Strategy and Culture: Breakfast anyone?

For a number of years now, strategy and culture debates have made the rounds, deliberating over which one eats which for breakfast.   For us, it’s not a matter of which one is on the menu for the other to devour. We posit that strategy and culture are not only inescapably linked, but intertwined in a symbiotic relationship.  Throughout the lifetime of an organization, one may take precedent over another, but for an organization to build and sustain success, it (to quote Old Blue Eyes) “can’t have one without the other”[1].

The most successful organizations know how to engage their people in a manner that connects them to a shared vision right through to targeted results.  Properly cultivated, this engagement develops into universal beliefs - a culture - that aligns and connects individuals in pursuit of a common purpose defined by the organization.   

The process of engaging and cultivating belief is a critical component of a successful strategy – otherwise, odds are the strategy will fail (research indicates 65% to 90%).  In other words, if an organization is not strategic in its cultural development, the disengaged culture will more than likely derail the strategy before it’s even left the station.  There is little doubt that strategy will not be fully and effectively implemented unless culture empowers it.  That being said, without strategy, culture may find itself in the station indefinitely, lacking the ability to mobilize. 

   

Imagine if Apple had a developed a culture committed to changing the world through technological innovation and design, but had no strategy outlining how to develop, produce and market its ideas.  Or imagine if Lululemon developed a strategy to create high quality yoga wear but lacked the culture that engaged staff and customers with such passion for its brand. It is a reasonably safe bet that without a symbiotic relationship between strategy and culture, neither company would have become the juggernauts that they are.

So does “culture eat strategy for breakfast”[2]?  Sure, why not… but let’s shift the perspective a little. Culture needs its strategy breakfast because without it, it wouldn’t be able to mobilize and would eventually fade away.  Conversely, that strategic breakfast needs to be consumed by culture otherwise it would just sit there, unused and wasted, serving no purpose. 

With that point of view in mind, we recommend that culture sit down to a breakfast of strategy on a regular basis to ensure the exceptional results that come from a healthy symbiotic strategy / culture relationship.

Frank may have been singing about love and marriage, but at our breakfast table, it’s more about strategy and culture.

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[1] Love & Marriage by Frank Sinatra

[2] Google it for countless hits

Embrace complexity because it’s here to stay

We’ve been having a lot of conversations about complexity lately, both personally and professionally. No matter how you slice it, the changing nature of our world – and the  escalating acceleration of change – affects all of us. As much as some of us crave simplicity, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to remain sheltered from complexity. The world has become connected at a level we have never experienced before and thus demands a greater degree of interdependency.

Two recent studies by KPMG[1] and IBM[2] show that complexity has become the most pressing challenge in today’s business climate. Recently working with a client organization undergoing a large transformation, we witnessed the struggle that can come from a perfect storm of complex variables: changing leadership, new technology, a global workforce, financial scrutiny, change fatigue and uncertainty.  It’s not the first time we have experienced this, nor do we think it will be the last. And yet we are amazed at how often organizations are unprepared to tackle complexity. To better prepare your organization for a business environment that is perhaps best described as a "permanent state of transition", here are a few points to consider:

1.  Organizations can no longer continue to do the same things the same way.  The rules of engagement are changing so fast that organizations must adapt as they go.
2. Organizations must engage in new ways of thinking, moving beyond horizontal training focused on teaching skills and competencies, to vertical development, focusing on building self-generative ability and complex thinking.
3. Change is constant, so change initiatives cannot be thought of as “events” or episodic (i.e. flavour of the day). Sustainable change requires a steadfast vision implemented with consistency over time.
4. Organizations are the sum of all its parts – silos break down systems! Strategic connectivity is key to successful execution and outcomes.

Complexity is here to stay, so rather than avoid it (which is all but impossible), embrace it as an opportunity to create a competitive advantage.  By developing an organization that is strategically connected from vision through targeted outcomes, fueled by the innovation of an adaptable culture, an organization can become self-evolving, ready to capitalize on the emergent possibilities of our increasingly complex world.

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[1] Confronting Complexity

[2] Capitalizing on Complexity