The new conversation about being strategic starts with the interesting and powerful principle: Culture trumps strategy. Talk with organizations about what it means to be strategic and expect variations in perspective.
For some it's disabling competition. This is getting into price, promotion, feature, distribution and value wars with the intent to mame and hopefully turn competitors into unemployment machines.
For others it's disruptive innovation. This is spinning out innovations that disrupt whole industries with the intent of making old ways irrelevant.
In another group, it's diversified agility. This is getting into businesses that cycle differently so overall numbers stay positive regardless of which businesses happen to up or down in any given economic and geopolitic.
These are three different approaches to strategy. There is a fourth approach that focuses on culture. They believe that the end of the strategic planning day, culture trumps strategy. They believe that the right culture is the root cause of the right strategy at the right time and that even the best strategy cannot be implemented in a weak culture.
They also believe that a flourishing culture is one thing that other organizations cannot replicate. Culture is a unique differentiator. And the good news is that we now have the science to support the building of flourishing cultures.
