Why is organizational culture important for a business to effectively formulate its strategy?

Organizational culture includes the shared beliefs, norms and values within an organization. It sets the foundation for strategy. For a strategy within an organization to develop and be implemented successfully, it must fully align with the organizational culture. Thus, initiatives and goals must be established within an organization to support and establish an organizational culture that embraces the organization’s strategy over time.

Organizations that remain flexible are more likely to embrace change and create an environment that remains open to production and communication. This provides a model that welcomes cultural diversity and helps clarify strategy implementation. Culture within an organization can serve many purposes, including to unify members within an organization and help create a set of common norms or rules within an organization that employees follow.

A stable culture, one that will systematically support strategy implementation, is one that fosters a culture of partnership, unity, teamwork and cooperation among employees. This type of corporate culture will enhance commitment among employees and focus on productivity within the organization rather than resistance to rules and regulations or external factors that prohibit success.

Flexible, strong and unified cultures will approach strategy implementation and affect implementation in a positive manner by aligning goals. Goals can come into alignment when the organizational culture works to focus on productivity and getting the organization’s primary mission accomplished. This may include getting products delivered to customers on time, shipping out more products than the organization’s chief competitor or similar goals. This will create a domino effect in the organization that ensures that all work performed by each individual in the company and work group focuses on performance and on the strategic importance of the company.

This allows culture to align with strategy implementation at the most basic level. For this level of unification to work, goal setting must align with and be supported by systems, policies, procedures and processes within the organization, thereby helping to achieve strategy implementation and continuing the cultural integrity of the organization.

Part of cultural alignment and strategy implementation involves process implementation. Processes include utilizing technology to facilitate goal attainment and the results a company is looking for when working with customers to meet their needs. While most of the time the hard problems and needs of an organization get met, the culture becomes neglected in the process. That is where processes come into place and strategy implementation gradually comes into existence to uphold and maintain organizational culture and strategies.

When culture aligns with strategy implementation, an organization is able to more efficiently operate in the global marketplace. Culture allows organizational leaders to work both individually and as teams to develop strategic initiatives within the organization. These may include building new partnerships and re-establishing old ones to continue delivering the best possible products and services to a global market

The role of organisational culture in the implementation of your business strategy is now perhaps more pertinent than ever before.

After all, the last two years have taught us that with the right approach, certain companies can succeed even in the face of major adversity, much like how Robert Downey Jr managed to reinvent himself as one of the coolest superheroes in the Marvel universe after almost 90s-ing himself into early retirement.

The fact of the matter is that if an organisation wants to be successful in this day and age, its leaders need to develop a strategic plan for the future in order to reach their business goals and to enhance the performance of their enterprise overall.

This is where the role of organisational culture becomes very important.

The shared beliefs, norms and values within an organisation lay the foundation for strategic success, especially so when it is in alignment with the goals of the company.

How so?

Well, the implementation of a business strategy requires the support of two vital cornerstones, namely:

• A robust corporate culture that can facilitate and accelerate change at a rapid pace
• A strong sense of personal accountability that inspires every employee, at every level of the business, to take ownership of their role in executing the company’s overall business strategy

In short – the kind of culture you need to keep your business resilient in a time of economic uncertainty is a flexible one that is underpinned by the understanding that every roleplayer takes responsibility for their actions and works towards a common goal.

READ MORE: Organisational culture affects business performance. Here’s how

By focusing on the role of organisational culture (when implementing your business strategy) innovative senior leadership teams have the opportunity to place strategic business priorities front-and-centre and inspire everyone to contribute to overall success.

A case study that involved American multinational telecommunications holding company, AT&T Inc. showed that the magic happens when every employee holds themselves personally accountable. The company’s success in this regard hinged on:

• Doing away with information silos in favour of open and effective collaboration between teams
• Placing a strong focus on each employee’s personal action plan and their commitment thereto
• Open dialogue with upper management that paves the way for honest, transparent communication – throughout the enterprise
• Strong feedback loops that create an atmosphere of innovation, leading to smoother strategy execution

So, within an organisation, how do you establish goals and initiatives that support a vital company culture, and vice versa? Here are a few guidelines:

Focus on resilience and adaptability

As mentioned previously, the absolutely ideal company culture is one that’s flexible enough to roll with the punches of an ever-changing economy. Organisations that exist on this plane are more likely to embrace change and foster a work environment in which open communication leads to optimal strategy implementation, underpinned by top-down diversity and inclusion.

Encourage teamwork and cooperation

Stable company cultures grow from a place of teamwork and cooperation. It enhances inter-employee commitment and keeps the focus on overall productivity, rather than scattering attention due to a resistance to rules or the interplay of external factors that hamper success.

One of the simplest ways to boost unity among a workforce is to encourage peer-to-peer recognition. When employee appreciation is a part of the day-to-day fabric of the workplace, employees are much more likely to congratulate a colleague for a job well done, or to nominate them for recognition, for instance.

A simple way to promote this type of atmosphere is to invest in bountiXP, an employee recognition and engagement platform, which seamlessly integrates with existing processes. In fact, we’re offering an exclusive 14-day FREE trial. You can click here to get started.

READ MORE: bountiXP can help drive your company values and culture – here’s how

Promote goal unification

To make strategy happen, three important things need to be in place:

1. Clear and inspirational goals, which make the overarching strategy clear
2. A ‘living’ execution plan that takes these goals out of the intangible space to make it relatable and real
3. The ability to adjust undesired behaviours while encouraging and capitalising on beneficial behaviours that are in alignment with the desired company culture

It all starts with the promotion of goal unification. The thing is, goals can only come into alignment when the company culture is focused on communal productivity and guided by the mission to get primary goals accomplished every day.

This may include seemingly unrelated tasks like answering admin emails, getting orders shipped on time, listening to customer queries, sitting in on product-development meetings, keeping the canteen clean, ordering stationery, signing big deals, etc.

When every team member understands that the role they play is vital to the overall success of the company, it causes a fantastic kind of domino effect that boosts productivity and employee engagement all in one.

This is strategy alignment at its most pure and basic. With this groundwork in place, it becomes far easier to put supporting systems, policies, procedures and processes in place.

Streamline process implementation

Process implementation is another important factor that comes into play on the way to corporate goal attainment. Technology plays such an integral role in the way we do things as businesses these days, that it’s incredibly important to ensure that the processes you have in place are in fact helping rather than hindering your employees in their bid to be a more productive member of your team.

READ MORE: The digital employee experience is here! Is your business on board?

Following these guidelines will smooth the way to clearly understanding the role of organisational culture and how it can be shaped to support the implementation of a future-proof business strategy.

If you’re looking for tool to help you get started, then take a look at bountiXP, by design it aligns your business and culture for the ultimate competitive advantage. And today we’re offering you a FREE 14-day trial. Click here to get started.