Facing Corporate Culture Challenges

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Peter Drucker

Companies are still trying to figure out how to rebuild a corporate culture post-pandemic 2020. In the recent HBR July-August 2024 issue, Erin Meyer provides six simple guidelines to assist leadership in facing culture-building challenges.

1. Build a culture based on real-world dilemmas: When you articulate your culture, use absolute positives

2. Move Your Culture from Abstraction to Action: “Dilemma-test” them to determine whether they are actionable enough to be helpful in real decision-making situations.

3. Paint Your Culture in Full Color: Once you have identified and dilemma-tested a clear set of values, articulate your desired culture using concrete, colorful images to get the values to stick.

4. Hire the Right People, and They Will Build the Right Culture: If you hire people whose personalities don’t align with your culture, no matter what else you get right, you are unlikely to get the desired behavior.

5. Make Sure that Culture Drives Strategy: Sometimes, ideas you are skeptical of will fail, and everyone will learn. But other times, those ideas will pan out, and innovation will happen.

6. Don’t Be a Purist: While your culture should drive decision-making throughout the organization, consider it a North Star, not a straitjacket.

Identify which dilemmas will drive decision-making throughout the company, but also consider situations in which your culture would not apply.

In straightforward terms, culture is the personality of a group. In the same way you can describe an individual’s personality, you can also define a group’s culture. Although everyone in every group is different, the group culture influences the behavior of the individuals.

Check out the full article: Build a Corporate Culture That Works (hbr.org)

Are you a leader struggling to find your culture's "North Star"? Executive Clarity Solutions can provide guidance. Schedule your session today at Executive Clarity Solutions.