“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” -Peter Drucker

Not long ago, a friend’s child got seriously ill, causing much worry and hardship for their family. Fortunately, my friend worked for a company that rallied around her. They gave her comfort and space. They encouraged her and understood the difficulty.

Culture. It’s the way groups of people work and live together. It’s bound by unwritten and sometimes written rules of conduct. It’s defined by what is acceptable, what is expected, and what traditions are held sacred. In short, “it’s how we do things around here.”

In workplaces, cultures exist by design or default and have a tremendous influence on engagement levels, how customers experience things, and ultimately, the long-term results that can be expected.  

In some workplaces, like my friend’s, for example, “how we do things” is looking after each other and wanting the best for each other. In other places, it’s every person for themselves trying to get a first-place prize. People tend to want to be in places like the former. They work together to deliver the best for their customers. In the latter, people use their teammates to get the best for themselves and see customers as only a means to a self-interested end. These are places that bring paranoia, competitive stress, and unfulfilled burnout. No one really wants to be there. 

As to business results, caring cultures bring relationships, and relationships bring repeating opportunities that translate into long-term success. On the other hand, dog-eat-dog cultures bring only transactions, which brings an ongoing struggle to find new transactions to fuel the self-interested pipeline.  

Cultures happen by default or design, but if you want a caring one, it is best not to leave it to chance. It needs to be led. It needs the expectations messaged regularly. It needs to be lived out by example and encouraged in every team member. It must be an ongoing initiative involving commitment, accountability, and integrity. Much like excellence, culture is an ongoing pursuit. 

So, while Peter Drucker said culture eats strategy, given its immense influence, it seems more accurate to say culture IS strategy. 

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