{"id":34845,"date":"2019-07-12T19:53:59","date_gmt":"2019-07-13T02:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/careersingovernment.com\/tools\/?p=34845"},"modified":"2019-07-15T22:28:26","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T05:28:26","slug":"strategy-and-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.careersingovernment.com\/tools\/gov-talk\/about-gov\/education\/strategy-and-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Strategy and Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Strategy and Culture<\/p>\n

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[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ custom_padding=”0px|0px|24.625px|0px”][et_pb_row use_custom_width=”on” custom_width_px=”1200px” custom_padding=”20px||0px|” custom_padding_tablet=”0px|||” column_padding_mobile=”on” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ column_padding_mobile=”on” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.careersingovernment.com\/tools\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/david-ivers.png” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” disabled_on=”on|on|” _builder_version=”3.0.74″ animation=”off” sticky=”on”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text disabled_on=”on|on|” _builder_version=”3.0.62″ text_font=”PT Sans|on|||” text_text_color=”#02b875″ text_font_size=”20″ text_line_height=”1.2em” header_text_color=”#000000″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” text_orientation=”center” max_width=”140px” module_alignment=”center” custom_margin=”20px||0px|”]DAVID IVERS<\/span><\/a>
\n[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text disabled_on=”on|on|” _builder_version=”3.0.62″ text_font=”PT Serif||on||” text_text_color=”#363636″ text_font_size=”16″ text_line_height=”1.4em” background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” text_orientation=”center” max_width=”140px” module_alignment=”center” custom_margin=”10px||60px|”]David Ivers is from Sydney, Australia. He is a qualified Primary and Secondary School Teacher. In total, he has served on school leadership teams for 16 years in senior leadership roles.
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\u201cExcellence is sustained by one (and only one thing): a culture of excellence<\/em>….MIT\u2019s longtime organizational effectiveness guru, Ed Schein, famously said, \u201cculture eats strategy for breakfast.\u201d Culture, pure and simple, is the bedrock of any and all of the manifestations of excellence.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

(Tom Peters. The Excellence Dividend: Principles for Prospering in Turbulent Times from a Lifetime in Pursuit of Excellence. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing. p20-21).<\/p>\n

July in the United States of America is best thought of as the month in which Independence Day is celebrated. Independence for the United States of America was born out of conflict. By its very nature, that conflict was won and independence declared because of a strategy based on solid information and knowledge of the area in which the conflict was being fought and an equally good working knowledge of the capacity and capabilities of the soldiers involved. However, George Washington would not have proven himself to be the great military leader and indeed the great President of the United States that he was, if he were not also \u2018attuned\u2019 to the culture within the military he led and as President, within the newly formed union of the United States of America. As Tom Peters noted in the opening quote: \u201cculture, pure and simple, is the bedrock of any and all of the manifestations of excellence.\u201d In other words, without a strong culture of excellence, it is unlikely that Washington would have been as successful as he was. Why? As Tom Peters alludes to in the opening quote, referencing MIT Professor Ed Schein, \u201cculture eats strategy for breakfast.\u201d Without a supporting culture, no matter how well-intentioned or planned the strategy might be, if it doesn\u2019t effectively leverage the prevailing culture, then the culture will defeat the imposed strategy at almost every turn. This isn\u2019t just true of the American War of Independence, it is also true for every organization, Government, Non-Government, Corporates \u2018for-profit\u2019 or the \u2018Not-for-Profits\u2019 looking like Corporates. Strategy is critical to mission success, so too is a healthy culture.<\/p>\n

Often when strategy is being talked about by senior leaders, including the C-Suite and indeed Directors or the senior leadership team of a Government agency, it is often talked about as something quite singular, lacking depth, shape or dimension. The reality is, a well-researched, well-defined, well-planned and well-articulated strategy, often has multiple levels to it, is more often than not anchored into some key aspect of the organization and when well-aligned to the culture, the two feed off each other to create a new dimension, possibly even a new era, for the Government agency or for the organization involved.<\/p>\n

Writing in the September 2012 edition of the \u2018Harvard Business Review\u2019 in an article entitled: \u2018Your Strategy Needs a Strategy<\/a>\u2019, three executives from the Boston Consulting Group, Martin Reeves, Claire Love, and\u00a0 Philipp Tillmanns, noted that there were \u201cfour broad strategic styles\u2014which we label classical, adaptive, shaping, and visionary – emerge.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.0.74″ background_color=”#f7f7f4″ custom_padding=”0px||0px|”][et_pb_row make_fullwidth=”on” custom_width_px=”680px” use_custom_gutter=”on” gutter_width=”1″ custom_padding=”0px||0px|” make_equal=”on” column_padding_mobile=”on” background_color_2=”#efefe9″ parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ column_padding_mobile=”on” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.careersingovernment.com\/tools\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/culture2.jpg” show_bottom_space=”off” force_fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”3.19.9″ animation=”off”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ column_padding_mobile=”on” background_color=”#efefe9″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.careersingovernment.com\/tools\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/culture3.jpg” show_bottom_space=”off” force_fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”3.19.9″ animation=”off”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text disabled_on=”off|off|” _builder_version=”3.19.9″ text_font=”PT Serif||||” text_text_color=”#818178″ text_font_size=”24″ text_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone” text_line_height=”1.4em” background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” text_orientation=”center” module_alignment=”center” custom_margin=”20%|10%||10%” custom_margin_tablet=”|10%||10%” custom_margin_last_edited=”on|desktop”]<\/p>\n

