Hone

Chapter 3The Nervous System of Strategy

 

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

As strategists, the two of us would be long retired – Geoff sailing every day and Steve doing whatever crazy fitness program he's into – if we had a dollar for every time someone threw this quote in our face, usually as an edgy challenge to the need to do the strategy work that we consider important. We have a lot of admiration for management theorist Peter Drucker, to whom that quote is widely attributed. Interestingly, there is no evidence he actually ever uttered this phrase. In fact, the Drucker Institute (and they would know, right?) said that Drucker never said it. He writes in his 1992 book Managing for the Future, “Culture, no matter how defined, is singularly persistent.” The quote is consistent with Drucker's body of work, which often emphasized the human side of management. The idea that a firm's culture can override the best‐laid plans is also Drucker‐esque.

But we think the quote is highly problematic, and frankly outright wrong, because it presents culture as somehow separate from strategy. The quote makes it sound like culture is some amorphous smoke monster (with apologies to those of you who never watched the TV show Lost) that can't be controlled or managed. That's simply not the case. Culture doesn't just magically materialize due to the charming, charismatic, quirky, or laissez‐faire nature of senior executives. Culture is a strategy choice. As a leader, you have the power ...