Culture always leads strategy
Have a plan for culture, or culture will have its own plan for you.
It's probably fair to say that most organisations have a challenge when it comes to their internal culture.
The culture in an organisation is one of those things that gets developed over a long period of time, but then buries itself deep in the heart and soul of the business.
Like a giant immovable beast it continues to exist as an unspoken ideology that is very difficult to shift quickly.
It's not something you can easily point to - there is unfortunately no culture regulator that you can adjust as you need to, but its the undercurrent that secretly drives the performance of the collective and determines its future prospects.
It no secret that there is a huge requirement for almost all businesses these days to be agile when it comes to shifting how they operate and addressing opportunities and risks that come along, but amidst all of this rapid change there is this massive, bloody speed bump of culture.
Often overlooked and discounted, it always leads strategy and influences its application and success.
No matter how good the thinking and research that is used to create a strategy, if an awareness of how the organisational culture will interpret and act in the face of the proposed change is absent; the result will most certainly be poor.
Culture is the so-called 'elephant in the room' - and it moves and is as co-operative as one too.
Have a plan for culture, or culture will have its own plan for you.