The Hard Thing About Hard Things

This is a tale of war stories direct from the founder of a company sold to HP for $1.6 billion - cash. A glamorous ending to a book about being backed against a wall and breaking the goddam thing down.

I've heard time and time again that the path to success as a founder is never easy. But up until now, I feel that very few stories are actually about these issues and how they are solved.

A lot of the content I see from founders leans closer to overcoming personal struggles - less about the business tripping as it walks up the stairs.

Maybe my head is in the sand.

Irrespective, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is a head-turner. If you're sick of reading management theory with success stories to back it up, give this a crack - it's refreshing.

But what about the critics?

This book cops a lot of shit.

Horowitz has been called out for being egotistical, lacking self-awareness, and writing a book that doesn't do much other than share his experience as a case study for what should be done in difficult situations.

I say bugger the keyboard warriors that don't know him personally. If you wanted research you should have read the blurb before you bought the thing.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things is a fun, stand-out piece that gives a Harvey Specter feel that I am here for.

CEO lessons

Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense or a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say, “I didn’t quit.”

You need two types of advisors or friends

• One you can call when something good happens, and they’ll be excited for you.
• One you can call when things go horribly wrong.

Why? Because your start-up will see your emotions on a pendulum, swinging between euphoria and terror, with little time spent inbetween.

Create a culture of candour, failure, and trust

Sometimes the only way to survive is to purposely go out and fall on your face. It's not enough for just the CEO to embrace failure. You need your employees to be comfortable with failure and to communicate openly - this way, the business will learn fast.

It's always better to point out your mistakes than have someone else point them out for you.

You may experience overwhelming pressure to be overly positive. Stand up to the pressure, face your fear and say things as they are. Breed a culture of trust and get people working on problems instead of covering them.

When your backs against the wall, break the goddamn thing down

In a storm it can feel like there are no good moves. Being a successful CEO means knowing how to make the best move when there are none.

Horowitz recommends:

• Avoid crumbling by trying to carry the load yourself - share your burdens with as many brains as you can.
• Don't dress up your problems in a crisis. Avoid adopting the old management standard: “Don’t bring me a problem without bringing me a solution.”?
• Layoffs happen. Do it the right way and do not delay.

Peacetime vs Wartime CEOs

Peacetime CEOs?think long-term, set goals, minimise conflict, create backup plans, and follow protocol.

Wartime CEOs obsess about the immediate need and couldn’t give a damn about anyone.

You want to be capable of both and adjust to the circumstances.

Take care of the people, the products, and the profits — in that order

If you don’t put people first the other two won’t matter for long.

Employees need to enjoy the work

This means creating an environment where your teams feel like they are making a difference. Being a good company can be the difference between life and death when things go wrong.?

Hire for strength rather than lack of weakness

You want to have people who are really strong at something, even if they are weak elsewhere, rather than being average all-rounders. Spiky skill sets are valuable - you can always find weaknesses in people if you look hard enough.

Face the hard decisions head on

Make the hard decisions quickly and don’t put them off

"As a company grows, communication becomes its biggest challenge. If the employees fundamentally trust the CEO, then communication will be vastly more efficient than if they don’t."

Employees are not stupid. By being truthful you can create honest conversations that will help your team overcome hard things.

Minimise politics

As organisations grow larger, important work can go unnoticed. The hardest workers can be forgotten in favour of the best office politicians.

Politics encourages people to advance their personal agendas instead of growing through merit or contribution. So, you must adopt Horowitz’s four tips for minimising politics in a company:

1. Hire people with the right type of ambition. The right type is an ambition for the company’s success
2. Maintain strict policies and processes on organisational design, performance evaluations, promotions and compensation.
3. Promote experienced employees by measuring results against objectives, management skills, innovation and their ability to work well with others.
4. Ensure one-to-one meetings between employees and managers.

If nothing else, remember this

“Every time I read a management or self-help book, I find myself saying, “That’s fine, but that wasn’t really the hard thing about the situation.”

The hard thing isn’t setting a big, hairy, audacious goal. The hard thing is laying people off when you miss the big goal. The hard thing isn’t hiring great people. The hard thing is when those “great people” develop a sense of entitlement and start demanding unreasonable things. The hard thing isn’t setting up an organisational chart. The hard thing is getting people to communicate within the organisation that you just designed. The hard thing isn’t dreaming big. The hard thing is waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat when the dream turns into a nightmare.”