Reinventing the Organization

CHAPTER 6

Culture

How Can You Shape the Right Priorities and Behaviors in the Ecosystem?

The business literature is filled with pithy ways of saying that culture trumps strategy. For example, there’s a well-known saying, often (erroneously) attributed to Peter Drucker: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”¹ Few leaders would today deny the importance of organizational culture. It shapes and sustains employee well-being and productivity, business results, customer reputation, and investor confidence. Culture is more difficult to copy than is accessing financial capital, implementing a new technology system, making customer promises, or even creating a strategic plan. For these reasons, culture is central to competitiveness. It ensures sustainability, ...