What is also alarming, is the lack of conscious consideration to the prevailing culture of the Government agency or organization<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.62″ text_font=”PT Sans|on|||” text_text_color=”#888888″ text_font_size=”12″ text_letter_spacing=”2px” text_line_height=”1.2em” background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” text_orientation=”center” module_alignment=”center” custom_margin=”20px||20%|” custom_margin_tablet=”20px|||” custom_margin_last_edited=”on|tablet”]DAVID IVERS
\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ custom_padding=”0px||0px|”][et_pb_row use_custom_width=”on” custom_width_px=”1200px” use_custom_gutter=”on” gutter_width=”4″ custom_padding=”0||0px||false|false” custom_padding_tablet=”0px|||” column_padding_mobile=”on” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” parallax_method_3=”off” parallax_method_4=”off” admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ column_padding_mobile=”on” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.19.9″ text_font=”PT Serif||||” text_text_color=”#363636″ text_font_size=”20″ text_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_line_height=”1.4em” background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” custom_margin=”60px||0px|” custom_margin_tablet=”40px||0px|” custom_margin_last_edited=”on|tablet”]<\/p>\n

What may be extraordinary to the outsider looking in, is the findings from a survey of executives conducted by Reeves, Love and Tillmanns, as to how strategy planning and decision making occurred.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccordingly, we weren\u2019t surprised to find that nearly 80% said that in practice they begin their strategic planning by articulating a goal and then analyzing how best to get there. What\u2019s more, some 70% said that in practice they value accuracy over speed of decisions, even when they are well aware that their environment is fast-moving and unpredictable. As a result, a lot of time is being wasted making untenable predictions when a faster, more iterative, and more experimental approach would be more effective. Executives are also closely attuned to quarterly and annual financial reporting, which heavily influences their strategic planning cycles. Nearly 90% said they develop strategic plans on an annual basis, regardless of the actual pace of change in their business environments\u2014or even what they perceive it to be.\u201c<\/em><\/p>\n

(Reeves, M.,\u00a0 Love, C., and Tillmanns, P. (2012). \u2018Your Strategy Needs a Strategy<\/a>\u2019 in Harvard Business Review (September 2012).<\/p>\n

What is of interest in this data, is that in a fast-moving business environment, the validity and accuracy of the data being used, may be tainted in the short-term by time. Likewise, the speed of which the strategy is developed, decided upon and implemented is paramount and often connected to the bottom line. This has huge implications for Board members who typically set strategy, as it does for leaders of Government agencies, who often have the political leader responsible for their portfolio, directing what and how things ought to happen. As a general principle, good governance is about doing what is right because it is the right thing for the organization to do. Leaders need to be mindful of this key aspect of governance, whilst in the pursuit of what is expedient. What is also alarming, is the lack of conscious consideration to the prevailing culture of the Government agency or organization.<\/p>\n

One definition of culture from the discipline of Anthropology<\/a>, is provided by David Givens.<\/p>\n

\u201cCulture represents the entire database of knowledge, values, and traditional ways of viewing the world, which have been transmitted from one generation ahead to the next\u2014nongenetically, apart from DNA\u2014through words, concepts, and symbols.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Having studied Cultural Anthropology and Sociology, I warm to this definition for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is broad enough to be effective. Secondly, it references that which makes up any group of people, their DNA and non-DNA components. Finally, David Givens situates the knowledge and traditions, with the values of the culture. You could use this definition in the effective study of any community, be it a village in Papua New Guinea, a Legislature or a Board Room on Wall Street. In all cases, if you don\u2019t know what your culture values, then you\u2019ll never know why it is valued. If you have never discovered why this culture values it, you have very little chance of changing it and as much chance again in leveraging it for the collective good. It is perhaps easier to misalign strategy with the culture of the organization, than it is to have strategy and culture work together in tandem. Be it a Government agency, a corporate entity or a \u2018not-for-profit, irrespective of the organization you are leading, asking the right questions about the anthropology of your organization should lead you to some fundamentals about the culture of your organization and its search for excellence.<\/p>\n

For example:<\/p>\n