Win from Within

Evidence does not support most of the common wisdom about organizational culture.

A strong culture isn’t necessarily a winning asset. Companies with strong cultures can be winners or losers, depending on the nature of their culture and the context it creates for corporate strategy.Forward-looking leaders find culture and strategy complementary. For example, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella simultaneously healed its dysfunctional culture and led a major strategic shift from Windows to cloud computing. He demonstrated that the right leader can change a company’s culture in months.

The leaders of companies that falter mistakenly often assume that what worked in the past will continue to work. Their leaders resist new ideas.

An effective culture boosts the bottom line, and fosters flexibility, innovation, and learning.

The competitive advantage of an effective culture can outlive that of any strategy. Working only from cultural information, analysts can predict a company’s relative profitability. Using internal and external data, they can estimate how culture affects profit and use ...