Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast

You may have heard the business maxim, usually attributed to Peter Drucker, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

This doesn’t mean strategy isn’t important. It means culture is more foundational and thus more related to the likelihood of long-term organizational success than strategy.

The Eagles-Rams game on Sunday (Go Birds! 🦅) reminded me of this.

During the game, my now 5-0 but still plenty of room for improvement Philadelphia Eagles (their head coach Nick Sirianni is all about that growth mindset) were shown on multiple occasions jawing with each other on the sidelines. This happened earlier this season as well.

The image above is a snapshot of one of the altercations. Watch this short video if you’d like to get a better idea of what I’m describing.

As broadcast viewers, we don’t get the context necessary to understand these situations, but one can still glean something from them about the culture of a team that was dominant last season last and continues to find ways to win this season.

If your organization has a culture that empowers people and encourages radical responsibility and accountability, you can have these kinds of interactions in the heat of the moment, learn from them, not be shocked by them, and move on without any long-term damage or hard feelings. You are actually stronger for having had them.

These guys are working. They are literally at the office doing their jobs, but it happens to be on TV with millions of people watching around the world. 

Fortunately for fans like me, the leaders within the Eagles organization have created a culture that allows these interactions to play out safely and effectively. You can tell these guys love each other and are willing to put life and limb on the line for one another.

I’m not advocating for getting into screaming matches with your colleagues in the office. Football is inherently a fiery and emotional profession, so it’s more understandable in this context. However, you can still have courageous, vulnerable, honest, hard conversations with colleagues that will strengthen the individuals and the team. 

Culture enables and empowers these interactions and makes them feel safe.

And, in case you were wondering, the hexadecimal color code for Eagles Midnight Green is #004953 🦅. Thanks, Encycolorpedia!