Culture eats strategy for breakfast - Essay Example

? [CULTURE EATS STRATEGY FOR BREAKFAST] Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast Peter Drucker’s quote; “Culture eats Strategy for Breakfast” is a true revelation of what happens in organizations in the contemporary business environment. What Drucker meant by this statement is that. However, how best a strategy may be, it is subject to failure, if the culture is not simultaneously built to support its implementation (Allison & Reeves, 2011, p, 103). Therefore, the major determinant of a strategy’s success in an organization is the organization’s culture. For instance, an organization’s leaders may want to implement a new employee appraisal and rewarding program, but this may be contrary to the organization’s culture. The organization may not be fully prepared to support the new employee appraisal and rewarding program. Therefore, management will face significant barriers in achieving success of such a program, unless they develop strategies of removing or mitigating such cultural barriers. Drucker’s statement is true because, the first thing that organizational culture can affect is the implementation of new strategies. Therefore, culture eats strategy for breakfast. It can be noted from the definition of organizational culture, and from its components that organizational culture is made up of many aspects that can hinder the implementation of strategies within an organization. This is because organizational culture has an influence on how firms exercise their choices to take decisions against competing options, in the way they deliver their strategy (Reilly & Williams, 2012, p, 45). It is imperative to note that organizational culture is superior to strategies that leaders may want to implement. Culture determines the response of employees to new programs and their commitment to such strategies. Given that organizational culture is an outgrowth of leadership, it is possible to change organizational culture by involving all stakeholders. This is because organizational culture represents the overall aspects of beliefs and values of a company’s employees. It is the major determinant of how employees act, within an organization, and how they behave. It should be noted that decision making is extremely crucial in any organization. Organizational decisions, especially managerial decisions determine the organization’s direction in terms of achieving its objectives. Therefore, when a firm makes right decisions in a timely manner, it benefits from superior performance. Efficiency is achieved because such an organization does not waste time. Consequently, the nature of organizational culture determines the period taken for decision making. Successful organizations have a culture of involving all the stakeholders in making decisions, and the process takes the least time. Culture also determines how people work in an organization to ensure that new strategies are implemented successfully. Organizational culture is the key determinant of how far management can trust employees so that they can be involved in successful implementation of new strategies that can ensure organizational success. Without trust, major organizational activities cannot be performed effectively. Trust is a key factor in the smooth running of an organization. Productivity is achieved when there is trust between management and workers such that they work together in an environment of mutual trust and respect. Management should trust employees. Employees should trust management too. This is what can ensure organizational success and organizational stability. Trust among top management team members facilitates strategy implementation (Nelson & Quick, 2011, p, 499). Employees can buy ideas from management readily when there is trust. Organizational strategy involves planning, program budgeting and performance measurement, among other activities that may lead to superior organizational performance or effectiveness. These activities are very useful to an organization, but are limited. In reality, most organizational leaders face problems in strategic planning (Fairholm, 2009, p, 1). Planning, program budgeting and performance measurement in an organization are limited by an organization’s culture. Organizational leaders may come up with colourful plans and strategies that can improve organizational efficiency, but if these strategies are not backed up with the organizations’ cultures, they may lead to embarrassing failures. Therefore, organizational culture should support strategies for implementation to be successful and bear fruit in terms of organizational success. According to Dasgupta, Gupta, & Sahay (2012, p, 2), organizational factors are crucial pillars that support technological innovation and technology strategy. Such factors include organizational culture, among others. It is impossible to achieve innovation and implement technology strategy, if there is no full support from the organization’s culture. For instance, if an organization wants to implement an integrated management information system, which will enable the organization make use advanced technology, it may face various challenges, depending on its culture. If employees of such an organization are used to bureaucratic management, and are afraid of the new roles that this change may bring, strategy implementation may face strong resistance from employees. They may not cooperate with management, especially, when required to train and adopt into the proposed new strategy. Consequently, this may lead to failure in strategy implementation, as employees seek to continue doing things the old way. This is an excellent scenario where culture eats strategy for breakfast. Strategic management is essential for organizations to adapt to their changing environments. Success in strategy implementation depends on proper match between strategy and organizational structure (Tse & Olsen, 2013, p, 2). Therefore, organization culture and strategy implementation are compliments, in that implementation of strategies is impossible without the