What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture

by Ben Horowitz

Cultural design. Make sure your culture aligns with both your personality and your strategy. Anticipate how it might be weaponized and define it in a way that’s unambiguous. Cultural orientation. An employee’s first day at work may not be as indelible as Shaka Senghor’s first day out of quarantine, but it always makes a lasting impression. People learn more about what it takes to succeed in your organization on that day than on any other. Don’t let that first impression be wrong or accidental. Shocking rules. Any rule so surprising it makes people ask “Why do we have this rule?” will reinforce key cultural elements. Think about how you can shock your organization into cultural compliance. Incorporate outside leadership. Sometimes the culture you need is so far away from the culture you have that you need to get outside help. Rather than trying to move your company to a culture that you don’t know well, bring in an old pro from the culture you aspire to have. Object lessons. What you say means far less than what you do. If you really want to cement a lesson, use an object lesson. It need not be a Sun Tzu–style beheading, but it must be dramatic. Make ethics explicit. One of the most common and devastating mistakes leaders make is to assume people will “Do the right thing” even when it conflicts with other objectives. Don’t leave ethical principles unsaid. Give cultural tenets deep meaning. Make them stand out from the norm, from the expected. If the ancient samurai had defi...