Changing Your Strategy? Change Your Culture.

We already know that culture eats strategy for breakfast. If your strategy doesn’t map to your culture, … well, culture always wins. The

You want to change my culture?

first thing you need to do as a leader is to understand exactly what your culture is. What behaviors do your employees value? Who do they look up to? Who do they follow? Leaders who don’t understand the current culture (as can happen when an outsider is brought in) are almost always doomed to failure.

Let’s say that you do understand the culture but you need to change the strategy in ways that will conflict with the culture. Can you do it? Yes, but only if you change the culture first. Fortunately, you can change a culture. It takes time and requires a firm grasp of human nature, but you can do it. The first thing to remember is that you have to lead the way. You can’t just say, “stop doing what you were doing and do something new.” You have to start by behaving the way you want others to behave. If you’re a good leader, your employees will model their behavior on yours. The atmosphere will change. The culture will change.

There are a few other things you need to do as well. You can find them in the video.