What You Do Is Who You Are
“I don’t want you to be me, you just need to be you” – Chance The Rapper
When the book “What You Do Is Who You Are” arrived here, I put all other titles on “pause.” Not because other books are lower quality (I started some excellent titles), but because I was truly interested in Ben Horowitz’s new thinking.
His previous book, “The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers” (which I reviewed earlier) is, in my opinion, literally required reading for anyone interested in what a challenge it is to be a CEO and what difficult decisions must be made, but it was primarily a book about leadership.
Ben Horowitz has a great approach of clearly stating in the book’s title what topic he’ll address… that’s why the full title of the book is “What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture.” I’d only mildly change the title to “My Director/Manager, What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture.”
I’m still surprised how many people in higher positions, including HR where they have various powerful and fancy titles like HR Manager, Business Partner, Culture Manager, Company Culture Manager, People Champion and others… still don’t understand how complex and specific the concept “company culture” is, and how much time should be devoted to dealing with it. I see they often list things that are employee benefits or corporate values under company culture, which has absolutely nothing to do with it. But if you don’t believe me, no problem, Ben Horowitz noticed this at the book’s beginning too, and it’s quite likely the man is smarter (and definitely more experienced) than me, so maybe you’ll believe him sooner.
I always love to say (out loud), “fish stinks from the head” which people in positions don’t like at all and I’m surely not dear to them because of it. However, no one said truth is pleasant. Lies presented as truth can be pleasant, but most often carry big consequences. And that’s what people in positions must become aware of. Rules that apply to other employees shouldn’t not apply to them… they can only have bigger privileges and benefits. Because employees will most often adopt the same approach to work that management has.
In English it’s nicely explained: Walk the talk / Practice what you preach.
But let me not get too carried away with this topic (though I could quite a bit), but focus on “What You Do Is Who You Are.”
Ben Horowitz in this work decided to bring us closer to how some leaders from the past, with their thinking outside the box, approach and strategy, solved some big challenges they encountered, and how some of their principles are still very applicable today and can give you ideas on how to shape quality and functional company culture.
The author will address here:
- Toussaint Louverture – freed slave, who became the man who united (uneducated) slaves and made an army from them in Santo Domingo (pre-revolutionary name for Haiti), which he transformed into such a powerful and organized military force that it managed to defeat Spain, Great Britain and Napoleonic France (Napoleon suffered more casualties in showdown with Toussaint Louverture than in the Battle of Waterloo?!)
- Samurai and their bushido (“way of the warrior”) – though at first glance it seems bushido is a set of principles, it’s actually a set of practices. For samurai the code of action was important, as well as the system of virtues, not values
- Shaka Senghor (real name James White) – man who at 19 went to prison (where he served 17 years for murder) which was “ruled” by five dangerous clans and managed to shape one of the clans he joined, so there existed some system in behavior and thinking of that clan’s members
- Genghis Khan (Temujin) – perhaps the most efficient military leader and conqueror in human history, who managed to create (despite a large empire) an extremely stable culture based on three principles: meritocracy, loyalty and inclusion.
As can be noticed, quite interesting personalities were chosen for analysis, but you’ll be surprised, reading the book, how sensible this choice was.
“What You Do Is Who You Are” is divided into ten chapters:
- Culture and Revolution: The Story of Toussaint Louverture
- Applying Toussaint Louverture’s Principles
- The Way of the Warrior
- Warrior in a Different Way: The Story of Shaka Senghor
- Applying Shaka Senghor’s Principles
- Genghis Khan, Master of Inclusion
- Inclusion in the Modern World
- Be Yourself, Design Your Culture
- Extreme Cases and Instructive Lessons
- Final Thoughts
As can (again) be noticed, the author is very precise in chapter titles and from them you can clearly conclude what he’ll write about in each. He’ll briefly describe each specific personality’s history, what they achieved and how, then analyze a bit deeper why some concrete moves brought them results, then how these principles can be applied in modern times (with concrete examples of companies and principles based on which they function and how much they overlap with principles analyzed in the book). Then in the eighth chapter (“Be Yourself, Design Your Culture”) the author will give points and steps you should pay attention to in creating your company culture. The ninth chapter touches on extreme cases when some culture’s virtues can lead to its collapse (customer obsession at the cost of not paying attention to competition, breaking one’s own rules, culture conflict with board of directors), as well as signs that company culture is disturbed, and instructive lessons on what to do with certain categories of employees who undermine company culture (heretic, unreliable person, jerk, angry prophet), as well as what are three decision-making cultures. And finally (“Final Thoughts”), a chapter where the author focuses on three cultural virtues that would be good for almost every organization to have.
A commendable thing is that in the story about company culture he inserted his own experiences while heading company “Loudcloud” (which later transformed into “Opsware”), as well as current VC (venture capital) firm “Andreessen Horowitz.”
Ben Horowitz isn’t insensitive and inconsiderate, but he prefers directness, i.e., not to wrap things too much in wafers. Such style is transferred to the book, which reads very easily and quickly and is very clear (and has under 200 pages). It’s interesting he still maintained the trend of starting each chapter with a quote from some rap song.
I really liked the book “What You Do Is Who You Are” and could without problem recommend it as one of the must-read books when it comes to company culture. Maybe you think this is a book that should be read by people working in HR and(or) middle management (and they should), but I think this is a book that must be read by people sitting at the very top of the company (directors, founders, top management), but even entrepreneurs, because they must understand one very important essence found in this book.
And that is that for us (company, director, then employees) company values aren’t those “values” that are just somehow proclaimed, what’s talked about at meetings, marketing moves, photos (of smiling employees) on LinkedIn and fancy texts on your company’s website, nor any other form of PR. But what we do, concrete actions we undertake.
That’s why it’s important how top management behaves (actions they undertake), not how they talk. Because employees will follow their example (actions). And those actions create company culture.
Absolute recommendation for this book, which immediately ended up on my famous shelf.
Dear reader, have you perhaps read this author’s previous book (or at least my review)? 🙂
Book price: Harmonija | Vulkan | Delfi | DataStatus
Rating (and purchase on foreign sites): Goodreads | Amazon (US) | Waterstones | Barnes & Noble | Audible (US) / Audible (UK)
