Roger Waller's Blog

I know people are always wondering about my various adventures. Here is a picture from one of my recent trips.

Pictured in front of the Roman Coliseum

The impression I was left with was … wow, what a building. Plus, it made me think about how the construction group was able to build such a lasting site. My house and its 30 year mortgage always worried me … but seeing the Coliseum makes me think my house might last a little longer.

More to come.

While on a recent Southwest Airlines flight I was reading the February, 2010 issue of Spirit magazine.  The article that got my attention was “Word It Like Warren” by Jay Heinrichs.    The author’s point was how good short phrases can stick in our minds.  The key is to get people to remember the phrase and this is done by arranging the words in some form that makes it easy for people to understand and retain.  It appears that Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and noted business sage, is a master of these short, memorable, and meaningful phrases.  In the article Mr. Heinrichs writes about a few of these memorable Buffett short phrases such as “I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them.  Because sooner or later, one will.”  (Buffett, 2008).  What a great phrase and I know all of us who have worked for some one else at some time realize the truth in that statement.  Another Buffett statement is “It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.”  Wow, if that doesn’t ring true in today’s market.  Mr. Heinrichs calls this a “criss-cross figure.”  Well, whatever it might be it is certainly memorable and meaningful.  The article got me curious about Mr. Buffett and what he might be writing about currently.  So, I went to the Berkshire Hathaway website and took a look at the 2009 Annual Report.  Sure enough, there was a letter from Warren Buffett to shareholders that did have some neatly worded sentences with a lot of meaning.  Here is one where Mr. Buffett is writing about measuring results and how Berkshire Hathaway believes “..in having a rational and unbending standard for measuring what we have — or have not — accomplished.  That keeps us from the temptation of seeing where the arrow of performance lands and then painting the bull’s eye around it.”  Unfortunately too many managers do look at results and try to indicate that ‘we hit our mark’ when they were clueless as to where they were going in the first place but were forced to measure results at the end of a period.  So, what’s the bottom line for this post … it is to realize the importance of phrasing what you would like others to remember.  You should also remember to review some of Warren Buffett’s thoughts every now and then … he’s very good at saying meaningful things in a well worded fashion.  So, stop drawing the bull’s eye around results and start planning to achieve your results and then evaluating and taking responsibility for what has happened.  Not quite a criss-cross but I’ll try to do better in the future.

That’s all for now …

Roger