Today I was recapping this chapter for a friend about to undertake a review of her company’s Strategic Plan, apparently a task requiring considerable personal time reading the materials provided prior to team meetings, etc. I find this book by Matthew Kelly, the Culture Solution: A Practical Guide to Building a Dynamic Culture So People Love Coming to Work and Accomplishing Great Things Together, captivating because both of its freshness and applicability to such a wide audience. Few of us have been corporate managers (actually Kelly prefers the term leaders, not managers, because that is precisely what is often missing) but we all do influence and ultimately determine the “flavor of our culture,” the immediate environment and the atmosphere about us, and today, way, way beyond our proximity as never before, and to think it’s happening 24/7/365…
So why this post now? Well, perhaps it’s because I am continually amazed at how God designed the lives of His Spirit empowered children to be so joyfully connected and broadly encompassed in fellowship on so many fronts; and then I am equally amazed at how the ultimately defeated Evil One, (who when coming against we the empowered, doesn’t have a leg to stand on), so successfully twists and misconstrues all that God has created for our enjoyment into idols merely for our entrapment and ultimate destruction. The culture promoted by the Evil One that you and I battle every day is not desirous of seeing you and I become the-best-version-of-ourselves, nor necessarily our businesses become the-best-version-of-themselves either. He quite frankly wants all of us to join him, eternally!
You know today culture is huge! Don’t kid yourself. Perhaps that is why Kelly devoted 46 pages in Chapter Four to Dynamic Culture. In this post, I have only touched on 8 of those pages. The second longest chapter is Five and is titled “It All Starts With Hiring.” And isn’t that the truth, as many of you can testify. Actually, I have read this book more from the perspective of Christian Outreach, Church Revitalization, and insight for my Personal Strategic Plan (PSP) and it is loaded with spiritual value, but I warn you, there isn’t one Bible verse quoted that I recall. Prove me wrong.
Beginning on page 95.
“When Peter Drucker said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” the comment wasn’t intended to undermine the importance of strategy. Strategy is incredibly important. You cannot overestimate its importance, and that’s what makes the quote so powerful.
The very idea that something else was anywhere near as important as strategy initially stunned people. The statement was arresting. When it was first heard it would have felt like a category 6 earthquake to any organizational management expert. It is more relevant today than ever before, giving the growing dysfunction of employees personal lives. Whether Drucker said it or not, if he were alive today, he would probably say, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
It is essential to understand that the more dysfunctional people’s lives become, the more critical healthy corporate cultures become. People do bring all the joy and misery of their personal lives to work. A Dynamic Culture needs to be able to absorb the dysfunction of people’s personal lives in a way that allows them to still perform their work at a high level. This is an incredibly complex thought, and one that I usually would not even include. It’s a topic someone should write a doctoral thesis on. It needs to be said, understood, and acted upon. Or we can continue to hide behind the nonsensical excuse that this is not a corporate responsibility. In nirvana that is true, but it’s probably best if we stay as closely connected to reality as possible.
Warning: if you are not in a leadership position, you may be tempted to check out now, thinking the topic of strategy doesn’t matter to your role. Please don’t make that mistake.
In the opening of the book I wrote: Too many books are written just for leaders; as a result, the message never makes it all the way through the organization. That’s why I specifically set out to write this book for everyone in your organization.
If you are not in a leadership role, there are dozens of reasons you should keep reading, but let me just give you the single most compelling reason. You may not have a leadership role in the business you work for but the most important business of your life is the business of your life itself. Anything you learn about corporate strategy should teach you to live your own life more strategically. Great businesses have Strategic Plans and they update them at least once a year.
The biggest project or venture you are running is your life. Do you have a plan? Most people don’t. They are just stumbling from one year to the next, hoping for the best. That is merely an observation, not a judgment. More than most, I have seen how brutal ordinary life can be, even in the suburbs of American cities. At the same time I want to encourage you to start developing a Personal Strategic Plan (PSP). The point is simple. Strategy and planning are important for organizations, and even more important for our lives and yet, most people spend more time planning their annual vacation than they spend planning their lives.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” The maxim does not mean strategy doesn’t matter. There is no point having an exceptional culture and no strategy. And your organization will not withstand bad strategic decisions, regardless of how strong and healthy your culture is. But when you have a solid strategy, developing a Dynamic Culture is like adding steroids.
Is culture more important than strategy? There is obviously no point having the best culture in the world if you have a horrible strategy, and vice versa. Our goal should be to build a world class culture to execute a best-in-industry strategy.
So, the first point is: A great strategic plan can make all the difference. If you don’t have one, get one. If you have one, start using it. We will talk more about how to do that most effectively in the coming chapters.
The second point is: Where is culture in the plan? Most organizations leave it out. They focus on sales and marketing, manufacturing and sourcing, financial reports and the new product development, and other such things. But if you raise your hand when the plan is finished and say, “We say the culture is important and that we are committed to building a strong and healthy culture, but where is culture in our Strategic Plan?” you are likely be greeted by a very, very awkward silence.
Culture deserves a place in everything your organization does. Your organization deserves it. And not just any place – a primary place, a driving place. Everything your organization does affects culture, and culture affects everything your organization does. Culture should have a seat of honor at every planning meeting. Tape a sign that reads “Culture” to an empty chair and put that chair in place of honor at meetings. When it comes to culture, we either need to get serious or shut up and stop talking about it. But be warned, there are dire consequences to the latter and we have already seen how empty culture talk impacts employee and customer engagement.
