Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast

Last weekend I was sitting around with a couple of friends, who all work in a diverse cross section of businesses, discussing the current economic situation and how it impacts upon each of us, when the subject line of this blog was dropped into the conversation.

The instant response from most of us was: no! Or words to that effect.

However, once you actually start to dissect it and think about it, then yes it does make an awful lot of sense. Strategy, as always, comes from the top and really it doesn’t matter how good or how cutting edge your strategy is; if you don’t have the people with the right attitude (culture) the there is little or no chance of the strategy working! Unless you have a massive personnel change first.

Over the years, whilst discussing recruiting for them, I’ve heard an endless number of clients tell me how unique their culture is and I’ve always wondered about it. I vividly recall the consolidation phase that the big accountancy firms went through and the fallout from the ‘mergers’ as the cultures between the firms clashed. I started working with a client when it only had 3 employees and watched it grow to 100+ and helped it develop its own culture from scratch rather than by buying firms to create itself. The MD really did have the opportunity to shape the strategy and culture of that business; but was it unique? Or was he creating a culture that simply mirrored his own personality?

After much discussion and batting ideas back and forth, the majority of us had changed our opinion from a definite no to a fairly clear yes.

So, if you ‘d like to discuss with InterSearch in the UK how we can work with you to help develop your culture and strategy through the recruitment of key personnel, then contact one of the Directors at www.intersearchuk.com 

By Keith Tracy