Largely ignored by most experts when making organizational interventions, is the word ‘culture’. It always sounds like a term that only human resource professionals should obsess with, on the sidelines. Yet, everything grows within something. Think of culture as the environment out of which something grows. Organisations grow out of a culture, organisations are formed by culture, they are sustained or broken by culture.
Every strategic leader should always think ‘culture’ as they make any intervention. You could have the best strategy, the best operation systems, but if those land on a skewed culture, culture will win the day.
At Ortega Group, we’ve described this as ‘Strategic Cultures’, the aspect of infusing strategy into culture, or having a management intentionality when it comes to organizational culture. When all is said and done, one must always ask; ‘what’s the culture that’s going to sustain this?’ What’s the culture that’s going to implement this strategy? Culture is the glue that holds all the strategic pieces together.
Does your organization have a strategic culture?