{"id":633,"date":"2009-07-06T11:18:47","date_gmt":"2009-07-06T16:18:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/?p=633"},"modified":"2009-07-06T11:18:47","modified_gmt":"2009-07-06T16:18:47","slug":"benevolent-dictators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/06\/benevolent-dictators\/","title":{"rendered":"Benevolent Dictators"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over this Independence Day weekend, I was thinking about how one of our defining traits as Americans is our strong emphasis on the individual. I\u2019ve written about the benefits of partnering with someone who complements your perfect pitch so that you can be free to play to your strengths.<\/a> Dennis Albaugh<\/strong>, the richest man in Des Moines, Iowa, told me, \u201cI have always hired people who are smarter than I am.\u201d I heard this refrain from virtually every RMIT I interviewed: selecting the right team, the right employees, and the best advisers is essential to their success. But make no mistake\u2014there can only be one king.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an inherent tension in the third commandment that all would-be RMITs have to resolve\u2014it requires a delicate balancing act to maintain control while letting smart, talented partners and employees do their best work. Some, like Albaugh, forgo having any partners at all: \u201cI hate partners,\u201d he told me. \u201cEvery time I have had partners, I have found that I have spent my time trying to figure out how to get out of the partnership.\u201d Others, like real estate developer Jorge P\u00e9rez<\/strong>, the richest man in Miami, and his partner in The Related Group<\/strong><\/a>, Stephen Ross<\/strong>, divide the empire in two. \u201cSteve is my best friend and my mentor,\u201d P\u00e9rez told me, and they\u2019ve found a way to work together by working separately. Ross runs Related in New York, and P\u00e9rez manages the company in Miami. Their individual approaches work well in their respective fiefdoms: Ross is a hard-charging New Yorker; P\u00e9rez brings a more Latin business style to Miami. By dividing, they conquered, and together they have built the nation\u2019s largest builder of multifamily housing.<\/p>\n

Jim Oelschlager<\/strong><\/a>, the richest man in Akron, Ohio, and the owner of investment management firm Oak Associates<\/strong>, is affectionately referred to by his associates as \u201cthe benevolent dictator.\u201d Oelschlager told me, \u201cDemocracy works well in government, but not in businesses. Consensus management doesn\u2019t work.\u201d No matter how in sync your employees are with you, someone has to make the decisions, and RMITs will always want to call the shots. While this might smack of the despotism of centuries past\u2014\u201cL\u2019\u00c9tat, c\u2019est moi,\u201d<\/em> as Louis XIV<\/strong> put it\u2014it is actually a triumph of our form of democracy. In America, we all have the opportunity to be a king\u2014at least, of our own business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over this Independence Day weekend, I was thinking about how one of our defining traits as Americans is our strong emphasis on the individual. I\u2019ve written about the benefits of partnering with someone who complements your perfect pitch so that you can be free to play to your strengths.<\/a> Dennis Albaugh<\/strong>, the richest man in Des Moines, Iowa, told me, \u201cI have always hired people who are smarter than I am.\u201d I heard this refrain from virtually every RMIT I interviewed: selecting the right team, the right employees, and the best advisers is essential to their success. But make no mistake\u2014there can only be one king.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[222,114,153],"tags":[229,224,220,223,170,205,227,228,171,230,225,226],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":636,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions\/636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}