What you do is who you are by Ben Horowitz

 

What you do is who you are: How Top Leaders create a winning culture by Ben Horowitz - Book Review

“What you do is who you are” by Ben Horowitz is a unique book in its own nature. The market is flooded with books concentrating on individual self- help books but this book can be bracketed in the nature of self help book for an organization.

It is among those books that is concentrates on the uncompromisable aspect for any organization – building and developing an organizational culture and maintaining that culture and fine tuning at any given point of time. Culture in a simple term is a set of values for how a company functions in its entirety including making decisions, employee management and how the organization is perceived by all forms of stakeholders and ultimately by the customers.

There is no doubt to the fact that the concept of the book is unique but what makes it impactful is the approach that the author has taken to explain the impact of culture on any organization or a group of people gathered together to achieve a common objective.

The unique approach adopted by the author takes the help of history, lives of certain impactful people and linking the approach adopted by them to the one as adopted by corporate organizations and how events taking place in history and in the lives of these impactful individuals, if applied in an organization would make for a difference.

In this journey of narrating the key aspect of building and developing culture, the author wonderfully brings in the story of Toussaint Louverture – the story of the Haitian Revolution that deals with the stamping out of slavery and a slave -revolution that led to an independent state of Haiti that was earlier known as Saint – Domingue.  This impactful story of Toussaint Louverture, who was born into slavery and who went on to become a cultural inspiration to the coming generations, beautifully showcases how the rise of Louverture took place and upon becoming a powerful force to reckon with how Louverture changed the culture of his army and his people to ultimately abolish the slave culture by applying certain cultural techniques after a numerous permutations and combinations. The author subsequently showcases how certain organizations applied the same cultural insights, techniques and aspects that Louverture had applied and what impact finally it made in those organizations. It’s an insightful link.

The second part brings the story of the Samurai of Japan and how the culture that they developed helped them survive centuries after centuries. In this section, we come across the powerful code of the Samurai “bushido” or “the way of the warrior”. This part dwells deep into bushido that is set of practices. The reader will be enlightened with this code and how the samurai culture concentrated more on virtues rather than on values. This section showcases the reader about how adopting the samurai culture and virtues in certain modern -day organization impacted their culture and working style.

The next story concentrates on a different league of personality. It tells the story of Shaka Senghor who was a convict and how in the Michigan prison became the leader of a squad and how he applied different forms of cultural techniques that focused on community upliftment after prison life ultimately a contributor to a better society. The story of Shaka Senghor is impactful and hard hitting but also enlightening to read the chapter where in the author showcases certain examples where in, if the modern- day organizational leaders apply certain techniques of Shaka Shengor, then what would be the outcome of the same in a corporate set of things.

The chapter on “Inclusion in the modern world” showcases by giving certain examples whether inclusion as a cultural tool works successfully in the current world. The subsequent chapters showcases how good organizational culture may be developed across industries.

What makes the book interesting to read are the actual organizational case studies that has been presented in the chapters. These case studies are linked to the stories of the examples through which the author had demonstrated the various cultural techniques adopted over the by gone period of history in different centuries and times.

There’s no doubt that there has been a whole lot of research on this book, reading through the stories of Toussaint Louverture, the bushido of Japan’s samurai and the incredible journey of Shaka Shengor, the readers will be intrigued by a different view from which the author has observed and summarized their stories.

In the final chapters, the author has also presented a cultural checklist and also some key aspects that the author considers are important considerations while building and developing cultures across organizations.

The book is a highly recommended read for readers working across organizations and part of cultures across industries. Readers will take home a lot of great learning and wisdom from the chapters and lives of some intriguing personalities.