Why Culture and Strategy Must Work Together

In many organisations, strategy and culture are treated as separate entities - one guiding business goals, the other shaping how people work. But the truth is, they’re deeply connected. Strategy might chart the course, but culture determines how effectively you move forward and reach your goals, so it's crucial to success that one informs the other.

Peter Drucker once said,

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

 While often quoted, it’s less about competition and more about compatibility. Without the right cultural foundations, even the most well-designed strategies struggle to take hold. 

Harvard Business School’s James Heskett has explored this in depth, noting that: 

“An effective culture can account for up to half the difference in performance between organisations in the same business.”  

That’s not a nice-to-have. It’s a strategic imperative. Culture, like a company brand, is an asset to your organisation. It shapes how decisions get made, how risks are managed, and how people respond under pressure. When it aligns with your strategy, you create the conditions for clarity, energy, and execution. 

As Roger Martin puts it: 

“A strategy that doesn’t take into account the culture of the organisation is doomed to fail.”  

It’s a reminder to leaders that culture isn’t background noise, it’s the operating system behind every move your organisation makes. 

Building momentum through alignment

At Culture Impact, we understand the importance of aligning culture and strategy as part of the strategy process and/or the culture transformation process. 

Our Culture Strategy Workshop is designed to align the executive team around the strategic priorities and the culture needed to achieve these priorities. We often find that despite going through a strategy process, most executives are not aligned on the priority of strategic aims.  

We are also working over the next few months to revisit research we undertook in 2017, “Does your Culture support your Strategy?” With the changing economic conditions we are facing, we felt that it was appropriate to bring this research up to date for 2025. 

To get your copy of the report, just complete our questionnaire, and we will send you the report later in the year when the research is finalised.