"Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast"

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” - Peter Drucker

This is one of the coolest quotes in business history. I’ll go a step further - corporate culture totally defines an organization and everything it stands for. Culture determines the success or failure of a business.

But what is corporate culture? And just to stir things up even more, what are values?

These are terms that are thrown around a lot, to the point where they are almost cliches - at the very least, they are generalities. And like all generalities, culture and values can mean a million different things to a million different people. I viewed 13 videos, looked up 14 definitions, and read 33 articles, all on corporate culture - and each one has differences!

Sure, we all have some general idea of what is meant by culture and values. But, if corporate culture - and values - is so important, shouldn’t we have a much more precise and complete definition?

Here’s a definition with a lot of good points, from inc.com:

Corporate culture refers to the shared values, attitudes, standards, and beliefs that characterize members of an organization and define its nature. Corporate culture is rooted in an organization's goals, strategies, structure, and approaches to labor, customers, investors, and the greater community. As such, it is an essential component in any business's ultimate success or failure. Closely related concepts, discussed elsewhere in this volume, are corporate ethics and corporate image (which is the public perception of the corporate culture). The concept is somewhat complex, abstract, and difficult to grasp.

“The concept is somewhat complex, abstract and difficult to grasp” because there are too may un-defined terms such as values, attitudes, standards and beliefs in the definition. Everyone has his or her own definitions of these terms. That’s why corporate culture has been complex and difficult to grasp - no one is on the exact same page.

But to be fair, this is a very good starting point for defining corporate culture. If those 4 terms were better defined, this would be an excellent definition.

Here’s another promising definition from whatis.techtarget: (https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/corporate-culture)

Corporate culture is the pervasive values, beliefs and attitudes that characterize a company and guide its practices. To some extent, a company's internal culture may be articulated in its mission statement or vision statement. Elements of corporate culture include a company's physical environment, human resources practices and the staff itself. Corporate culture is also reflected in the degree of emphasis placed on various defining elements such as hierarchy, process, innovation, collaboration, competition, community involvement and social engagement.

There’s that word values again! What values? Where’s the approved list?

Even using values without defining what those values are, these 2 definitions above combine to give an excellent foundation for better defining corporate culture.

Taking the best elements of all the articles, courses and video I've studied, and adding a few items of my own, let me offer this definition:

Corporate culture is the combined total of the core philosophy, purpose, attitudes, principles and set of beliefs of what the organization stands for, what it intends to accomplish, and how it is operated, structured and managed. Corporate culture is set primarily by the leaders of the organization. Culture defines the very nature, character, intentions, actions and behavior of the organization as a whole and greatly influences how individual team members operate and interact.

Those core beliefs, philosophy, purpose, attitudes and principles (1) determine how the organization’s people are chosen, developed and managed, (2) drive how business is done, (3) decide the standards the organization operates on, (4) define the core values of the organization, and (5) determine the level of commitment, quality, communication and service toward clients and customers.

The overall core philosophy, principles, attitudes and beliefs consist of these specific interacting elements:

1. Purpose and Vision

• Why is the organization there?
• What need or desire does it satisfy for people?
• Does it improve people’s quality of life, and how?
• What does the organization intend to accomplish?

2. Philosophy and Principles About Its People and Clients/Customers

• Defines the character and qualities of people hired for the business
• Defines attitudes toward and about team members (trust, beliefs, expectations)
• Attitudes toward and about customers and clients
• Beliefs regarding the potentials, capabilities and growth of the organization’s people
• Attitude toward developing personnel and team building
• Attitude as to how much or how little staff are allowed to be creative and contribute to the success of the business
• Expectations of responsibility and accountability
• Rewards System - financial, professional, promotions, validations, awards, bonuses
• Philosophy about Client/Customer service and care, and delivery of products and services

3. Leadership

• Leadership qualities
• Setting goals
• Strategy and planning
• Management systems, styles and processes
• Company structure and flows
• Degree and quality of communication - internally within the company and externally with clients and customers
• Professionalism, degree of
• The general mood and tone in the business

4. Core Values

• integrity (how high or low)
• ethics (high or low)
• quality standards (high or low)
• intention to do the right things (or not)
• fairness, degree of
• helping others, degree of
• innovation, attention on
• commitment to be the best (or not)
• continuous improvement (or not)
• care for the well-being of personnel, degree of
• delivering excellent value to clients/customers (how well)
• resolving client/customer problems and upsets quickly and fairly (how well)
• improving the quality of life of clients/customers (how much)

5. Standards

• Standards set for customer service and care
• Standards for the quality of products and services delivered to clients
• Standards and expectations set for each job
• Standards for quality in every part of the organization
• Standards set for behavior in the business, codes of conduct

6. Policies and Procedures

• Company rules and regulations
• Disciplinary policies and procedures
• Codes of conduct

There’s a lot to this definition! Of course, there has to be, because an organization is a complex, living organism consisting of people and lots of moving parts. (And you'll notice I made an attempt to list specific values. I really dislike generalities, buzzwords and cliches.)

If corporate culture is so important and defines the very nature, character and behavior of an organization, then a detailed description and definition is called for.

This definition could even serve as a useful checklist. A business can work out the answers, definitions and descriptions of all those points. A business could create or transform its very culture from this checklist.

I wanted a complete definition, one that covers all aspects of what culture really means in an organization. All the factors and elements in this definition combine to determine how things are done, how business is conducted, how people interact, how the company thinks about and acts toward clients and customers.

Take a rope, as an analogy. Individual strands are inter-twined with each other, forming one rope. A rope’s strength comes from (1) the number of strands and (2) how well the strands are woven together.

Now imagine all of the individual elements in the definition of corporate culture as individual strands in a rope. Like the strands of a rope, many individual elements form one corporate culture. How high and how well those elements are applied - and how well those elements are woven together, how well the organization is structured and managed - determine the strength of the business.

A word about strategy, since that was included in Peter Drucker’s cool quote. Strategy is the master plan of how a business will reach its goals. Strategy addresses such elements as defining the goals, how to hire and develop the right people, how to organize the group for maximum efficiency and productivity, the marketing plan, sales plan and training, how to produce and deliver the best product and service to clients, how to rise above the competition, the management and leadership systems and processes.

A good strategy is vital to a business’s success. Without a good strategy and plan, any business will struggle and most likely fail - even a business with an otherwise good culture.

However, even given this need for good strategy and planning, corporate culture still ranks above strategy in importance. All the greatest strategy ever devised won’t be successful if the culture isn’t high enough.

So the hierarchy of importance goes like this:

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