Culture IS Strategy, Just Ask Amazon
As a career strategy guy, my fascination with Culture stems from several pivotal experiences.
Running the Enron business at Ogilvy in the late 90’s.
Safe to say they were some of my most driven, ambitious and explicitly “winner takes all” clients. Pesky rules and accounting principles weren’t going to stand in their way.
Discussing the launch of the iPhone with Nokia engineers in 2007.
They were largely unimpressed and, as history has shown, the impact that apathy had on the relative fortunes of both companies.
With all deference and abject respect to Peter Drucker, I think he might have mis-stepped on the “Culture eats Strategy” comment we’ve all seen a thousand times.
Culture IS Strategy and its definitely not about which one eats the other.
For many — myself included — there is a growing frustration and anger at the way many organizations still operate. The misguided or malignant treatment of our employees in pursuit of profit and maximizing shareholder value galls many who believe that our fellow humans deserve better.
And, ironically, research and empirical evidence shows that when we treat our colleagues like high-functioning, well-intentioned adults who just want to do a great job, they typically will deliver unprecedented innovation, unparalleled customer service and better business results.
BUT IT’S A SLIPPERY SLOPE.
Treating your colleagues like high-functioning adults and creating a culture where that happens, shouldn’t be conflated with creating an environment where smiles are a plenty and stress has been banished.
The role of Culture is to accelerate or advance the Strategy of the organization. Period. End of sentence. Culture, as the folks at Gaping Void eloquently state it, is the operating system of an organization.
