In his 1986 Annual Letter, Warren Buffett acknowledges his underperformance in deploying capital compared to the excellent management by his company’s managers. Buffett and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger focus on retaining talented managers, who typically come with acquired companies and perform exceptionally due to their passion and owner-like mentality.
Their management philosophy emphasizes hiring people better than themselves, leading to a strong company. This approach allows Berkshire to expand effortlessly, as capable managers make overseeing numerous businesses feasible.
Buffett and Munger prioritize working with people they like and admire, enhancing both business results and personal satisfaction.
Here’s an excerpt from the letter:
So much for the good news. The bad news is that my performance did not match that of our managers. While they were doing a superb job in running our businesses, I was unable to skillfully deploy much of the capital they generated. Charlie Munger, our Vice Chairman, and I really have only two jobs. One is to attract and keep outstanding managers to run our various operations. This hasn’t been all that difficult.
Usually the managers came with the companies we bought, having demonstrated their talents throughout careers that spanned a wide variety of business circumstances.
They were managerial stars long before they knew us, and our main contribution has been to not get in their way. This approach seems elementary: if my job were to manage a golf team—and if Jack Nicklaus or Arnold Palmer were willing to play for me—neither would get a lot of directives from me about how to swing.
Some of our key managers are independently wealthy (we hope they all become so), but that poses no threat to their continued interest: they work because they love what they do and relish the thrill of outstanding performance. They unfailingly think like owners (the highest compliment we can pay a manager) and find all aspects of their business absorbing.
(Our prototype for occupational fervor is the Catholic tailor who used his small savings of many years to finance a pilgrimage to the Vatican. When he returned, his parish held a special meeting to get his first-hand account of the Pope. “Tell us,” said the eager faithful, “just what sort of fellow is he?” Our hero wasted no words: “He’s a forty-four, medium.”)
Charlie and I know that the right players will make almost any team manager look good. We subscribe to the philosophy of Ogilvy & Mather’s founding genius, David Ogilvy: “If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But, if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.”
A by-product of our managerial style is the ability it gives us to easily expand Berkshire’s activities. We’ve read management treatises that specify exactly how many people should report to any one executive, but they make little sense to us.
When you have able managers of high character running businesses about which they are passionate, you can have a dozen or more reporting to you and still have time for an afternoon nap. Conversely, if you have even one person reporting to you who is deceitful, inept or uninterested, you will find yourself with more than you can handle.
Charlie and I could work with double the number of managers we now have, so long as they had the rare qualities of the present ones.
We intend to continue our practice of working only with people whom we like and admire. This policy not only maximizes our chances for good results, it also ensures us an extraordinarily good time.
On the other hand, working with people who cause your stomach to churn seems much like marrying for money—probably a bad idea under any circumstances, but absolute madness if you are already rich.
You can find a copy of the letter here:
1986 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Letter
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