Why Culture Will Defeat Strategy Every Time

Merck CEO, Richard Clark, is quoted as saying, "Culture eats strategy for lunch."

If you don't think that corporate culture is the most important thing in the building, then you're just not getting it. Culture is the pulse of your organization. It is the "how we do things here" or how things are NOT done in many instances. Culture is the result of the collective attitudes in the building coming together and either working together or falling apart together.

Culture is what determines how well you serve customers, how well you serve each other and how well you deliver results. All of the business strategy in the world will never get you to a better result if you don't address the culture first. Here's why:

• your Culture is too strong to radically change your processes - Culture will slow down and ultimately defeat change
• if your new initiative seems like more work without the employees being consulted, the Culture will defeat it
• if your managers aren't strong on promoting a new initiative, the Culture will defeat them too - since how management acts is part of the Culture as well
• if an apathetic Culture exists, all of the sales and customer service training in the world will not crack the Culture
• most business strategies foolishly leave out any attempt to improve the attitudes of their people in an attempt to improve the organization - that's where Culture lives: in your people

Culture needs to be moved gently for lasting change to be affected. Culture is the KEY to successfully implementing strategy. If you are not actively choosing to address Culture in your organization, then you are, by default, allowing the existing Culture to swallow your initiatives whole.

Oh, and on a celebratory note, this is my 400th career Blog posting. Thanks for reading and inspiring me to keep writing.--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

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