A good Strategic Plan brings confidence to the culture. Confidence – now, that is something people can smell on their leaders. No amount of perfume or cologne can overshadow that smell. It is impossible to overestimate what that confidence means to an organization. Have you ever been around an elite athlete who has lost his or her confidence after an injury? It’s not pretty. Everyone around him is on eggshells in the gym, on the field, in the cafeteria…
Great cultures are confident and humble at the same time. They are so confident, they don’t need pretense, and so they very naturally embrace humility. A great product, service, leader, and strategy can all contribute to building confidence in an organization, but it is the culture that sustains organizational confidence.
Does strategy matter? Of course it does. It matters a great deal. But whatever your product or service is, whatever your strategy is, whatever your goals and mission are, nothing is more essential in accomplishing them than a strong, healthy, vibrant Dynamic Culture. We have to stop seeing culture as something that is at odds with strategy. They should be best friends. By forming strong connections between strategy and culture, and making Mission King (Chapter Two), you give everyone a clear sense of the what, the how, and the why.
The quintessential question is: Will culture be part of our strategy, or will strategy be part of our culture? The answer is both. It is not a one-way street.
Mission is King and both strategy and culture serve it. Strategy is a short-term way an organization accomplishes its mission. Culture should be included in every Strategic Plan. If you separate culture from strategy, you run the risk of culture going rogue and usurping the mission of the organization.
Who you are is infinitely more important than what you do. This is true for people and organizations. Wise organizations allow who they are to determine what they do. Strong, healthy, dynamic, and enduring organizations adopt strategies that are a natural extension of their mission and culture. Strategy is what they do, mission and culture is who they are.
This powerful alignment of culture and strategy will create a competitive advantage of monumental proportions. An organization that takes this single idea seriously dominates its competition in attracting talent. An organization where Mission is King and culture is central is so much stronger, healthier, more vibrant, and more dynamic than its competition. This type of organization deals with challenges and conflict in a very different way than its competition. And perhaps most convincingly, in a world where the speed of change has become immeasurable, an organization that makes Mission King and forms this powerful alliance between culture and strategy deals with change infinitely more effectively than its competition. The most obvious example of this is that everyone is not waiting around for the king to make the decisions about everything. As a culture matures in healthy and effective ways, more people are empowered to make more and more decisions.
For too long, and in too many organizations of every type, culture has been considered the weak, unprofitable, distracting little brother to strategy. Not so. Real strength, enduring profitability, extraordinary employee engagement, and the next great idea that carries your organization in the future are so much more likely to flow from a Dynamic Culture. The little brother has grown up and it turns out he is a genius. His name is Dynamic Culture.
Every organization needs a strategic plan. Napoleon reportedly said, “Those who fail to plan can plan to fail.“ He was right, but he failed anyway. Great plans spring forth from Dynamic Cultures. Napoleon had the wrong vision and values. He was culturally bankrupt. He wouldn’t have been able to run a fast-food restaurant, let alone a nation. We are talking about a man who re-instituted slavery just eight years after it had been abolished; divorced his wife because she didn’t give birth to a son; deprived women of their individual rights; rigged elections to continue his dictatorial regime; censored and then took control of the press; was self-congratulatory; sacrificed the lives of 500,000 men to invade Russia even after his advisers warned him that would be the cost; a man who said, “I care only for people who are useful to me – and only so long as they are useful.”
Napoleon had a plan, but his strategy was self-serving and his culture was sick because his values were sick. These are just some of the reasons he failed. It is not enough just to have a plan. It is not enough just to have a strategy, even if it is a good one. Without a Dynamic Culture you are susceptible to failure. Sooner or later, a competitor will emerge who integrates mission, strategy and culture, and that competitor will crush all others.
Every organization needs a strategic plan, and part of that plan should be the creation and the growth of a dynamic culture. Your first Strategic Plan can be simple, but let it be driven by who you are (values and culture) and not just what you do or how you do it (strategy).”
Merlin writing now, so as I reflect on the above paragraphs, I considered changing the subtitle word “work” to “church,” making it read “So People Would Love Coming to Church and Accomplishing Great Things Together!” Actually, that book is already written and is known as the Bible and is our Strategic Plan. Unlike corporate America, virtually everyone has a copy but still few possess a working knowledge of its contents and we need not worry about performing the annual updates.
However, maintaining a Dynamic Culture from this book, the Bible, has been quite problematic in the past two centuries in Western Europe and North America with a negative correlation between wealth and self-centered higher education, whereas on other continents, once it’s introduced, are developing their Christian Culture rapidly and the plan is flourishing!
I am reminded of the word “entitlement”, which I first recall in my use in ’75 in the social services realm when I worked briefly in “comprehensive health planning.” The word “entitlement” now is even part of the North American church culture, not perhaps overtly, but individually we all struggle with rationalizing our extravagant lifestyles compared to 95% of the world. So much so, that we become spiritually out of tune, tempted to think our culture and our goodness is sufficient, and perhaps, we are not even capable of verbalizing our personal mission, let alone have we ever committed our Strategic Plan to paper with our spouse and family. And to think I have been pointing fingers at businesses that are not communicating with their employees! What have I been doing under my roof? So what effect does this “spiritual ignorance, actually disobedience” have on me, my family, church, and the subsequent culture dynamics? Likely not much different than in the business world. Perhaps Hospice Care follows entitlement. Sounds better than the Revelation scenario.
Seriously, how many Bibles do you have? Including access on phones and computers? How many times have you read it through? Do you read it frequently? Do you study it sufficiently to even check translations? See how similar the constituents of churches and businesses are? If you are a Christian and own a business today, you need this book. If you are an employee, ask to borrow your employers copy. If he doesn’t have one, buy him one but read it first. That is real “entitlement!” Blessings as you reflect on writing your Strategic Personal Plan and share it around your table. Then you will be “entitled” to watch the Dynamic Culture take shape and new life come forth>>>> Merlin