“Culture eats strategy for lunch every day”
This famous quote from Dick Clark, CEO Merck − the pharmaceutical company − is a great illustration of the fourth Strategy Execution law.
Make sure your brand and internal culture add up
Most companies spend lots of time and effort creating a unique brand that secures a competitive position in their industry. But is there a match between the company you want to be for your customers and the company you are today for your employees?
If not, you are probably losing out on some great performance. According to Swedish research, companies that are able to link their external brand and image with their internal performance culture usually perform twice as well as their peers.
Create engagement for execution
Unlike strategy definition, Strategy Execution is everyone’s job. So, you need to have everyone on board − and staying there − to make it happen.
So, in brief: if you want your people to go the extra mile – in same direction as your brand! – you need to create, and actively manage, your unique winning performance culture.
And as your positioning and strategy evolve, your culture needs to evolve with them. Because your company culture can eat your fantastic strategy alive in no time, any day of the week.
