I’m in a transition phase for almost a year now and I’m spending most of my time thinking who am I, what should I do with the rest of my life and most importantly what should I do to make the economy of my country a little bit better. For a while now I have been designing my new start up business, slowly investing on technology infrastructure, and reading business books. Luckily, eventually I just finish reading this book at exactly the right time, the end of year 2021 and I want to start new year 2022 with executing the plans while mainly focusing on my culture.
This book is about how you create a culture that will support and scale your business idea while keep shaping and changing your culture accordingly. Specifically, it’s a journey through culture, from ancient to modern, while along the way you will learn practices you might want to emulate from leaders whose stories reveal lessons and insights that are actually core to the creation of culture itself.
From the story of Haitian revolutionary leader, Toussaint Louverture, I took note of his two strategies: keep what works and create shocking rules (this one even shocked me when I learnt about it). I was also surprised to learn how failure to keep what works has made Haiti to remain the poorest country in the Western world.
Perhaps the most moving story is how did culture turn James White, aka Shaka Senghor, into a killer? “How did he rise to dominate that culture? How did he take a group of outcasts and turn them into a cohesive team? Finally, how did he recognize what he disliked about his regime, and, by changing himself, change the entire prison culture?”
I think this book is highly useful for founders who are about to launch a new startup. I really enjoyed all the stories and real-life examples, as well as history lessons. As I’m writting this review I’m reading the book for the second time while reviewing my business plan with intention to incorporate the ideas I have learnt from the book.
