Corporate culture is driving the strategy or undermining it
The competitive environment is shifting again. It’s not enough anymore to just create the strategy. It’s not enough to build out the tactics to implement the corresponding initiatives. It’s not even enough to institutionalize good change management practices. All is for not, if you don’t align the core foundation of your company, the corporate culture.
A strategy can be written in short order and communicated to the organisation by using multiple mediums in a matter of weeks – and can be adjusted and changed if needed. Corporate culture, on the other hand, is a big deal. Sadly it’s something many organisations don’t seem to understand – “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”.
Culture and strategy need to eat lunch together – because a good organizational strategic plan includes culture.
Companies are not linear, inert systems. They are ever-changing, organic communities that are dependent on the engagement, talent, and energy of their people to operate successfully. Ignore the mental well-being of your people and corporate culture at your own peril.
Step inside any company, no matter the size, stage of development, or level of success, and the culture is either driving the strategy or undermining it. To exist in the first place, a company must have a clear purpose, a deliberate intent, and a set of ideas that it uses to pursue a clear goal – but it’s the people who have to execute it.
People matter. More than machinery, products, or real estate. People invent and build. People support and serve customers. Your people either create or undermine value, cultivate or kill relationships, drive or reduce success.
A well-conceived strategy living in the hands of unhappy, misdirected, misinformed people is a sure way to a slow and painful death. There is no comparison to being in the hearts and hands of energized, informed, and motivated people.
Source: Dilbert
So, if your company’s strategy includes a focus on establishing and maintaining a positive culture, the organization won’t be munching on itself – and you can all eat your competition for lunch.
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Corporate culture is driving the strategy or undermining it — http://www.torbenrick.eu/t/r/cwj
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