Cultural lessons from Toussaint Louverture

I previously looked at why culture is important and wanted to go into more detail using examples from the book “What you do is who you are”. Ben Horowitz analyses several historical models to extract lessons and illustrate how they relate to more recent examples. Here, I look at the story of Toussaint Louverture, an inspiring leader in the Haitian revolution and the seven tactics he employed to transform a slave rebellion into an independence movement.

1. Keep what works 

After carefully selecting the men for his army, Louverture effectively used two of their existing cultural strengths to his advantage. Voodoo songs were used to communicate attack signals and the African military experience of his warriors helped in organising damaging guerrilla attacks.

👍 When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, it was on the brink of collapse. While Microsoft and industry analysts regarded the Operating System as the product, Jobs did not. He built better products based on Apple’s existing core strength of integrating both hardware and software. Jobs transformed the culture to create the Apple products that we know today.

2. Create shocking rules

The appalling conditions experienced by slaves resulted in a short-term mindset. The lack of trust posed a problem to maintaining a well-functioning army. To show that trust was a high priority, Louverture created a rule that was considered shocking in the context of war at the time: Married officers were forbidden from having concubines. A man who broke his vows could not be considered trustworthy.

👍 Amazon encourages leaders to “dive deep” into the details of their jobs. To reinforce that message, Jeff Bezos banned PowerPoint presentations in meetings. Instead, the organiser must thoroughly research their subject and prepare a memo for attendees to read at the beginning of a meeting. Discussions start only once everyone has finished reading.

3. Dress for success

Louverture’s army was made up of men who had escaped slavery with little belongings let alone clothing. To show that they were more than just a pillaging mob, they wore elaborate military uniforms to mimic the European armies that they were trying to defeat. It was a way of reminding themselves of what they could become.

👍 In the 1970’s, Michael Ovitz and his partners started Creative Artists Agency in small offices where their wives took turns as the receptionist. Ovitz always wore elegant suits to portray a high level of professionalism and authority. This dress code projected the agent he wanted to be, later representing stars like Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise.   

4. Incorporate outside leadership

To defeat the French in his revolution, Louverture realised that he needed to understand and replicate their military culture and tactics. To achieve this, he integrated deserting French officers into his army. Though his actions astonished black soldiers, he persisted, and eventually adapted the culture to fit his vision of a polished army.

👍 After the dotcom crash of the 2000’s, LoudCloud had to shift to enterprise sales to remain afloat. To build an enterprise sales culture, the start-up hired an experienced sales director who wore a suit and tie to work. He brought a proven methodology, a higher degree of urgency and an intolerance for mediocrity. The new culture grew the company’s valuation from $50 million to $1.6 billion when it was acquired by HP.

5. Make decisions that demonstrate priorities

One of the most counterintuitive decisions that Louverture made after the revolution was sparing the lives of plantation owners and allowing them to continue farming their land. That decision established that economic prosperity took priority over revenge. This would allow him to fund his army and was the key to Haiti remaining independent.

👍 When Netflix went from DVD rentals to video streaming, its culture was logistics based, shipping content to customers by post. To show that streaming was now his highest priority, the CEO, Reed Hastings excluded the DVD business executives from his weekly management meetings. This action demonstrated that the company was now moving to a content and technology-based culture.

6. Walk the talk

Louverture understood that for a culture to grow, its leader must lead by example. He moved canons with his men, once even crushing his hand. He led charges with his troops which resulted in him being wounded multiple times. By being trustworthy, he gained their trust. This enabled him to create a loyal following amongst his men.  

👎 While she was Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton used personal email to conduct government affairs. In the 2016 US presidential elections, her campaign chairman used personal email for official duties. He was hacked through a phishing attack and his leaked emails damaged her presedential run. The hack could have been avoided using a secure work email with two-factor authentication. However, Clintons previous actions had already set a careless culture.

7. Make ethics explicit

Not only did Louverture want to win freedom, over the long-term he wanted to keep it and create an independent country. He understood the importance of building integrity and decency into the culture to achieve this. He was explicit in forbidding pillaging or violence, establishing higher standards for his men than the European armies he fought. 

👎 Although Uber had designed their culture with great care, it later received unwanted publicity for its toxic culture. Values like “always be hustlin” and “champions mindset” led to the creation of an ultra-competitive culture of winning at all costs. Unethical behaviour like hacking competitors, recruiting engineers from its own investors, or covering up a sexual harassment complaint were all unintended side-effects.

To recap

In “What you do is who you are”, the author discusses how Toussaint Louverture set out to abolish slavery in Haiti and at the same time create an independent state. Realising that attaining his goal required massive cultural change, Louverture implemented various tactics to transform a group of slaves into a well-oiled army that would later defeat several European powers. Horowitz identifies lessons from his story, and uses modern day examples to show us how they apply to today's teams.