Ben Horowitz explains why you must look at employee behavior through a “cultural lens”

Ben argues that one of the most important things to get right about managing the culture is to look at employee behavior through a “cultural lens” rather than an “individual lens.”

He gives the example of an employee taking credit for another employee’s work. If you’re looking at it through an individual lens, you might say:

“He’s really good and does good work himself so maybe I ought to let that go because if I confront him on it, maybe he’ll quit and go to Facebook or whatever and I’ll lose a really good employee.’

But you should really be looking at the incident through a cultural lens. As Ben explains:

“That’s a bit of a test for everybody to say, ‘Oh, you can just take credit for somebody’s work and get yourself a promotion or a pat on the back or this or that.’ And so everybody’s going to play that game if you let that go. Part of being good at managing culture is being able to recognize what it is.”

Full video: Okta “A Conversation With Ben Horowitz, Author of "What You Do Is Who You Are"“ (Apr 2020)