What You Do Is Who You Are: An expert guide to building your company’s culture

by Ben Horowitz

The team, frustrated that all their hard work is being thrown away, will be generally pissed. The natural thing for the manager to say is, “I hear you and, quite frankly, I agree with you, but I was overruled by the powers that be.” This is absolutely toxic to the culture. Everyone on the team will feel marginalized because they work for someone who’s powerless. This makes them one level less than powerless. They have just been demoted from the bottom of the totem pole to the ground beneath it. The strong-willed among them will make their displeasure known throughout the company, causing other employees to question the leadership team and to wonder if their own work will ultimately matter. The end result will be apathy or attrition or both. So it’s critical to a healthy culture that whatever your decision-making process, you insist on a strict rule of disagree and commit. If you are a manager, at any level, you have a fundamental responsibility to support every decision that gets made. You can disagree in the meeting, but afterward you must not only support the final decision, you must be able to compellingly articulate the reasons the decision was made.