Strategic Teams – Culture and Strategy
At one level or another, corporate culture is a driver of strategic and economic value. In broad organizational terms, this idea of corporate culture brings together principles, belief systems and practices. The expression of organizational culture speaks to the everyday thought and behavior of people who are responsible for making strategy happen.
So far, so good. But what about the management and leadership of culture?
The Strategic Influence of Culture
Our research has explored corporate culture as the context for building team competence, readiness, depth, strength, and confidence. We have also explored corporate culture as an expression that conveys “What We Stand for and Where We’re Headed” as an enterprise. These themes provide goal posts for the leadership and management of strategy and culture, each with strong foundations and powerful expressions. With these in mind, we can attend to a framework for culture and strategy guidance that serves teams and individuals.
Culture as a Catalyst for the Strategic Agenda
Organizational culture serves a couple of different roles relative to strategy direction, integration, and execution. At the most basic level, we can start with the following:
- Culture as an Informant
- of the organization’s strategic agenda
- of principal work processes and roles
- Culture as a Working Platform
- for sound, effective team engagement
- for advanced Learning and Development
Surrounding these two important roles of culture and strategy are knowledge streams, project disciplines, social constructs and market influences. Also shaping our view of culture and strategy are the organization’s focus and intentions, and the preparation and perseverance of people at every level. These factors season and temper the trust, energy and power of organizations. These same factors provide the boundaries and incentives for everyday strategic thought and behavior.
Organizational culture mixes with strategy, resources, and structure to make individuals in groups more or less capable, more or less motivated, more or less inspired, and more or less ready to fully engage in making strategy happen. A positive “prepared and resolved” cultural environment is one in which people are attentive to challenges and fully engaged in the organization’s strategic agenda. That kind of cultural environment provides a sense of “the way we do things around here” along with a sense of everyday responsibility for people making strategy happen.
The ideas defined above are the subject of our new fieldbook entitled Strategic Teams and Development planned for release at the end of the year. The fieldbook is designed as a resource for individuals and teams at every level of the enterprise. From every angle, Strategic Teams and Development speaks to the ideas that contribute to better, stronger, smarter, faster teams that are focused on results, and on making strategy happen, taking care of today and getting ready for tomorrow.
Daniel Wolf is the President of Dewar Sloan, a consulting group with expertise in strategy and governance. He is the author of Strategic Teams and Development — as well as Prepared and Resolved: The Strategic Agenda for Growth, Performance and Change.
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