Warren Buffett Says Your Long Term Success Comes Down to These Traits

One of your best investments will be to do business with this type of person

Warren Buffett has no shortage of wisdom when it comes to the importance of hiring people with integrity. Or the principle that we should invest in relationships with honest and ethical people.

Sounds pretty straightforward. Who wants to work with or do business with crooks? To illustrate his point, Buffett once asked a group of college students to imagine a classmate they felt they could invest in long-term in order to receive 10 percent of that person’s earnings for the rest of their lives.

Here’s what he said:

You would probably pick the one you responded the best to, the one who has the leadership qualities, the one who is able to get other people to carry out their interests. That would be the person who is generous, honest, and who gave credit to other people for their own ideas.

Honesty, generosity, giving others credit, and pouring into other people are the hallmarks of a powerful leadership philosophy I preach from stages across the country: Servant Leadership.

Several of the world’s thought-leaders and experts agree with Buffett’s premise of investing in servant leaders. Because plain and simple, it just makes really good business sense. They also acknowledge the unquestionable traits that servant leaders embody, including:

Selflessness

Raj Sisodia, co-founder of Conscious Capitalism, notes that “a leader who operates with a primary emphasis on self-interest naturally views other people as a means to that end. You cannot be a true leader if you operate at that level of consciousness.”

Trustworthiness

Stephen M.R. Covey, the bestselling author of The Speed of Trust, points out that the positional leader seeks to control but a servant leader “seeks to unleash talent and creativity by extending trust to others.” While counterintuitive for most, the servant leader fundamentally believes deeply in others — and in their potential.

Vulnerability

Simon Sinek, author of three bestselling books, including Start with Why notes that servant leaders intentionally create space in which a worker can walk into his boss’s office to admit a mistake without fear of losing their job. “It means someone can raise their hand and ask for help, admit they have been given a responsibility they don’t feel prepared or knowledgeable enough to complete, or admit they are scared without any fear of humiliation or retribution,” shares Sinek.

Courage

Brené Brown, researcher and author of three #1 New York Times bestsellers, including Daring Greatly, believes a culture founded on servant leadership will crush a culture of shame and kill the fear that it breeds. One of the tenets of servant leadership, says Brown, is courage, which thereby increases engagement, innovation, creativity, productivity, and trust.

While the media and top tiers of traditional top-down organizations may be more apt to acknowledge the glorified contributors who help make their companies profitable, the a leader Buffett advises us to invest in will praise and recognize all human contributors who make a difference, from the mail room to the board room.

The Fastest Growing and Declining Retail Brands in 2020

The COVID-19 outbreak has led to the savage disruption of retail the world over.

Almost overnight, foot traffic in physical stores disappeared, and supply chains were left scrambled. Now at a major fork in the road, many retailers are forced to make tough decisions that were completely unforeseen.

While some global retail giants are laying down their weapons and filing for bankruptcy, others are innovating to save themselves, serving their customers in new and unexpected ways.

Today’s graphic uses data from Kantar’s Brand Z™ report to illustrate the retailers that are growing through adversity, and those that may struggle to survive.

Editor’s note: The report compares brand value of the top 75 retailers globally between 2020 and 2019, using mid-April as a cut-off date for incorporating latest financial information. Some early effects of the pandemic are incorporated in these calculations, but the pandemic’s impact on retail going forward is uncertain.

Retailers Rising to the Top

The calculation of brand value refers to the total amount that a brand contributes to the overall business value of the parent company.

In this case, it is measured by taking the financial value of a brand (latest data as of mid-April), and multiplying it by the brand’s contribution, or the ability of the brand to deliver value to the company by predisposing consumers to choose the brand over others or pay more for it, based purely on perceptions.

Based on these metrics, activewear brand lululemon is the world’s fastest growing retail brand for the second year running. Famous for its culture of accountability and global community events, the brand has struck the perfect balance between a seamless online and offline experience.

Harvard Business School surveyed 600 CEOs recently and asked them what keeps them awake at night during this global pandemic.  The results found that almost every aspect of doing business must be completely rethought for both short-term survival and long-term success.

The issues cited fall into three main categories:

1. Continuous learning and integrating new information.
2. Making complex decisions and plans quickly and solving problems.
3. Empathy, maintaining wellness and focus.

I’m a big believer in lifelong learning.  You don’t go to school once for a lifetime; you are in school all of your life.  Companies need to create a corporate culture that strives for continuous improvement.

In his 1995 book, “Managing in a Time of Great Change,” Peter Drucker, the late, great management guru, wrote:  “It is a safe prediction that in the next 50 years, schools and universities will change more and more drastically than they have since they assumed their present form more than 300 years ago when they reorganized themselves around the printed book.

“What will force these changes is, in part, new technology … in part, the demands of a knowledge-based society in which organized learning must become a lifelong process….”

Students and teachers at all levels have had to adjust to remote learning, and that will most definitely not be just a passing fad.  With a majority of people now working remotely, new systems have been developed in short order.  I don’t expect that to change as companies and employees recognize the benefits of working from home.

Many decisions were made withing hours of lockdown announcements.  Anyone who has management responsibilities understands that decision-making can be precarious.  After you’ve done all your homework when making decisions, I’ve found that you have to trust your gut.  If I’m not sure, I check with people I trust to give me the knowledge on all sides.

