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Part I – Lessons from The Hard things About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz
“Sometimes an organization doesn’t need a solution; it just needs clarity.”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
Ben Horowitz’s remarkable book The Hard Thing About Hard Things, is a must-read for any and every business owner, and aspiring entrepreneur. And, I would dare to add all those who have an interest in creating jobs and growing a profitable enterprise. That includes leaders in the development sphere.
I read this book two years ago and was recently ‘forced’ to pick it up to prepare for a book club meeting with the Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance. And so far, it’s still the rich instructive text I remembered it to be back then. The book is good.
As I journey through the awesomeness that is the book, I thought to share with you all some key lessons that have resonated with me. All of which we can draw parallels to the topic of Leadership in Africa’s development narrative – See Episode 6 and 9 of the Asian Aspiration podcast I hosted earlier this year.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things is a favorite and today I will share three major lessons I got from the four or five chapters I have re-read. More to come in another post, hopefully
FIRST, every CEO must deal with the pressures and responsibilities that come with running a company
Horowitz talks about the Struggle that CEOs encounter when their dreams of success meet reality i.e. when the crisis hits. In an earlier post, I talked about the imperative to balance ideas and pragmatism. I think it’s a similar same paradigm at play here. The Struggle, Horowitz, teaches is part and parcel of being in charge.
It refers to the pressure and weight that comes on when things start to go left field. When faced with impossible decisions, insufficient resources, subpar employees, and difficult global macroeconomic conditions, for instance, CEOs are experiencing the Struggle. And it can become mighty daunting. Nonetheless, it is at this juncture that CEOs are expected to make the difficult trade-offs, carry the team, and negotiate the challenges the organization faces.
It is through navigating these challenges to success that CEOs can be accredited for the success of their organization, or fired for its failures.
Let’s translate or transpose?
- The CEO of most countries is the President, and for some, the Prime Minister.
- This role has never been painted as easy nor will it ever be.
- The CEO’s job is to face the mounting pressures, navigate the challenges, and solve the problems.
- Finger-pointing at employees or past CEOs never helped anyone it’s a demonstration of weakness and a cop-out.
- If a CEO succeeds, he can have his term renewed; if he fails, he is, and must be, booted out. No hard feelings, it’s just business.
- The decision to boot him/her out is not based on ethnic alliances, alumni networks, or personal allegiances. If we want the enterprise (country or government) to succeed, we must hold them to account for their performance and ability to solve the country’s problem. As I said, it’s plain business.
- That said, we can only assess the CEO’s performance if we pay attention, look at the numbers, and scrutinize the results – that requires participation, engagement, transparency, and accountability. We all need to be involved, much more than we have in the past at least.
- Where his employees and constituent look to him for success, the CEO will be incentivized to perform because he/she knows people are counting on him to excel and will reward him with more time should he succeed.
- Being a CEO is a tough job that requires answers and action to benefit the enterprise(country) and its stakeholders(citizens). It’s not all glamorous – like Trump – and if you are not up for it, follow your second-best passion, please.
SECOND, the Struggle can seem unbearable at times but creativity, teamwork, and a solution-orientation go a long way.
The Struggle always falls heavily on the CEO but there are strategies to deal with this as everyone knows. The magic comes in which strategy CEOs, Presidents, or Heads-of-states decide to employ.
Here are a few ideas from Horowitz that could translate really well into country-level development strategizing.
- Smart CEOs do not carry responsibility all by themselves; it is unsustainable, not feasible, not beneficial, nor is it practical. You will fail. Involve as many people as possible, and relevant, when you face a crisis.
- Who gets to be around the President to craft a path to success should be less a factor of blind allegiance than sharp minds. The demands of running a country require problem-solvers and visionaries capable of implementing actions and decisions. People who muddle through tough decisions – or simply pass the buck further along till next government – are of no use. Incompetence and inaction should have no place in government – or business of course.
- Horowitz shares the example of putting a challenge to reform a product ASAP to his software team and asking those not up for the challenge to leave, with greatest understanding and sympathy.
Tough but understandable. Leaders need to be left with the critical mass who actually want to problem-solve and will dedicate the hours, mind power, and effort to do so. This should be the same in politics. - Most importantly, the job of the CEO and the demands of the job bring a lot of psychological problems. I mean can you imagine being “responsible” for improving the lives of 30 million people?
Uncle Horowitz offers nuggets of wisdom yet again! The lesson from race car drivers.
For them, success comes from focusing on the road ahead and not on the potential hazard or track walls around them. To deliver on promises – hopefully not too lofty ones–, a laser-like focus on the solution is needed. Prioritizing all the priorities is no easy task but absolutely necessary for success, if at all. I know this from working in Business Development and Policy Strategizing.
