Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

Warren Buffett

a

Reading an article over at the branding post by Steve DeVaughn, reminded me of some principles that are still sadly lacking in the great majority of businesses to this day.

Here are a couple of Steve's comments when talking about the biggest lies that are told to agencies; here is one of those lies:

We're interested in long-haul success more than immediate results.

Steve's response - That's not what we heard your CEO say in his last teleconference with analysts who wanted to know why last quarter sucked.

It reminds me of a real situation that Warren Buffett has talked about a number of times in reference to the type of investor that he wants to be owners in his company: Berkshire Hathaway.
 
The question that always leads to his response is this: Why don't you ever split the Berkshire stock so that the average person can invest? (Berkshire of course has a smaller opportunity now, but not the same a regular stock).

He gives the same response every time: We don't split the stock because we don't want the speculators, that inevitably come in at those times, to cause huge price swings and cause an endless series of ups and downs that are artificially induced.

Then he goes on to say that his company doesn't want speculators, it wants investors that are in it for the long haul.

It's too bad that so many publicly traded company's leaders give in to the quarterly profits nonsense and make lousy short-term decisions that can cost the company long-term.

If you're the owner or manager of decision in short-term outlooks, I hope that you take the attitude of Buffett that you make decisions based upon the long-term benefit of the company, it's shareholders and its employees. If you do that you'll always be a step ahead of those that try to impress analysts to the detriment of the overall health of the company.

This goes along with small businesses also as you have those who make numerous decisions based upon short-term windfalls that can hurt the company down the road.

I really believe that the future waits for those who embrace long-term outlooks and strategies.