THE CASE FOR CULTURE

A legal entrepreneur makes a case for establishing a strong corporate culture.

In his debut business book, Farber, the CEO and chief legal officer of Pacific Workers’ Compensation Law Center, shares lessons he’s learned from founding and running a law firm that, after some trial and error, has developed a strong sense of purpose, high employee satisfaction, and low turnover. The book takes readers through aspects of mission, self-awareness, hiring, and compensation, offering key insights that can also be applied to businesses outside of the legal field. Farber describes his mistakes as well as his successes, showing how, for instance, the firm’s original hiring process led to a weak staff, but it gradually improved as he learned to match the right person to the right job and ensure that new employees embraced the company’s core values. The book is well organized, with each chapter dealing with a different aspect of corporate culture and presenting concrete examples of successes and failures. Farber does a good job of explaining the seeming contradiction at the heart of his own company’s culture, which involved developing an extensive list of procedures and standards while also providing employees with the autonomy to put them into practice. He also provides a coherent explanation of why lawyers, steeped in a hierarchical and adversarial system (“Our thick skin projects an image of strength that, at first glance, seems at odds with vulnerability”), often have difficulty embracing a more effective workplace structure. Farber is open about the many other books that have shaped his understanding of business culture, and he does a good job of synthesizing and sharing those volumes’ lessons. The writing is strong throughout, and Farber displays an enthusiasm that makes for an engaging narrative. His willingness to discuss how he learned from errors, and improved his company as a result, keeps the book from devolving into self-congratulation.

An upbeat, engaging guide to improving a work environment.