Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast

There’s a popular saying in business: “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” It’s become so popular that it’s one of the most searched-for phrases online, and there are over 17 million results for it. But what does it mean?

This was a popular quote from early in 2018. It was coined by Peter Drucker, who said that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” This is another way of saying that your culture (the people you hire, their mindsets and how they act) will determine what happens with your business more than any other factor. It also means that when you do have a strong culture, things are more likely to go well!

Mark Fields used to run Ford and said “culture is more important than strategy.” His point was that if you want a company where innovation thrives and risk-taking is encouraged—and if you want the company to be great at making cars or any other product—then it’s critical to hire talented people who share this vision and believe in one another’s abilities

Drucker’s original quote was probably meant to be taken figuratively—that is, it’s only worth devoting energy to strategy when you’re confident you can implement it successfully. If you don’t have a good culture, then there’s no point in having a good strategy; your company is doomed! But we all know that culture isn’t something you can just mandate or control. It has always been deeply personal and intangible (even though everyone wants to call it something else). As such, I often think about this quote as meaning that if you do want your company culture to eat your strategy for breakfast, then your best bet is making sure everyone on staff feels empowered enough to contribute their own ideas on how things should be done. This way everyone gets what they want out of working at the company, which means they’ll all be more engaged with each other and with whatever projects they’re working on together—and ultimately get better results than if someone had just handed down instructions from above without any input from below!

If you have a weak culture, no strategy will save your company.

The problem with a weak culture is that it can lead to bad decisions, bad hires, bad products, bad customers, and so on.

If you have a weak culture or don’t know what your company’s DNA really is then you’re going to get into all sorts of trouble.

You will make poor hiring decisions because you aren’t sure what kind of person fits or contribute diversity to the culture; hence the famous saying “hire for attitude and train for skill.”

You will develop products that don’t match up well with what people want. If they are too far off-base from what consumers want they won’t sell well; if they’re only slightly off-base they may still not sell as well as they could because consumers will think something else would be better suited to their needs than yours.

Your customers will feel like something isn’t quite right about working with or buying things from you because deep down inside there’s something about your company that just doesn’t feel right even though no one can put their finger on exactly why this is the case (and this applies equally when talking about employees).

Strong companies know this implicitly — which is why they focus on culture and hire based on cultural fit. They know that as long as they have great people and an enduring purpose, they’ll find their way.