As for planning, I like to say people don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan.  Things no longer rest on a predictable base.

Companies spend days, if not weeks, agonizing over their mission statements and business plans.  Get the business model right.  Then accessorize it with the details.  You may not need more than a few action plans focused on very restricted areas.

It’s not the sheer magnitude of a preparation that matters.  It’s the relevance of what you do.  Is it clear?  Will it change behavior?

A basic principle in the sales and marketing world is that people don’t usually buy products and services.  They buy solutions to problems.  Successful salespeople and marketers tailor their products and services to meet a demand that is not necessarily immediately evident, but nonetheless very real.  They identify problems in terms of solutions and anticipate problems long before they become apparent.  They must be empathetic to their customers’ needs.

Empathy is an emotion that is a sense of shared suffering, most often combined with a desire to alleviate the suffering of another and to show special kindness to them.  Compassionate acts attempt to alleviate that suffering as if it were one’s own.

Where, you might ask, does compassion fit in business?  Will it hurt the bottom line?  Will it make our company look soft, or like a pushover?

They answers are: at all levels, no, and definitely not.  Compassion and profitability are not mutually exclusive.  On the contrary, companies that are perceived as people-oriented and good corporate citizens have a far better chance of succeeding than those that put profits ahead of people.  In times like these, empathy will win the day.

As for wellness, personal health is important for corporate health.  Exercise is good for your mind as well as your body.  Corporate America has long endorsed fitness and physical health, but it’s done a mediocre job getting employees to buy into the whole program.

Maintaining focus may be challenging right now, but if you can focus fully on the task at hand, and shut out everything else, you can accomplish amazing things.  Focus is a topic I hear about frequently in business.  The most common complaints?  Too many projects spinning at one time.  Too many interruptions.  Too many phone calls and emails.  Too many things to do.  Too little time.  Too many schedules to balance.  Too much uncertainty about the future.

Stay focused as best you can, and don’t let things happen to you — not when you can make things happen.

Mackay’s Moral:  It’s not about what you can’t control, it’s about what you can control.

Use SEAL training to accomplish 20 times more than you ever thought possible.

It takes a lot more than superior athletic ability to make it through the grueling nine-month qualification course to become a Navy SEAL. It’s a severe trial of mental and physical stress meant to forge fearlessness in the middle of chaos and uncertainty. Business owners can apply SEAL training to build the mental discipline to survive and thrive in the coronavirus crisis.

For insight, I held a zoom interview with former Navy SEAL Mark Divine, who wrote a new book called Staring Down the Wolf. The “wolf” is a metaphor for fear, all of the deeply engrained negative emotions that hold you back. Overcoming your fear–staring down the wolf–is the only way to unlock your massive potential. Divine told me about four skills SEALS learn during “Hell Week” and in their training that have a profound impact on their leadership potential.

1. Box breathing – Controlled breathing calms your mind and reduces stress.

   On our call, Divine gave me a short class on what he calls box breathing. It’s simply taking a slow, deep breath–holding it for four or five seconds–and exhaling slowly through the nose for a count of four or five. Divine starts each day with 20 minutes of breathing, but he suggested that five repetitions is a good start. Done daily, box breathing lowers stress hormones, sharpens your focus, and deepens your ability to concentrate on your tasks.

    

2. Positivity – The fear wolf has a counterpart–the courage wolf. Which one you feed will grow bigger and stronger.
   

   The SEALS call positive thinking “attention control.” In other words, where you focus your attention is crucial to the success of a mission. A Navy SEAL can’t allow his mind to go negative in battle. “If you say to yourself, ‘Holy cow, that enemy looks stronger than me,’ then you’re toast,” says Divine.

   Negative thoughts “degrade your performance,” because they weaken the mind and, eventually, weaken the body, according to Divine. We’re bombarded by negative news during the coronavirus pandemic. Every day seems to bring more bad news of unemployment and company failures. Guarding your mind and staying positive is crucial for making smart decisions.

    

3. Visualization

   We’re all familiar with great athletes who visualize a successful outcome. Divine says visualization is a secret mental weapon for the Navy SEALS, too. “The only place where you’ll get perfect practice is in your mind,” Divine told me. “Studies show that if you just practice–in your mind’s eye–perfect form and a perfect outcome, you are training your neurobiology to actually perform better … I’ve had profound outcomes with visualization.” Visualization exerts a strong gravitational pull. Picturing a bright post-Covid future in your mind’s eye will turn it into a destiny instead of a wish.

    

4. Front sight focus

   Front sight focus is a fundamental shooting tactic perfected in SEAL training. If a marksman focuses on the target, the front sight of the weapon will be out of focus. If you focus on the front sight, the target will still be visible in the distance. Divine says front sight focus is a metaphor for focusing on your most crucial goals that are aligned to the target–your vision and mission.

   A radical focus means you should tackle your most urgent goal that needs to be accomplished today or this week. Your long-term target is further ahead, but today you do what you can control.

SEAL training is intended to show students that they are capable for 20 times more than they ever thought possible. Use their training tactics to move beyond your self-imposed limits and create a powerful future for yourself, your business, and your life.