Culture beats strategy hands down.
Have you ever wondered why after going through all the machinations of strategic planning with a facilitator and writing a strategic plan - none (or only part) of it works?
How has this happened? What went wrong? Why could we not follow the plan? In 99% of the cases it's because culture eats strategy any day.
You can have the best cyber security process, risk management profiles that businesses are able to invent, but how do you prevent a worker from writing their password on the notepad so that an IT specialist can fix a desktop issue.
In the health and safety field, your plan dictates that if a person is sick they don't come to work to prevent the spread of the virus. How then do you prevent the manager from coming to work with the flu because he or she is supposedly indispensable?
How do you prevent staff thefts when the CEO takes a surplus computer home for the rumpus room?
It all starts at the top. If your board and CEO don't practice what they preach then how are you expecting people to act further down reporting lines.
Board members and executive must live, eat, drink and sleep the strategy in order to make it work. If they leave it up to chance then the prevailing culture will thrash strategy every time.
This is where ongoing planning and change management practices must be implemented.
1. Everyone must know what the strategy is and how it relates to their work life
2. There must be clear directions around expected behavioural changes and accountability for those
3. Board and executive members must live, breathe and sleep the strategy every waking moment
Culture and strategies must be aligned full stop! Only then will culture and strategy be the best of friends.
Richard Middleton