Implementing Strategy Culture

1
Implementing Strategy - Culture Leadership

• Creating strategy-supportive corporate culture
• - what is culture?
• - where does it come from?
• - strong v. weak cultures
• Creating good fit between strategy culture
• Building ethical values support into culture
• Driving implementation through strategic
  leadership
• Leading the process of corrective adjustments

2
Implementing Strategy - Culture Leadership

• Culture is a set of shared values, attitudes
• a way of life. Patterns of how we do things
  around here, the company lore
• Unique to business philosophy, principles
  strategymanifested in values, practices,
  standards policies..
• Can originate anywhere but usually founders
  leaders

3
Implementing Strategy - Culture Leadership

• Can be a very powerful tool in implementation
  process
• - system of informal values, peer pressures,
  standards culturally acceptable behaviour
  identification with strategy vision
• Can energise org. in strategy-supportive way
• Sizeable mismatch weakens management actions

4
Implementing Strategy - Culture Leadership

• Emergent embedded cultures
• Multiple cultures sub-cultures
• Strong / adaptive / entrepreneurial cultures
• Weak / unadaptive cultures

5
Implementing Strategy - Culture Leadership

• Culture reinforced through value system, reward
  system, co. lore, ceremonies, rites
• Continuity of leadership, small size, stable
  groups, geographic concentration org. success
  all contribute to strong culture.
• Being overly political, hostile to change, not
  valuing initiative leadership, complacency
  insular thinking all contribute to weak cultures.

6
Implementing Strategy - Culture Leadership

• Creating the fit between strategy culture
• Strategy-makers responsibility
• Strategy-implementers responsibility
• Need for symbolic substantive actions
• Not a short-term exercise

7
Implementing Strategy - Culture Leadership

• Building ethical standards values into the
  culture
• Principles that guide decisions / behaviour of
  managers wrt whether they are morally right /
  wrong
• Caring about how you do business
• Reinforce values through screening,
  indoctrination, training, tradition, code of
  ethics, structure, compliance mechanisms, mgt
  endorsement, word of mouth...

8
Strategic Leadership

• Many different roles to play as leader
• 1. Staying on top of what is happening
• 2. Promote culture that energises org to perform
  well
• 3. Keep org responsive to change opportunities
• 4. Consensus-building containing power
  struggles
• 5. Enforce ethical standards
• 6. Corrective actions nb to improve execution
  performance

9
Implementing Strategy - Culture Leadership

• Creatively adapting reshaping strategy to
  unfolding events
• Interactive process of looping, recycling
  fine-tuning - continually evolving process..
• Best test of good strategic leadership
• - improving business performance
• - agility
• - good place to work