THIRD, honesty about problems and bad news is likely to lead to quicker resolutions.
Can I say thank you for hanging with me? I talk a lot so I am glad you stayed. Real MVP.
- No one likes giving bad news but as CEO, open, honest, and direct conversations are crucial for success.
Why might that be? For one, bad news spreads quickly and it’s only a matter of time before it comes out. If staff or your constituency hear it elsewhere and the gossip mill gets running, it can blow issues out of proportion and erode trust. - Furthermore, secrecy, as many can attest to, can be very damaging for maintaining the cultural fabric of an organization – business or government –, and erode trust among subordinates and colleagues.
Even worse, it can demoralize employees who may have known how to fix the problem but were not given the chance to do so. This leads to staff not feeling valued nor motivated to bring their best selves. - CEOs need to get ahead of the news – that should be a lesson from Olivia Pope to anyone in politics, but I digress. The sooner the whole organization knows and starts dealing with the problem, the sooner it can be fixed. In a crisis, there isn’t much time to spare.
BONUS THOUGHT: One may ask why CEOs fail to share these burdens? The Positivity delusion. This refers to the idea that employees cannot handle the truth and need to be overprotected with only positive news. And yet, Mr. President, sorry I mean Mr/Ms. CEO, no one expects (realistically) you to solve all the problems. It is by definition why we have different departments and expert areas.
By divulging the problems quickly, you are one step closer to some resolution as it gets to the people who can solve them, and often faster than it would take you to learn about the topic matter, much less how to change it. Do you catch my drift?
What I liked about The Hard Thing About Hard Things, so far.
Horowitz paints a bit of a balanced picture. While most focus on how to do things right, his account shows that there is no such thing as a perfect organization, however much planning or preparation you make. What is important is that when these oopsies, screwups, and unexpected nuisances happen, a leader must put on the armors of resilience and focus to fix the wrongs. Won’t He do it!
Ok, what did we learn?
Being President is hard. Governing is hard. Coalition building is hard. Legislating is hard. No one man—or woman—can represent the varied, competing interests of 30 million citizens. Even Trump, not one to eagerly admit a mistake, conceded that he may have underestimated the difficulty of the Presidency. 100 days into his term, he told Reuters, “I thought it would be easier”.
The Hard Things About Hard Things is an instructive guide for present, past, and future CEOs. While its focal point is the management of organizations, a lot of its lessons can be extended to managing a larger and more complex organization – a country –, with some precaution of course.
We cannot stick with business as usual, not even in government. If we are to tackle the burgeoning population, increasing urbanization, climate change, and increased frequency, and severity, or black swan events like Covid-19, we need to do depart from the status quo.
Africa needs to demonstrate to the world a readiness of our political, economic, and social structures for success. And to that, we need leaders unafraid to make tough choices and are willing to do away with ‘business as usual’.
Let me know what you think, or learnt from the book in the comments!
Because I like you. Here is A fantastic resource that has been helpful for my reading, including The Hard Thing About Hard Things
If you have read this book or are reading, do share in the comments! If you haven’t read it yet, I can help. I use an app called Blinkist that condenses the key takeaways and important things. I know! It has thousands of non-fiction books, including Horowitz’s. Try it and tell me you don’t love it!
PS: I am a participant in the Blinkist Affiliate and Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Blinkist.com and Amazon.com, and affiliated sites. That means that when you click on a book link I share, I may receive a small commission of your purchase. This doesn’t cost you anything though! See my disclosure.
That said, grab a copy of the book on Amazon as well!
For more on Horowitz’s book:
- Here is an interview he did with INC.
- Buy his book on Amazon because trust me, it will be an intergenerational gift
- Get Blinkist and be reminded of all you loved from the book as and when you need it. It really does come in clutch.
Noelle Wonders
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I love that many of these pieces of advice apply to many aspects of life outside of business and the like. I can sit with many of these in just me personal life (honestly about bad news will have quicker solutions).
This was well written and impactful. Thank you for being apart of my journey.
And you kept your word, thank you Jaymee.
I am glad it resonated even on a personal level and thanks again for sharing.
Excited to share in this journey with people like you.
Great article Noelle! The concepts from this book have always fascinated me it’s great to see you bring these ideas into focus for everyone to understand.
Thank you so much Richard! I am glad you enjoyed the piece and more so the concepts from the book.
Good one there Noelle.
It’s a good piece to be read by upcoming entrepreneurs and those who are well established.everything in there is well said
Thank you os much! This means a lot 🙂
Thank you so much! This means a lot 🙂
Great piece Noelle!
Your Olivia Pope reference made me chuckle !
I agree with your points on the fruitlessness of finger pointing as it’s only a cop out and just creates further division
Instead Horowitz recommendation on creativity , teamwork and solution orientation can influence major change .
