Organizational Culture – what is it and why does it eat strategy for breakfast?

Organizational culture determines the success, employee engagement and business results of your company, regardless of how effective your strategy is.

Peter Drucker, a researcher of organizational processes, an expert and management guru of the 20th century, said: „organizational culture eats strategy for breakfast.” He thus drew attention to the importance of the human factor in every company. No matter how detailed and solid your strategy is. If the people implementing it do not cooperate well with you and among themselves. For instance, they do not create an appropriate organizational culture or start leaving the company, your projects will fail. What really is organizational culture and why should you take care of it and cultivate it regularly? 

What is organizational culture really?

Organizational culture is not about comfortable chairs or friendships made in the company. It’s about how your employees behave in crisis situations, cope with pressure, react to various, even difficult challenges and how they treat co-workers or customers. A company’s organizational culture reflects a certain mentality, work ethic and values of the owner and employees. If we talk about a company that has a „ruthless culture”. We may mean an organization, in which employees aggressively compete for promotions and bonuses, disregarding each other’s feelings. We mean something completely different when we talk about a family-friendly or creativity-friendly culture. 

Organizational culture is part of management theory. According to Edgar Schein, a researcher of organizational culture. It is: „the totality of fundamental assumptions that a given group has invented, discovered or created while learning to adapt to the environment and integrate internally.”   

Elements of organizational culture

More and more people, including younger generations, are more mission-oriented. This is due to the conscious development of one’s career. And also, the need for development and a sense of influence on the company in which one works. Fewer and fewer people want to work „for the sake of work”. Companies with a good organizational culture will survive and thrive. All because they understand the needs of their employees and work with them on the company’s mission and vision. For an organizational culture to function well and attract great employees, several factors must be taken into account:

• Purpose

A strong company mission helps answer the question “why?”. This is attractive to an employee who understands why he or she does a given job. What impact he or she has on the goals of the entire organization.

• Property law

A good organizational culture gives people the opportunity to be responsible for results and have autonomy in organizing their own work in order to achieve common goals.

• Community

It is a feeling of belonging to a group of people who share similar principles, goals and values.

• Effective communication

Ensures consistency in processes, taking time to get to know each employee and the communication dynamics of team members. It takes into account that everyone in the company is a separate, independent entity and cares about the best possible way of interacting in the company. 

• Good leadership

The leader, who is the basis of the dynamics of organizational culture, must constantly promote the mission, standards, community, as well as processes in the company. It is the entire „drive” of culture in the company – without it the other four elements will not develop.

Dependencies between organizational culture and strategy

Organizational culture is never specifically defined. It is more complex, constantly changing. In fact, it depends on many factors, including the mood of the people who define it (employees, customers). In turn, strategy defines the direction and goal, is more rational, certain and has a specific financial aspect. No matter how hard you work on a perfect strategy in your company. Ultimately, it is the people who will implement it who will be responsible for its success or failure. This means that if you focus only on goals, numbers or analyzes and forget to implement the appropriate organizational culture, your company may not work properly to achieve common goals. By applying a strategy, you create certain rules of the game. However, it is the organizational culture that determines how this game will be played.

Continuous change

Like many other factors in a company, organizational culture is not static. It can change at any time depending or independently of you. You are responsible for certain innovations, such as new company rules or procedures. But your employees, being part of the organizational culture, also have a huge impact on its transformation. Either when they leave or new ones arrive (not necessarily sharing your values and mission). Of course, customers also have a big influence. If they are dissatisfied, they may spread false information about the company. Therefore, causing others to have a bad opinion of it as well. Despite attempts to question such feedback, you will not always be able to convince others that the organizational culture in your company is completely different than some people claim. 

Organizational culture eats strategy for breakfast!

If your employees do not share your company’s vision. They will not be enthusiastic about implementing the plan – in which case the strategy simply has no chance. No matter how strong your strategic plan is. It’s effectiveness can be held back by team members if they don’t share the right culture with you. Interestingly, this organizational culture exists whether you work on it or not. It is a certain core of the company, and it is most often created by its founder, often unconsciously. Remember that the actions of the boss or managers are more important than their words in the process of creating culture. After all, you can talk a lot about, for example, respecting employees, but without actually showing it, such words will simply be empty.

Do you want to find out what level the organizational culture is in your company? Take a free test:www.q26. pl.