Numbers don’t lie. The strategy deck looks pristine. The mission statement is framed on the wall.
Yet the team falters.
Mark Fields, former CEO of Ford Motor Company, had one of his favorite slogans on the wall: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” He explained, “You can have the best plan in the world, and if the culture isn’t going to let it happen, it’s going to die on the vine.”
This isn’t just corporate gospel. It’s reality.
Culture doesn’t just eat strategy for breakfast – it devours change, agility for lunch, and innovation for dinner. The pattern repeats everywhere.
Look at any failed organization and trace the collapse back. Rarely was it the strategic plan that failed. Instead, examine the behaviors that were tolerated, the communications that never happened, and the values violated daily while everyone looked away.
When 60 former Brewdog staff members published an open letter claiming the business operated on a “culture of fear” and “toxic attitudes,” management was left reeling. The company had spent years claiming it wanted to be the best employer in the world, and former staff laughed at those claims.
Culture exists whether you build it intentionally or not.
It develops organically over time from “the cumulative traits of the people the company hires and the behaviors management tolerates.” It’s passed down through stories employees tell around the proverbial water cooler.
But don’t mistake culture for ping-pong tables and free lunches.
It’s about how your employees act in critical situations, manage pressure, respond to challenges, and treat partners, customers, and each other.
Leaders actively create that culture when they tolerate mediocrity, contempt, or dysfunction. Your silence isn’t neutral—it’s an endorsement.
Leaders who build great organizations understand this intuitively. They design culture with the same rigor they apply to strategy. They model what they expect. They make hard choices about who stays and who goes.
The best part? You can change culture. But it takes more than speeches.
It requires action, consistency, the courage to confront what doesn’t work, and, most importantly, looking in the mirror first.
Where does your organization’s culture come from? It starts with you.
