The #1 Reason Big Strategic Initiatives Fail

It’s been said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”.¹ I believe every leader needs to internalize this truth.

Like any proverb, it can be misinterpreted.

By “culture” I mean normal behaviors. Whatever people normally do or don’t do, whatever behaviors people accept without challenge, and whatever values are expressed by those behaviors, that’s your culture.

By “strategy” I mean a leader’s plans. It’s the mission statements executives present in slide decks, processes managers attempt to introduce, or system decisions made by technical leaders which may or may not be followed “on the ground”.

Using these definitions, the point is this: culture is far more powerful than strategy. If you want a group of people to change and propose a strategy that doesn’t take culture into account, it will most likely fail. Do this enough times and you will actually create a culture of ignoring plans handed down from on high. I’m not demeaning effective strategy, but it must take culture into account.

Consider a technology department that lacks architectural cohesiveness. Several teams each have picked disparate solutions to the same problems. Opportunity is being lost for lack of collaboration. It’s inefficient. As a technical leader, what would you do?

The strategy-oriented person might focus on process here. He might create an architecture team and tell everyone they need to get sign-off on decisions. He might add review steps required for all work items going through the system. These processes either fail because people work around them, or “succeed” by harsh enforcement and frustrate many people.

The culture-oriented person asks, why is this happening? He speaks with team leaders. He realizes, people on these teams are siloed; in their remote environment, they never see anyone else. They don’t recognize the problem or understand what’s expected. He recognizes that while many people just want to avoid the friction of collaboration, some are open to it but don’t know how or where to have discussions. There’s been no invitation to collaborate, no Slack channel created for that, no clear pathway for participation, and no messaging about what behaviors need to change.

By speaking with people, this leader expresses the impact of the problem. He gets buy-in from key people, those willing to engage with a solution. A Slack channel and architecture group does form, but this time there’s been grassroots involvement and rounds of communication.

Now the time does come for real change. Suppose this group decides, “for each programming language we will now have consistency by using a common set of formatters and linters.” It will involve enforcement. As tiny as it is, this change will make some people upset.

But this is more than just a process change. Changes and their intent are communicated with persuasion, taking into account what the teams face day-to-day. Team members have been involved in it and act as advocates. Resources are provided to overcome barriers and make the change easy for everyone. The initial, very small change is broadly enforced with support of management. People who didn’t participate in the discussion but complain at this point are heard out and worked with. The bar is raised (without micro-managing).

People may feel like this is too much effort or such a small change. Rolling out a new process, giving people roles and having it all nicely documented on the wiki is much quicker. Many organizations do this and call it done.

But this is like the farmer who finds a boulder in one of his fields, preventing use of effective tools in that area. Removing it is hard work and the result is a hole, not more produce. But in the long term it pays dividends he won’t get by working around it and calling the job done. A small change that get enculturated is far more valuable than a huge initiative that doesn’t stick.

In the example above, I would say this leader has done more than align his teams on code linters. He’s shown change can happen. He’s made a stiff, stubborn culture malleable. The ball is rolling.

The slow process of culture change requires us be unsatisfied with the status quo without being demoralized. Leading long-range culture change efforts while maintaining morale is mature leadership.

If you understand how much culture matters, here are a few brief implications: