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

Filtering wishful thinking from reality

We get an endless amount of teaching and motivational talks on positive thinking, and that has its place. But there's a huge difference between positive thinking and wishful thinking: it's called reality.

Even with positive thinking, if it's not based in what is, can be deceptive. That's the reason can think positively all the way to bankruptcy and failure because they're not basing their hope on something fixed in reality.

Of course this can work against us also if we think of existing facts alone as reality. That can cause things to backfire also and keep us from growing as a company.

There's nothing wrong with thinking positive if we identify where we're at accurately. If we understand the reality of our existing situation, that gives us a foundation to work from. If we don't have that reality accurately identified, we're already working from wrong assumptions which makes everything else go off course; no matter how positive we are as we do it.

This is one of the reasons Buffett has been so great at communicating the reality of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) from the hype.

He not only has the integrity to tell how things exactly are, but he has the capacity and ability to do so in a way that can be understood.

Reality shouldn't bother us as a company, it should be pursued. It's sometimes shocking how long business leaders can lie to themselves about where things are at, rather than look straight at it and let it define itself. Once it's truly identified, we can make legitimate moves that we'll be able to measure in a meaningful way.

Our job in this area is twofold: We need to know exactly where we are while helping our people to identify and embrace it as well.

Nobody is surprised when Berkshire Hathaway is down or when it's up. Buffett has not only trained himself, his managers and workers to see things as they are, but he's also trained the shareholders in the company to do it also. The result is not only consistent earnings, but consistent expectations.

Other Buffett Resources:

Company growth

“Everybody Else is Doing it”

MSU students have special visit with billionaire Warren Buffett

WARREN BUFFETT PHILOSOPHY II

Sticking to what you know  Core businesses

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