It’s the Culture, stupid!
In a recent presentation at an event in Sao Paulo, Gartner presented data from a survey that showed that 39 percent of respondents believe that culture is a barrier, but not the most significant obstacle to achieving their digital ambitions. The same study indicated that 11 percent feel that culture is not a barrier.
Do you know what this means? It means that a whopping 50 percent of the people interviewed have no idea what they are talking about.
As Peter Drucker put it, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” I have never read a more accurate sentence, and anyone who ignores this fact does so at their peril. The sad thing is that when people ignore something so obvious they are top-level executives of a company, they do so at the risk of the livelihoods of the families of everyone who works there.
There is no way to make the necessary changes so that the company can, not only survive but thrive in the exponential world we live in. The changes brought about by the evolution of technology are occurring more and more rapidly, and if your company is not prepared to surf the wave at the right time, you can be sure that others will be. If your company and its main competitors end all drowned by this wave, there will be no lack of people ready to create new companies that will be born already aligned with the new reality.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
- Peter Drucker
Individual attitudes and corporate culture go hand in hand. Generally, a company’s culture directly derives from the attitude of the people who created them. Over time this influence will be diluted if no effort is made to maintain it, and sometimes despite such an effort.
The positive side of the Gartner study is that 36 percent of respondents believe that culture is the biggest barrier (25 percent) or that it is one of the things that helps to achieve digital ambitions (11 percent). However, only 14 percent responded that culture is “the” factor that leverages their ability to achieve business goals.
The latter 14 percent work in companies that should be keeping their competitors awake at nights because they not only identified that culture is the predominant factor as they seem to recognize that their companies are already reaping the benefits of having a positive culture.
Some companies, with a higher concentration among those created in the last five years, have already been born with founders worried about the heaving a positive culture. A culture where questioning is constant and positive individual attitude is encouraged. Not all experiences in this sense have the same level of success, regardless of the level of success that the company has or has not reached in the market.
But then success in the market is not representative of the success of the company’s internal culture? The answer to this can be complicated or straightforward. Within the focus of this article, no. Why is that? Because in this case what I am questioning is the medium to long-term survival capability of the organization. This is always a point of conflict in the reality of business life. Many companies’ lives are driven by last quarter results and by the next quarter’s forecast. This attitude favors short-term results, often to the detriment of activities that are necessary for the long-term survival of the organization.
For short-term investors and many executives, this is ideal. What matters is how much dividend will be distributed and how much bonus will be paid. For long-term investors, more interested in the growth of company value, and for the families whose livelihood depends on the existence of the company, the focus is entirely different.
Creating a culture that maintains employee engagement, positive financial results, and allows the company to grow is not easy. It’s harder still when you don’t understand the importance of doing so.
As difficult as it may be to believe that, there are organizations where executives think that changing the décor and adding a ping-pong or pool table around the office is enough for the company to become innovative and that so it can perform its digital transformation. In some cases, executives sincerely believe this. In other cases, the situation is more grave because executives don’t believe this, but they think that what is important is to give the impression that the company understands the transformations that are taking place and that it’s “tuned in.”
It is crucial to understand the importance of organizational culture and the attitude of individuals to the creation and maintenance of a creative, flexible and thriving company empowered by the evolution of technology. Without this first step, the path tends to end up at a dead end.
