Tag Archives: culture eats strategy

Culture Eats Strategy

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PacMac

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” — Peter Drucker

Amen! When it comes to organizational success, culture can make the difference between reaching your goals and falling short . . . as Mr. Drucker pointed out, more so than strategy, and I believe more than hard work or innovation. Yes, it takes a clear vision, dedication, and creative ideas to succeed, but culture provides either the gas to move those things forward or the steady leak that will cause them to sputter to a stop.

The trouble is, culture is a hard thing to wrap your arms around. It can be incredibly powerful but hard to define . . . it’s about attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and norms that are reinforced over time . . . it’s the “urban legends” and unwritten rules that informally get passed on to individuals throughout the organization. Simply describing your intended culture doesn’t make it so. Rather it is philosophy and actions, repeated over time, that shape culture.

My agency is situated on a large campus, similar to many college campuses. When I first joined the organization, part of the culture was that you did not walk on the grass — you walked on the sidewalk to get to where ever you needed to go, even if that was not the most direct path. I don’t think I ever saw that rule written any where, it was just the way we did it here at Chaddock. To this day, twenty years later, and even though I had a hand in trying to change that aspect of our culture, I still occasionally twinge when I see someone cut across the grassy parade ground to get to another building. That is the power of culture.

So how do you change a culture if you can’t really define it or measure it, and you can’t dictate it from “on high”? First and foremost, I believe you have to identify a few key behaviors that you and your team consistently model. If you want to build a culture of transparency, for example, you need to repeatedly demonstrate an openness to sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly with your staff and board, rather than simply cherry-picking the information that paints the picture you desire. Pick one or two behaviors for your team to start with, and when they gain traction you can add a couple more.

Secondly, you need ask questions and listen. Why are staff carrying out a process in a way that makes no sense to you, or resisting a change that will make their lives easier? If you approach the question with the assumption that they are intelligent, well-meaning people who want the best for the organization (thereby modeling a culture you would like to foster), you are more likely to have the patience to peel back the layers to identify the reasoning behind their behaviors. “We’re required to do it that way,” is one we’ve had to battle. It seems like a plausible response given the vast number of external regulations that govern our work, but once you dig down a bit . . . Who requires it? . . . Could we look at the current rules and see if that is still the case? . . . we have sometimes found that the parameters we thought we had to work within no longer (and maybe never did) exist. As a result, a simplified process can be put into place without the resistance that comes when staff feel like you simply don’t understand the impact of a decision on a rule that “they know” they are required to follow.

Trying to shift a culture is a case of needing to go slow to go fast. Changing “the way we do things” takes time and patience but, given the momentum that you can gain as you go, it actually takes far less time and energy than battling well-intentioned resistance or fixing issues that have arisen because of attitudes or behaviors that are not aligned with who you want your organization to be.

While a leader can’t “make” a culture happen, if we want to effectively implement strategy then being aware of, and taking steps to positively impact, organizational culture should be at the top of your priority list.

It’s time for breakfast.

 

Dance Their Own Dance

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Dance PhotoWe strive to be an innovative organization that continually seeks new ways to meet the needs of the children and families who turn to us for care. To do that, however, we have to have a higher than normal tolerance for letting key staff “dance their own dance.” What exactly does that mean? Well, for starters, it’s sort of like when you hope your children grow up to be independent thinkers . . . and then they do. And the first time that happens, you question a bit the wisdom of encouraging such independence, because it would really be easier if they would just follow your lead. But of course, easier rarely equates with better.

Letting your staff dance their own dance means letting go of the fallacy that you alone know the best way to accomplish your organization’s goals. It means having the confidence to allow staff to try things, in their own way, to further your mission. Certainly, there have to be parameters. For us, the parameters are our mission/vision/values, our strategic framework, and our SMaC recipe (more on that next week). But beyond that, the leaders in our organization are given a good deal of latitude in searching out and testing new ways to extend our mission reach. Do all of their efforts work out? Of course not. Sometimes it’s the right project at the wrong time. Sometimes everything works out except for the funding, and sometimes a great concept falls prey to the “devil in the details.” And still, I believe you have to not only give permission, but encourage them to keep dancing.

Allowing your key leaders to dance their own dance fuels the passion, the commitment, the creativity that it takes to see a challenge with new eyes, and break through to a game-changing solution. Our leaders live in a world of gray. All the black and white parts of the job happen closer to the direct service. By the time a challenge gets to our senior leaders there usually is no one right answer . . . and, by the time someone is a senior leader they should have demonstrated that their instincts are trustworthy, so why not let them dance!

I was recently talking to someone who commented that “culture eats strategy.” So true! All the more reason that your culture should foster innovation. I have found that many non-profts, in trying to be good stewards of their resources, avoid failure at all costs. No dancing allowed! While I can’t fault these leaders for wanting to be good stewards, I haven’t found the safety/conformity/minimal risk route to be the best way to reach our strategic goals. We tend to follow the “fail faster” school of thought. Try a pilot, adapt as you go, and chart a new path. While perhaps a bit scarier than following someone else’s lead, when you’re the one forging the trail, you get to decide the direction the path will go. As caretaker of this ministry, I see determining our direction as one of my primary responsibilities . . . so as for me and my team, we’re going to dance!