Culture eats strategy for breakfast
By Nikhil Dey President, Public Relations, Genesis Burson-Marsteller Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a Burson Marsteller global leadership meet in New York where we got to hear from a range of high profile guest speakers including the likes of Arianna Huffington (of the Huffington Post) and the CEO of HBO, Richard Plepler. Huffington’s message was about managing oneself and she gave us a sneak peak into her new book titled ‘Thrive’. She said, “We have, if we are lucky, about 30,000 days to play the game of life. How we play it will be determined by what we value. If we worship money, we will never feel truly abundant. If we worship power, recognition and fame, we’ll never feel we have enough. And if we live our lives madly rushing around, trying to find and save time, we’ll always find ourselves living in a time famine, frazzled and stressed.” Based on her life experiences, the book goes on to tell us how to redefine success and create a life based on three ‘W’s’ - Wellbeing, Wisdom and Wonder. Plepler’s talk was about managing an organization based on the creation of a winning culture. The interesting connection between both points of view was that they talked about bringing about a sense of balance and harmony, within oneself and within a company based on a value system. It was in this context that Plepler’s talk brought back into my frame of vision the now famous phrase ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’. For those of you familiar with it, this saying is attributed to Peter Drucker and was made popular by Mark Fields, President of Ford Motor Company in 2006, as they scripted the now well recognized ‘turnaround’ at Ford and embraced this philosophy. It is as relevant today as it was back then because human nature does not change. Ask yourself some of these questions… Are you proud of your colleagues? Do you want to listen to them? Are you working in a place where people care about each other? Are people comfortable and able to disagree without being disagreeable? Or are you surrounded by folks who have the overwhelming need to be right at the beginning of a meeting rather than focused on doing the right thing for the organization at the end of the meeting (after listening to what people have to say)? Is caution the driver of action where everyone is playing it safe or is there optimism and willingness to take risks? Defining what success is (not just numbers) and clear signals from the top that it is okay to pursue what the company stands for even if the numbers always don’t add up is what gives people license to innovate and grow, individually and together as a company. The talk was a reminder to me that I can be the change agent. And so can you. Start with yourself and then widen the circle of influence, however big or small it is in your organization. Do your bit to make it a better place to work and you will enjoy your breakfast, lunch and dinner together as a winning team. Feedback: nikhil.dey@bm.com
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