Strategy and culture: how to influence them

A business strategy provides guidance on what a company needs to do in order to achieve its business mission. 

However, a strategy is not set in stone. It’s important to review if necessary.

Especially in times like these, the environment may change and there might be the need to adapt. It can be due to new opportunities or changes in the market, which should not be ignored. For some stakeholders, changing the strategy might be hard, because – let’s face it – not everyone can deal well with change. Therefore, it’s important to explain why it is necessary to adapt the strategic plans and also help colleagues to get out of their comfort zone. Change can be hard, but ultimately there is nothing permanent except change.

The right structures enable the organization to work together efficiently and effectively.

For some, it might be obvious that in order to successfully implement a new strategy also internal processes and structures might need to be reviewed and adjusted. Unfortunately, sometimes this is forgotten, and it actually prevents companies from being successful. Stakeholders might then blame the strategic decisions, while actually the problem might be that teams can not collaborate or actually stand in each other's way.

And – if you already read some of my blog posts, you might notice that I actually talk about that a lot – another crucial aspect is: culture! I can not emphasize more the importance of a good team culture. Especially in hard times or under changing circumstances, teams with a good culture perform better.

Copyright Dr. Heinz Palasser

How I learned to understand culture:

In the image above, you can see what a culture actually consists of. It’s a constant „cycle“ where each element influences the other. Let’s for example start here: a certain behavior results in patterns. Whether this behavior is accepted or disliked, patterns are repeated or avoided. Another crucial factor are expectations or experiences we make, which shape your biography. The last parts are convictions and values. Convictions are things that we as individuals want or think are right, values what we deem to be important. Based on that, we show a certain behavior.

This cycle can „run“ in days, weeks or months, but also be affected by e.g. certain experiences or a certain behavior within milliseconds.

If there is the need to fundamentally change the strategy of a company, it might be required to also adapt the culture accordingly. A possible tool in order to do so are interventions, which should ideally be led by a professional. Examples of such interventions are reframing (like putting a current conviction in new circumstances where it doesn’t fit), mental programming (changing emotions attached to long-lived patterns) or creating new experiences (like putting people artificially in new environments). 

To sum it up, like for other elements in business administration also culture follows a rule set and can be "organized". If you manage the "cycle" above well, you will execute the strategy well and eventually contribute greatly to business success.