October 19, 2001
Contact: Catherine Walsh
Harvard Business School
(617) 495-6931
Back-to-Back Inspiration: Buffett and Welch speak at HBS
BOSTON -- October 19 -- Two of American business's most well-known icons, Warren Buffett and Jack Welch, addressed standing-room-only crowds of MBA students at Harvard Business School within a day of each other in mid-October. Both men spoke on a range of topics, from the tragedy of September 11 and the state of the economy to the passion that drove their personal journeys to corporate leadership.
Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., emphasized the importance of ethics in his Oct. 18 speech. He told students that he viewed integrity as more important than intelligence or energy when he was evaluating a prospective hire.
"If a person doesn't possess integrity, the other two qualities-intelligence and energy-don't count," said Buffett.
When making his most important hires, he continued, he asks himself questions that help him evaluate a candidate's ethical compass. "Would I want this person to marry my daughter or serve as the executor of my will?"
Commenting on the aftermath of September 11, Buffett said he was not too concerned about U.S. economy. The attacks will likely "make the recession deeper than it would have been," he said, but added that economic cycles in this country are nothing new. "We will adjust to all that."
During an extensive question-and-answer session with students about his business successes, Buffett underscored the importance of recognizing the limits of one's area of expertise-what he described as a "circle of competence."
"I [once] listened to Bill Gates for 10 hours explain why Microsoft is a good company and still didn't invest," he said. "But it doesn't bother me because technology is outside my circle of competence."
Lastly, Buffett urged students to find work that requires passion. "What I do or Bill Gates does isn't for money. We do it out of excitement."
Winning with Welch
Jack Welch, the former chairman and CEO of General Electric, also emphasized the need for excitement and passion in the business world. "You have to be sure every day that you're turning people on," he told a Harvard Business School audience on Oct. 19, as he answered questions posed by second-year MBA student Jason Lockwood.
"What I think about every single day is that the team that fields the best people wins in the game of business," he said.
Welch insisted that GE would continue its double-digit growth despite the downturn in the economy and uncertainty caused by the terrorist attacks. "Our core competency is the training and building of leaders. As long as we do that, size has no limits.We can be as big as our creativity allows us."
His successor, Jeffrey R. Immelt, a 1982 alumnus of Harvard Business School who took over the helm of GE two days after the terrorist attacks, has shown "terrific leadership," according to Welch. He praised Immelt's handling of the aftermath of the attacks as well as of the anthrax scare at NBC, which is owned by GE.
As Buffett had done the night before, Welch went out of his way to talk about ethics. "You can't have anything without integrity," he emphasized. "Integrity is the rock on which everything is built on in business."