In my limited observation, most political divisions in developing countries are often along tribal lines, and not along opposing political ideologies .
If Presidents could adopt the methods mentioned above, and foster unity (definitely easier said than done). I believe we could make a lot of progress
Thanks Nicole! Ghana’s 2016 election showed, arguably, that we are relaxing on the tribal lines argument in fact. People were fed up and just needed a change hence the shocking win. But, you are right as well, it is quite embedded in our political machinery such that it can easily be “activated”. When it is, conversations about the development needs of the country fly fast and far out the window tragically.
Perhaps we could have more private-public partnerships? But what good is that if the vetting process is rigged? Maybe African governments go far right and allow free markets to prevail. Individuals go ahead and set up whatever utility companies etc and sell to the government rather than the government financing the project from the get-go. Partly solves the problem of making sure that the right projects are set up. E.g If a businessman sees that a popular road which people like to use hasn’t been done, they go ahead and do the road and the government pays them by allowing… Read more »
Thanks Kwaku and you raise an interesting about point private sector involvement.
I dont think we can go far, or anywhere, without private sector leading the charge. But of course there are dangers to letting them go wild. The profit-making motive and social welfare has, in the past, not proved to go well. We need some balance and perhaps that could come more from CSOs empowered by government to gate-keep and flag those wildly out of line? Maybe, maybe not…
Excellent post,Noelle! I really liked the mirroring of CEOs to state leaders. If our leaders begin to think along these lines as businesses do and begin to take responsibility for their actions and inactions, we will experience a better society. I’m only wondering whether you could do a post from the perspective of citizens? So, paralleling citizens to employees, for example.
OOOOO, that should be an interesting one. You know I like that, stay tuned. Thanks Claudia
Brilliant article Noelle. Very interesting take which can be applied to leaders and heads in all walks of life aswell.. I’m sold on the book. Can’t wait for the next piece!
Thank you so much Kwam Kwam!
I completely agree with everything here! Unfortunately I think that is what we lack on the African continent. Having these difficult experiences in business and learning to navigate them effectively becomes what I think could make or break the future of the continent. Operating a business means that you have direct view of the ripple effects that every decision has both on you and the people who work for you. I think having to bear those consequences makes for more accountable business-owners which one would expect to translate into more effective governance should those owners decide to go into politics… Read more »
Oh Kenni, you make such a good point here! Establishing that accountability link is key for feedback to make things happen. But how we do get that to actually get that to happen? That is the question…or one of them at least.
That’s the biggest problem I think. Unfortunately Politicians for so long have made it so that politics and business are almost always at loggerheads. That fundamental lack of trust between politics and business has made it difficult for either one to grow. Politicians need economic growth to create good ways to create a tax base and Business owners need good business policies at least to generate that growth. Again, the melding of business and politics in these instances becomes integral. Recently I have been thinking that potentially the way of South Korea and the chaebols may be a way to… Read more »
Again, you make a great point. I think one of the challenge has been that we haven’t always been good at picking winners…I believe the South Koreans operated with a “sunset clause” type effect but when you look at us, we have so many state-owned enterprises being an absolute drain and yet still being supported. South Africa’s SAA and Eskom are cases in point. For the Asian Tigers, it was a “geopolitics favor us so we will play it to our advantage, but on our terms. We must be smart and move fast because after all, we have nothing to… Read more »
This article beautifully puts how simple it is for good leadership skills to be exercised, if African President/PM start understanding their roles and the importance of who is next to them.
Running a country is a team sport and should not fall on the shoulders of one man or woman. We need leaders who are ready to have the hard conversations and are willing to cut out what’s not working, may it be people or policy, to ensure the best outcome at all time. As Noelle puts it “Incompetence and inaction should have no place in government”.
Thank you Horlane!
I love this entry! These are pretty good points, especially creating the parallel of CEOs with Presidents of countries. I was just thinking the other day of some brands that I couldn’t see without the leader and wondered to myself; “Are those good brands?” You bring this up in this entry. CEOs can’t do things on their own, just like presidents can’t do things on their own. Even if they can, they end up creating “single-person states” that collapse when they are gone. Will developing countries ever reach that point of ‘leadership by delegation?’ Cause the way we hold on… Read more »
You make such a good point on this, especially on accountability. I battle with how to institutionalize accountability and I am eager to hear what you think on how it could be done. For me, the question i find myself asking is “are we ready?”. Altruism is so interesting and to some extent makes me think about the “Asian concern for popular welfare”. For them delivery was praised and even among corrupt people, it occurred upon delivery, not before, like it happens in many of our African countries unfortunately. Not condoning it but you see how much of a difference… Read more »