“The fact is, culture eats strategy for lunch. You can have a good strategy in place, but if you don’t have the culture and the enabling systems that allow you to successfully implement that strategy, the culture of the organization will defeat the strategy.” Richard Clark, CEO of Merck (2005 – 2010)
In a study conducted by Bain Consulting in 2008, 91% of the 1200 senior executives at global companies agreed that “culture is as important as strategy for business success”. It further revealed that 81% of executives agreed that “a company without a winning culture was doomed to mediocrity.” In a more recent study by Booz and Company in 2013 , 96% of the 2200 respondents agreed that “culture change is needed in their organisation” while 51% agree “that their culture needs a major overhaul”.
These are startling numbers. If organisational culture is so important, why is it not one of the top items on the agenda?
In the second of this 6 part Change Management series, we outlined the importance of communicating your change and actively engaging your stakeholders.
In this article, we discuss the importance of designing and building a culture that supports your vision.