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

He ignores the stock market, instead choosing to look at the overall potential of a company in the long term.

Making decisions on whether to take a management position

Let's take this out of the stock market realm and put it into the business realm. For example, you could take the words "stock market" out of the above statement, as well as company, and replace them with something that would apply to you.

For example, when looking for a management job, you could say, "I ignore the fads, instead choosing to look at the overall  potential of a company."

Warren Buffett doesn't consider there being such a thing as a stock market, in the sense of it having any overall meaning. He only looks at very specific companies within the stock market.

Buffett always has said a great business will make management look like geniuses, whereas a poor business will make even great managers look bad.

The point being, make wise choices when making a decision on not only where you work, but the position within a company you eventually want to hold in management.

There's more impact on your business career in the original choices you make, than anything that will come afterwards.

We've heard before that chaos creates opportunity, and that's true, but it also can create the opposite. We need to know which way chaos is leading the business, and which direction it will lead to.

So when I mentioned about Buffett saying there was no such thing as a stock market, and he completely ignores it, that's the discipline all of us need when deciding if we want to enter managment, or go to the next step in management. 

What we do is ignore all the hype surrounding everything, and look at the specifics and overall prospects for the position we're thinking about moving into.

So when looking to join a company in its business ranks, the first thing to look for is the long-term health of the company, and the market it serves. If you aren't able to project out where things should be over the next five to ten years, you may want to bypass that particular business.

If you're already in a company seeking to move up, than the first question to ask is what the long term prospects of the position is, and how it relates to the rest of the company.

Just like the health of a company, a division, unit or whatever it may be called, could be unhealthy too, and may not have great long-term potential. You need to know that when making a decision.

We must learn to look objectively at what we perceive as managment opportunities before us, and similar to Warren Buffett looking to the stock market on behalf of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A), see how predictable the business is over a period of time.

The reason this is important is even if you plan on using it as a stepping stone to something else you're after, if you make the wrong decision, and enter an unwinnable situation, it's the situation that will win, and you will look like poor business management material.

That's the whole point of this article. Entering the right business or business sector is the first prerequisite for launching a management career, the second is choosing the right place within that business that has the best opportunity at success for you. This, more than any skills you may learn, is probably the most important to your career success.

Other Buffett Resources:

Wisdom of Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett, investor

Warren Buffett: The trouble with being a legend

Warren Buffett: 'I told you so'

Company growth

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