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Oracle of Omaha and his Investment in Good Communication Skills

By: Kathie Woehrmann | 01/07/2010

I recently watched a a re-airing of CNBC's Town Hall with Warren Buffet and Bill Gates at Columbia Business School. During the Town Hall Q&A session, Buffet proclaimed he'd invest $100,000 for 10 percent of the future earnings of any one of the Columbia MBA students in the audience. He said, "If that's true, you're a million dollar asset right now, right?" 

While that statement is interesting, the next piece of Buffet's advice caught my attention: "You could improve on that, most many of you, and I certainly could have when I got out, just in terms of learning communication skills ... if you improve your value 50 percent by having better communication skills, that's another $500,000 in terms of capital value." Buffet then increased his investment to $150,000 - like that!

Just exactly what Warren Buffet considers as "good communication skills" is left for interpretation; although he mentioned the need to attend a Dale Carnegie course for public speaking after he graduated from Columbia Business School. I think the point worth taking is this: Warren Buffet is a man who knows a good investment, and he's willing to invest more in the future earnings of MBAs because he sees the value of communication.

While communication-Buffet's public speaking course, for example-may be considered a "soft" management skill in business school, communications strategy is essential to any thriving business or organization. I hope the future Columbia MBAs, and other future leaders, don't just take a public speaking course. They should include communications strategy and communications professionals in their future key business decisions.

Whether you're planning an aggressive growth strategy, developing a change management plan or identifying new processes in a manufacturing plant, don't forget this discussion: how will our communication strategies align with our business goals?

Warren Buffet is willing to make a long-term investment in communication, and I think he's on to something!

Posted in Public Relations