Executing your strategy more successfullyCulture eats strategy for breakfast |
To succeed, strategies can’t just live on paper – they must be part of employees’ everyday actions and decisions. Yet there are some well-known problems with typical corporate strategies: they are often too abstract, irrelevant to day-to-day decision making, attempt to cover too much, aren’t supported by facts, or are inconsistently applied.
This lack of understanding at all levels, but particularly at the ‘grass roots’ level has a direct and often negative impact on performance. For example, if your strategy is to expand globally by acquisition, but your people don’t understand what you mean by ‘global’ or what you need to acquire, and do not have the skills or technology to team effectively across borders, you won’t get the results you want.
Similarly, if your new strategy relies on innovation and teamwork, but employees don’t understand when innovation is important and what teaming looks like in these instances, or that they believe from past experience that any failed projects will taint their chances of promotion, they will be unlikely to innovate and team – precisely what your strategy relies on.
At Deloitte, we believe that employee behaviour is the lead indicator of organisational performance. We also recognise that culture is an asset that is unique to an organisation and is very difficult to replicate. As such we believe that culture is one of the few sustainable sources of competitive advantage for many organisations, particularly those that are brand led and that deliver their products and services through large numbers of people.
For further information, download our publication Executing your strategy more successfully. (PDF, 93KB)
Page Last Updated
Executing your strategy more successfully
(92.82 KB)
