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The product James and his team at a medical device company have been working on round the clock for over a year is ready to launch. All the principal requirements—technical, social, economic—have been verified. The impact and attractions of various specs on customer experience have been tested and retested. Only two things are standing in the way of rolling it out: management’s ambivalence about the program’s mold-breaking nature and its propensity to want to eliminate every last potential risk.
The obstacles that are delaying the launch appear at first glance to be rooted in technical or compliance issues. But they’re not. Communicated in a series of passive aggressive signals and behaviors, they are, in fact, more about disconnects in corporate culture than anything else. Development culture. Administrative culture. Compliance culture. Operations culture. And more.
The Power of Culture
With growth, companies often lose their connection with the inventive culture that was originally embedded in everything they did. It becomes challenging to match foundational beliefs and the norms that culture encompasses with the realities of moving forward in a complex and dynamic marketplace. Changing markets present a host of challenges that test the mettle of leaders and managers every day at every level, as they press their efforts forward on the frontiers of innovation.
Culture often gets reduced to a series of slides in a presentation deck or a sign on the lobby wall. Its power as a driving force in advancing the company’s purpose, vision, mission, and strategic agenda gets lost. People stop trusting it—or caring about it.
This might seem disappointing yet harmless. Not so. As Nelson Mandela said, “Vision without action is just a dream.” Culture is that vision. It encompasses everything an organization stands for, everything that gets expressed in the everyday thought, language, and actions of people in the organization as they interact to define what moves and decisions to make, what direction to take.
Culture serves as a foundation for what a company stands for and where it’s headed—all of which is based on the values, principles, thoughts, habits, and customs of the people who make it tick. It is also a platform for everyday communication, providing the why, what, and who of planning, decisions, risk management, and problem-solving. In this respect, it serves as an expression. Strategic teams that make things happen, that prepare for the near term and the long term, for success and potential failures, draw on culture for confidence. It is the guide for their everyday thought and behavior.
Rather than mere bureaucracy, James and his team have gotten bogged down in old culture, which can get in the way of progress by blocking critical decisions and posing constraints that prevent people working effectively and collaborating on their mission. On the flip side, my group and our partners have seen the power of strong culture as a catalyst for all kinds of growth, performance, and change initiatives in a variety of settings. Culture can be an asset or a liability. The greatest liability comes with culture, talent, and strategy that are out of sync.
What happens when there’s a disconnect between culture and strategy and everything that flows from them? Just look at the sort of conflicts and miscues we’ve seen with a range of organizations, large and small, including Purdue, GE, P&G, and Boeing. The organization gets shackled in decision-making, risk management, and problem solving. Corporate strategy gets muddled and culture gets confused.
Ask These Questions
So how can you make sure culture doesn’t get stuck on the lobby wall or devolve into a series of empty buzzwords staring up from a very attractive but otherwise empty culture deck, one that nobody really believes, engages with, or follows through on?
Ask yourself these four questions:
1. Do we think and behave as agents of our strategy, our strategic agenda?
2. Do we match our planning and decision-making with a focus on results?
3. Do we think through the impact and risks of our actions on competitive edge?
4. Do our teams serve enterprise stewardship and broader accountability?
Most organizations tend to ask these questions every few years. But that’s not enough. To see whether and how everyday thought and behavior in your company are aligning with culture, you need to ask them regularly and in-depth at all levels of organizational decision-making.
If the answer to any of them is “No,” then it’s time to stop and rethink before taking action.
Daniel Wolf is president and co-founder of Dewar Sloan, a consulting group focused on strategy direction, integration, and execution. For more than 25 years, Dewar Sloan has served hundreds of corporate, healthcare, technology, and nonprofit organizations. Author of “Strategic Teams and Development: The FieldBook for People Making Strategy Happen” and “Prepared and Resolved: The Strategic Agenda for Growth, Performance and Change,” Wolf has held management and governance roles at Fortune 500 companies, SME ventures, and in private equity ventures.