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One of my employees accidentally pocket emailed me while he was at Warren Buffett's annual meeting in Omaha. When I found out, I asked him to share what he learned. - KF
Three Smart Ways to Invest in Relationships from Warren Buffett
By Brandon Smith
I’d long heard about the legendary shareholder meetings of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. Dubbed the “Woodstock of Capitalism,” the event attracts 30,000 people to Omaha, Nebraska, every year. For five hours during the meeting, Buffett and his partner Charlie Munger answer questions from reporters, analysts, and shareholders on a wide range of subjects. No audio or video recording is allowed.
Despite the high cachet of the event (I walked past Bill Gates without realizing it until I heard a commotion behind me), any shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway can attend by filling out a form in the annual proxy statement. I’m only four hours from Omaha, so I decided to make the trip.
I’m sure glad I did. The event is a one-of-a-kind networking opportunity. More importantly, Buffet and Munger’s willingness to answer questions is priceless. I was fascinated by their emphasis on people and relationships and took away three key lessons.
1. People skills are critical and take a lifetime to master.
Buffett learned how to invest at 19 from his mentor Benjamin Graham. His method hasn’t changed since. Any one of us can learn Buffett’s method by going to the library and picking up Benjamin Graham’s seminal classic The Intelligent Investor. What has taken Buffett a lifetime to figure out is how to understand people. When Buffett first started out, he placed a heavy emphasis on quantitative data. Despite being the third richest man in the world, Buffett feels he would be richer today if he started paying attention to the people side of investing sooner. Read more →
I beat the drum for vulnerability in the workplace in almost every article I write. Today I want to shift your attention from your workplace to your child’s workplace: School. I know not everyone reading this has kids, but you may someday, or maybe you’re a college student yourself. Keep reading.
High school and college are pressure cookers – far more competitive than in my day, and it was intense then. I remember feeling so alone at times at Yale. Despite my gregarious outward appearance, I longed for real connection. To feel that I was enough.
This week, a friend from Yale sent me an op-ed from my alma mater’s daily that took me right back – not just to my undergrad time, but to a few years ago when I did a session with the freshman class there, organizing them into small groups to discuss the question, “Which major experiences of your past make up who you are today?" I was taken aback by the incredible personal struggles some of these young people had already faced – and also by their ability to open up when they felt safe to do so, and to support each other. Friendships were made that day that carried through all four years.
But tragically, the op-ed my friend sent was written in response to a student’s suicide several weeks ago; a boy whom apparently no one had any idea was struggling.
In her op-ed, recent graduate Kate Calhoun wrote:
“Yalies tend to talk freely about achievement but remain silent about hardship. In this stoic culture, people easily slip through the cracks. We notice when it becomes a tragedy of the magnitude of last week’s, but there are people all over Yale who need some support, compassion and relief.
“You can’t provide this support only in the toughest moments. It’s when people are in trouble that they are least likely to feel comfortable speaking up. Openness, encouragement, and understanding need to be cultivated long before hardship hits.”
Kids today need all the help we can give them to learn that the ability to open up to others about fears, doubts, and dreams is a key survival skill and a badge of strength. Then, once they learn that it’s OK, they need help learning how to do it – not just shoulder pats, but organized, facilitated peer coaching that lets the students develop the dialogue themselves.
I’m still working with Yale on this, and hopefully with more schools soon. A group of Yale Sophomores recently took a version of the myGreenlight training, translated for their specific environment by a couple of really bright students, and with a peer-coaching and support component built in. I was so moved and inspired by the enthusiastic response to the program. So many of them pushed past their comfort zones to share intimacy and vulnerability, and finished with better relationships and the knowledge that they could be themselves, warts included, and be respected and supported all the more.
Kate closes her piece with exactly the right suggestion (in fact, the one I’ve given many times) to give anyone the power to kickstart culture change where they learn, work, or play, in the absence of a formal program or help from leaders:
“Start small. Create the type of culture in your own life that you want to see across this campus. But start immediately. People close to you might need you more than they’re able to admit right now.”
Please share your ideas on how to help our kids open up. And thanks for listening.
Candor has long been an interest of mine. I make no secret about why: the most influential people in my life and career have been those who told me straight-up what was on their mind, even when what was on their mind hurt—as in, hurt me to hear and probably hurt them to say. Honesty can be uncomfortable.
Most corporate structures don't encourage frank conversation. In fact they actively discourage it. If it's a hierarchical, command-and-control type of culture, subordinates will take pains never to upset a boss. If it's an overly political and competitive culture, people worry that candor will come back to haunt them. Even in collegial office environments, people still worry that candid critique of someone's performance will be seen as overly blunt. It's almost as if they would rather see someone repeatedly fail than speak up and hurt their feelings.
Cultivating the kinds of professional relationships that can withstand candor is incredibly important. Studies have found direct links between:
strong relationships and revenue growth;
workplace camaraderie and productivity;
group candor and effective problem-solving.
To get you started, here are 10 tips for creating the kind of environment in which everyone feels enough safety and mutual commitment to say what they're actually thinking:
1. Make the first move.
The person who initiates the move toward greater candor and transparency has to give a preview of what it looks like. This does not mean launching into immediate criticisms but rather using intros like, 'This is hard for me, and I'm a little worried about how this is going to go over, but because I care about the work we're doing, I want us to start having more meaningful conversations."
2. Do it in person.
If at all possible, begin the move toward greater candor in person, when you can see how the other person is responding to what you're saying. Email is better for follow-up, and a perfect way to affirm someone by thanking them for their time and willingness to listen.
3. Encourage pre-meeting reflection.
Giving a brief “heads up” as to what you’ll be discussing can produce greater insight, help avoid groupthink, and lays a groundwork for fruitful conversations that culminate in action items. No one feels blind-sided, and concrete next steps are formulated more quickly. It's a time saver and builds trust. Read more →
Relationship Roundup - some suggestions for getting relationships off to a great start, managing relationship priorities, and picking the right atmosphere to develop them.
Virtual teams are becoming a norm of today’s modern office, so the question of how best to create quality, collaborative relationships among these teams has become a major new research subject for me. My own company has employees in LA, NY, Chicago, Pennsylvania, and Iowa, and we hold regular virtual meetings for both the entire team and various work groups.
I’m writing a series of blogs on the topic for Harvard Business Review Blog Network. Check out the latest:
Relationship Roundup - some conventional and unconventional recommendations for taking advantage of the social season and upping the ante on the intimacy in your relationships.
One of the key things that we talk about at myGreenlight (formerly RMA) is the idea of strategically linking people to your goals. In addition to thinking about WHAT you need to do – if you think about WHO can help, and HOW you can enlist them to do so, success is that much closer at hand.
Look at what you need to get done this week. Pick one thing and then think about WHO could help make it happen. How are you going to reach out to them in a generous way?
what he learned. - KF
become a major new research subject for me. My own company has employees in LA, NY, Chicago, Pennsylvania, and Iowa, and we hold regular virtual meetings for both the entire team and various work groups.
