My review of the book “The hard things about hard things” by Ben Horowitz.
Do you feel like you don’t know what to do as the CEO of your company? Well, Ben Horowitz didn’t either. But what he saw in his career is that the great CEOs didn’t quit. It was not how much they knew but how courageous they were that mattered most of the time. Experience follows ambition.
You can learn the basics of management from training. But, building up your character to deal with a constant influx of problems in all directions is something you can only develop by knocking down one challenge after another in your career.
One thing I truly enjoyed in his writing was the realities of the CEO position he expresses. Especially, the wartime CEO and peacetime CEO distinction was a critical one. Both of them require different approaches. For instance, during peacetime, developing people’s creative skills is necessary for further innovations. But, during wartime, you only have one bullet in the chamber, and you have only one chance to hit the target. You cannot miss it. Therefore, a strict alignment of the employees around the goal is necessary.
He also talks about tough topics openly and sincerely and offers guidance. For instance, how you should demote your friend, what to do when employees miss their commitments, what to do when two departments are constantly fighting, management debt, and so on.
Something he states that I agree with is the most challenging skill of being a CEO is to keep your sanity. The sheer amount of information coming from all directions are seriously hard to manage. But more importantly, how you are alone in your position. You cannot talk about the problems with your employees not to demotivate them; stakeholders don’t care about your issues, and you have only one person who can help you, and that is you. It is easier to write than live. Unless you live this emotional stress, these are simply words to you. But once you develop your character to deal with these problems, there will be many things the world can benefit from you.
As always, it was an excellent read. Recommended indeed.