No. of Recommendations: 11
The bad news is, what can he actually do if “the culture” is slipping? And will he really be able to detect that? Will he be travelling around constantly to the subs, talking to managers and listening to employees? If not, I don’t really see how he will keep track of anything going on inside Berkshire.
I see his job as sitting there doing very little until some bright spark inevitably suggests breaking up the firm or agreeing to an LBO or spending the cash pile on the speculative fad of the day. (or a dividend against shareholder wishes). Then he should cajole the rest of the board into putting a stop to it, as best he can.
In that context, the skill set required is relatively small. Firm conviction on those things, skepticism on new "dangerously" big things, and persuasiveness.
Plus of course the day to day things that a chair does like, well, chairing meetings. And of course the hard one: picking with the board the CEO after Mr Abel. With luck that will be down the road a bit.
Jim
