Sep 20, 2021
Week 27, 2021 — Issue #159
What You Do Is Who You Are: Core Virtues, Hard Choices, and Situational Leadership
Each week: three ideas on and about the future of work. This week: three ideas from Horowitz’s 2019 What You Do Is Who You Are.
Takeouts below.
1. Core Virtues
Horowitz’s thesis is simply that actions speak louder than words. Culture is complex. It’s messy. And if you think culture creation entails pinning a set of nice-sounding core values to the office wall… well… you’re in for a surprise. “Culture is weird like that. Because it’s a consequence of actions rather than beliefs, it almost never ends up exactly as you intend it.” And so we need to replace core values with core virtues; “virtues are what you do, while values are merely what you believe”.
2. Hard Choices
But wait, there’s more! Virtues must be memorable to take hold. They must be surprising. They must prompt the organization to stop dead in its tracks and ask “Why?” Facebook’s mantra to “Move fast and break things” is a case in point. “Moving fast is the virtue; breaking things is the acceptable by-product.” It states not only what Facebook wants but also what it’s willing to give up to get it. That’s the thing about culture; it requires that we make hard choices.
3. Situational Leadership
Oh, and unless you thought otherwise: culture can’t be static — it needs to continuously adapt to changing circumstances. And so while it’s true that a “company’s culture needs to reflect the leader’s sensibilities”, it is equally true that it’s the circumstances, not those sensibilities, that come first. Consider the different leadership styles required in peacetime, when business is good, and wartime, when then the business is faced with an imminent and existential threat:
Most CEOs never switch their culture from peacetime to wartime or vice versa. Most CEOs have personalities that are suited for one or the other. Peacetime CEOs tend to be diplomatic, patient, exceptionally sensitive to the needs of their teams, and comfortable giving them lots of autonomy. Wartime CEOs tend to be far more comfortable with conflict, obsessed with their own ideas about the direction of the organization, and almost unbearably impatient and intolerant of anything other than perfection…A corollary point is that executives who like working for peacetime CEOs often don’t like working for wartime CEOs, and vice versa.”
What You Do Is Who You Are is an odd business book in that most of its examples are taken not from business but from history. Horowitz draws upon a seriously diverse set of ideas ranging from the Samurai in ancient Japan and revolutionaries in 18th century Haiti, all the way to modern-day American prison culture. It’s an eclectic mix that makes for an engaging read.
That said, the book is light on scientific evidence. And so while the anecdotes make for easy reading, it’s worth keeping in mind that culture is contextual: what worked for Horowitz and his cohort in Silicon Valley may or may not work elsewhere in the world. After all, as Horowitz points out himself: “No one culture is right for everyone. Indeed, no single virtue makes universal sense.”
That’s all for this week.
Until next time: Make it matter.
/Andreas
