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

by Ben Horowitz

your culture is how your company makes decisions when you’re not there. It’s the set of assumptions your employees use to resolve the problems they face every day. It’s how they behave when no one is looking. If you don’t methodically set your culture, then two-thirds of it will end up being accidental, and the rest will be a mistake.

Identifying the culture you want is hard: you have to figure out not only where your company is trying to go, but the road it should take to get there.

Everyone was expected at work by 8 a.m., and whoever got in first got the best parking space.

The company’s character and ethos will be the one thing they carry with them. It will be the glue that holds them together when things go wrong.

In any human interaction, the required amount of communication is inversely proportional to the level of trust.

Because the culture he wanted was a straight reflection of his own values, Louverture walked the talk better than most.

If a company expects its people to behave ethically without giving them detailed instructions on what that behavior looks like and how to pursue it, the company will fall far short no matter whom it hires.

definitely did not walk the talk on our pivot, but thankfully I didn’t trip and land face-first on the pavement, either.

It’s also critical that leaders emphasize the “why” behind their values every chance they get, because the “why” is what gets remembered. The “what” is just another item in a giant stack of things you are supposed to do.