Your strategy conflicts with company culture. How do you navigate this challenging scenario?

A head-on collision between strategy and company culture is an explosive challenge. To navigate this turbulence, you must boldly confront the misalignment, ignite passionate conversations, and forge a new path where strategy and culture intertwine. By inspiring belief in the vision, empowering employees, and celebrating every step forward, you can transform this clash into a catalyst for extraordinary growth and success.

To assess a company's culture, observe the communication styles and interactions among employees and between employees and leadership, get into the loop of mindsets, perspectives and behavioral patterns. Review policies, particularly those related to work-life balance, diversity, and promotion, to gauge the organization's values. Understanding this will guide you in a better way towards the company culture.

When pushing a new strategy, talk to leaders at all levels. Share your ideas, but also listen to theirs. This two-way conversation helps fine-tune the plan and gets everyone invested. It's much easier to make changes when people feel heard and involved from the start.

This is exactly what change management is all about- conflicts between strategy and corporate culture should be expected, not surprising. If a strategy truly goes against the culture, it's worth digging into why. For example, shifting from gut-based to data-driven decisions is going to create discomfort. But there might be an opportunity to find common ground. We might demonstrate how past 'gut' decisions were actually supported by data, and if that data had been available earlier, it could have facilitated smoother, faster change. In this case, it's about bridging the gap between intuition and evidence to align strategy with culture. I recommend you engage leaders to identify the gap so that you'll know where to build that bridge.

Familiarize yourself with the company's political landscape before promoting strategies that conflict with the prevailing culture. Understand your audience and identify what each leader stands to gain by adopting your proposed strategy. Tailor your approach and identify leaders that may be willing to serve as champions for your strategy.

When your strategy challenges the company culture, clear communication is key. Explain not just what you're doing, but why it's important. Be open about the benefits and the challenges. Regular updates and honest discussions can build trust and make the transition smoother for everyone. Remember, people are more likely to support change when they understand it.

Be open, clear, concise, confident in your communication with a team. For the effectiveness, be open to listen them also as it enhances the two-way dialogue for better understanding.

Rolling out a strategy that conflicts with culture implies the need to change the company culture. This is rarely easy, so take it slow. Use the pilot to focus on learning what works and what factors make the change less scary. Look for success stories that you can share more widely to demonstrate that change can be positive. Don't rush to fully roll the change out. Take a phased approach - you may have different learnings each step of the way as the change penetrates more and more of the org.

Go with the momentum, this demands for the relentless circling of communication, observation, flexibility, scheduling, operation, analysis, etc. Don't break the flow. Indulge with consistency.