The Hard Thing About Hard Things

"The Hard Thing About Hard Things" is a guide by Ben Horowitz, sharing his experiences as a CEO. It gives practical advice about tough business decisions. It's a must-read for aspiring leaders! Here is a summary of key ideas from the book.

12 Titans recommend this book.

Matt Mullenweg ✦ Marc Andreessen ✦ Andrew Chen ✦ Julie Zhuo ✦ Satya Nadella ✦ Ben Horowitz ✦ and more

1. What am I not doing?

As a leader, always ask yourself, “What am I not doing?” This question will often reveal some of the blind spots in your approach and strategy.

2. Don’t ignore the negative

It’s easy to look only at what’s going well and act on those positive results while ignoring or explaining away the things that aren’t going well. Avoid this trap. It will leave you with fewer insights and a strategy with potential holes.

3. Drop the excuses

Nobody wants to hear your excuses about why something didn’t get done or didn’t go as planned. Instead of focusing on detailing what happened, focus on what you can do to improve the situation and do better next time.

4. Hire for strengths

When interviewing, it’s easy to go with a well-rounded candidate who is good in many areas and has no identifiable weaknesses. But this can be a big mistake. Instead of hiring for lack of flaws, hire for strengths. So if someone has impressive technical capabilities and average communication skills, hire that person over the candidate who is good but not great at either skill.

5. Training and performance management

Training requires clear expectations. Write a document that clearly articulates what a successful vs. unsuccessful person looks like in the role. Without proper expectation setting, performance management is sloppy and inconsistent.

6. Group communication

To have strong group communication, you need to define the process and structure of communication. For example, the expectations and purpose of every meeting should be obvious.

7. Trust

Trust is essential to facilitating healthy and successful professional interactions. If people trust you, they will listen to you, even if you are not as articulate as you could be.

8. Feedback

Feedback is incredibly delicate. The classic advice of giving a “shit sandwich” may work for a new employee but not someone more sophisticated. With all of your feedback, be authentic and express a genuine desire to give feedback to help the other person succeed. Be direct. Finally, understand that there is no one size fits all approach to feedback.