If you want to be like Warren — billionaire Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., one of the nation's most respected business executives — then trust your employees to do the right thing.

        That's the message Robert Miles brought to 60 Kroger executives in Cincinnati last week.

        Mr. Miles was a Kroger guest because he wrote The Warren Buffett CEO: Secrets From the Berkshire Hathaway Managers and 101 Reasons to Own the World's Greatest Investment: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.

        “Kroger is an Old Economy business just like companies owned by Berkshire Hathaway,” Mr. Miles said.

        “When I asked Buffett about the grocery business because I was going to be speaking to Kroger, he said his great-grandfather started the Buffett grocery store in Omaha, Neb., and that his hat was off to any company that made money in the grocery business.

Determines motivation

        “He said his family tried for 100 years and couldn't.”

        There are many Buffett stories and tips, Mr. Miles said, but few of the mogul's traits are as important as trust. Mr. Buffett implicitly trusts chief executives of the companies he buys, but only after he assesses their motivation.

        “He has to quickly figure out if a person is more interested in the money or the business. If they love the money, Buffett isn't interested,” Mr. Miles said.

        “It's macro-management like you wouldn't believe. Buffett never asks CEOs to come out to Omaha to report to him, either. There are no meetings and he asks for no layoffs when he buys a company,” he said.

        “All the people are free to speak their minds. He has tremendous trust.”

        Mr. Miles wrote the second book, then asked Mr. Buffett if it was accurate. He had met Mr. Buffett a year before when the billionaire made a surprise appearance at a book party held at an Omaha Dairy Queen, a company owned by Berkshire.

400 pages overnight

        Mr. Buffett invited Mr. Miles to lunch — a hamburger cooked rare for Mr. Buffett and a club sandwich for Mr. Miles at the Omaha Country Club — took the manuscript, read it and called Mr. Miles the next morning with six corrections.

        The manuscript was 400 pages long. “He's a genius. I guess he read it after he went home that afternoon and finished playing some bridge on the Internet,” Mr. Miles said. “That's what he does to relax.”

        Each year Mr. Buffett writes a letter to the chief executive officers of companies owned by Berkshire. “He tells them, "We can afford to lose money. We can afford to lose a lot of money, but we can't afford to lose our reputation,'” Mr. Miles said.

        “He tells them not to do anything in the business that cannot be reported on the front page of the local newspaper that is written by an intelligent but critical reporter.”

Handling office mail

        How to handle office mail will be the topic of a program Thursday co-sponsored by the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and the Northern Kentucky Small Business Development Center.

        Don Flier of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service will discuss handling and treatment of mail. Employee stress will also be addressed. The event, 8 a.m. at the chamber, 300 Buttermilk Pike, Suite 330, in Fort Mitchell, costs $10 for members and $20, nonmembers.

        To make reservations, call (859) 578-8800.

        E-mail jeckberg@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/eckberg.

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