.”  

Buffett is a self effacing man, manages his emotions well and knows how to relate to people.

He is also one of the few business leaders who think unfair for the rich to pay so little taxes.  He continues to be a voice of reason to take the power away rather than to hoard it, from the wealthy to create a more equitable world.  He is a visionary to realize that an inequitable world is not sustainable.

This reflects his philosophy with his children.  He made it well known from early days that his children will not inherit his wealth.  His family lived a “normal” life in Omaha going to public schools.  The children did not realize their father was one of the richest people in the world till they were in their twenties through the media.  

Buffett’s lifestyle did not change as he earned his wealth.  Instead, both his wife Susan and he were loving “normal” parents who spent time with the children as they grew up.  Buffett once commented; 

"I want to give my kids just enough so that they would feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing".

All this is an anti-thesis for the caricature of a high powered business leader and there are many rich lessons in Warren Buffett’s philosophy, way of life and business.

Buffett is a shining example of a level 5 leader - humble yet tough - that I cite as I work with business leaders who seek to transform their organizations to be more people friendly.   https://www.jimcollins.com/concepts/level-five-leadership.html

"Deep Tissue" change requires unlearning old hierarchical ways to relearn new approaches, yet they are not really new. We know that organizations are living systems, with warts and all, as opposed to a machine.  The art is to find the right balance between enforcement and facilitation for a living system to thrive.  

Self knowledge and mastery, starting at the top, is the key to finding that balance.  A living system has moods, gets buffeted by the winds, gets pushed around - therefore, needs nurture, care and at times, tough love.    

Buffett has been a consummate example of a business leader, who understands the fallibility of it all.  He minimizes these risks by being rational with his deals, but emotionally intelligent with his people, who he chooses carefully.  

He has clearly shown that you do not have to be a mean spirited reptilian predator to become a billionaire.  He can give it all away too, as he is not attached to it, as he was never caught by its trappings.

Warren Buffett is the embodiment of a free spirit who continues to live a mindfully slow life and enjoying it to the fullest.   

This old man is a visionary leader for our times.

“Intelligence comes when one is in harmony both, intellectually and emotionally.  With intelligence, one has both capacities to feel and reason”.  J Krishnamurti, The Book of Life