support of culture. On the other hand, organizational culture does not depend on strategy implementation. Culture is important in achieving organizational effectiveness (Willcoxson & Millett, 2000, p, 91). Organizational culture is a set of behaviours, norms, beliefs and principles, which are a distinctive characteristic of an organization. Some management science pioneers have called organizations cultures. This means that the core component of an organization is its culture. Most companies are known by their organizational or the culture of the founders of such organizations. A company whose leaders have foresight tends to preserve its culture, and seldom changes with the changes in trends and fashions. Therefore, it is difficult to implement new strategies without consideration of culture because employees will respond as per the current organizational culture. Like in taking breakfast, the first meal of the day, strategy implementation in an organization needs to conform to culture. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. It is necessary to identify existing or new targets of culture, if organizational culture and organizational strategy are to be implemented appropriately (Willcoxson & Millett, 2000, p, 97). Since the organizational strategy is dependent on organizational culture, proper understanding of the latter is necessary in ensuring that strategy implementation is achieved successfully. Most organizations have attained success because they have a strong and consistent culture that is well coordinated and integrated. This is what determines conformity (Ehtesham, Muhammad, & Muhammad, 2011, p, 80). There is a strong link between organizational performance and organizational culture. Therefore, organizational culture is a component of organizational success, if it is line with organizational strategies to be implemented. General trends of employees in terms of their behaviour and thinking are embedded in organizational culture. Managers should be able to predict such trends before introducing or seeking to implement any of the new strategies (Sun, 2008, p, 138). Organizational culture creates a feeling of identity among personnel. This feeling promotes commitment to the organization. It also creates a competitive edge for new members to understand acceptable behavior to enhance stability. It is vital that new employees adapt to organizational culture to avoid conflicts and slow down the process of decision making. It also increases organizational efficiency. This is because organizational influences employee attitude, and motivation to innovation and creativity. Without these elements, strategies cannot be implemented successfully, within an organization. Organizations need to adopt a culture that allows employees to share knowledge. As managers seek to achieve this end, the existing organizational culture is the determinant of whether employees will respond to the programs, which are rich with incentive to start sharing their knowledge and learning with others (Milne, 2007, p, 28) In conclusion, the statement, “Culture eats Strategy for Breakfast,” made by Drucker is true. This inference has been made after a careful analysis of the challenges that most organizations face in the dynamic business world. The current business environment is characterized with dynamic trends, which organizations that seek success should try to adapt. However, in many cases, implementation of new strategies in such organizations to match with the current trends has failed because the leaders either tried to break the existing organizational, cultural ties, or did not address the possible impacts of organizational culture adequately. In other words, organizations have become so much concerned with culture to an extent of this affecting the way the organizational strategy is run, which ideally has affected many of these organizations adversely because they are forced to do things that sometimes are not strategy-friendly. It is recommended that visionary leaders who seek to achieve success in their organizations should analyze organizational culture before introducing or implementing new strategies to avoid resistance. They should ensure that organizational culture promote employee commitment towards the achievement of organizational objectives. Additionally, when employees are committed to having the same norms and values, in line with the organizational culture, performance can be increased, as well as, the achievement of organizational goals (Shahzad, 2012, p, 195). References Allison, E., & Reeves, D. B. 2011. Renewal Coaching Fieldbook: How Effective Leaders Sustain Meaningful Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Press . Dasgupta, M., Gupta, R., & Sahay, A. 2012. Linking Technological Innovation, Technology Strategy and Organizational Factors. SAGE Journals, pp.1-5. Ehtesham, U. M., Muhammad, T. M., & Muhammad, S. A. 2011. Relationship between Organizational Culture and Performance Management Practices: A Case of University in Pakistan. Journal of Competitiveness, pp.78-86. Fairholm, M. R. 2009. Leadership and Organizational Strategy. The Innovation Journal , pp.1-2. Milne, P. 2007. Motivation, Incentives and Organisational Culture. Journal of Knowledge Management, pp.28-38. Nelson, D. L., & Quick, J. C. 2011. Organizational Behavior: Science, the Real World, and You. Mason: South-Western Cengage Learning Press. Reilly, P. A., & Williams, T. 2012. Global HR: Challenges Facing the Function. Burlington: Gower Press. Shahzad, F. 2012. Impact of Organizational Culture on Organizational Performance: An Overview . International Journal of Contemporary Research in Business , pp.975-985. Sun, S. 2008. Organizational Culture and Its Themes. International Journal of Business and Management, pp.137-141. Tse, E. C.-Y., & Olsen, M. D. 2013. The Impact of Strategy And Structure On The Organizational Performance of Restaurant Firms. SAGE Journals, pp.1-3. Willcoxson, L., & Millett, B. 2000. The Management of Organisational Culture. Australian Journal of Management & Organisational Behaviour, pp. 91-99. Read More