The boardroom was tense. A new CEO had just been hired to lead a regional manufacturing firm that had stagnated for five years. He walked in with a 98-slide strategy deck, fresh from a Big 4 advisory team. It was clean, data-backed, and impressive. Three months in, not a single initiative had taken root. Staff ignored memos. Managers nodded in meetings and did nothing afterward. The CEO fired two department heads. Still, no movement. Six months in, he resigned. Why? Culture chewed through his strategy like a termite in a wooden pillar.
Now let me be blunt. Culture always wins. Always.
You can buy the smartest consultants. You can run away to Mombasa for a retreat. You can set KPIs, OKRs, KRAs, and quarterly dashboards. But if your people don’t believe, don’t care, or worse, pretend, they will burn your strategy quietly, while smiling at you in the corridor.
Culture is not your values statement or the posters in the reception. It’s what people do when the boss isn’t watching. And most leaders misunderstand it. They think culture is soft. Emotional. Intangible. But in my experience with multinationals and local giants alike, it’s culture that determines whether execution lives or dies.
Take that manufacturing firm. Their strategy called for customer-centricity. But for 12 years, customer service was run by a punitive supervisor who belittled staff in front of clients. No one challenged her because she had “historical value.” Strategy said one thing; culture said another. Culture won.
“Culture is not the enemy of strategy. But it is the gatekeeper. If you don’t convert it, you can’t cross.”
Another case, one of Uganda’s fastest-growing retail brands wanted to become “data-driven.” They invested in analytics software and hired a young data scientist. But managers refused to share real sales figures with him, fearing exposure. Strategy: digital future. Culture: hide to survive. Culture won.
So what’s the leadership challenge? Most leaders want change without conflict. They want to be liked more than they want results. And they often tolerate cultural cancers out of fear, loyalty, or politics. This is what kills strategy execution.
If you’re serious about growth, here’s the practical fix:
a) Diagnose your real culture. Not from an HR report. Walk the corridors. Ask unpopular questions. What do people whisper at lunch?
b) Dislodge the blockers. One toxic manager can stall an entire strategic pillar. Cut clean.
c) Model the new culture. If your exec team doesn’t live it, no one below will.
d) Build cultural rituals. Weekly standups, reward systems, and town halls engineer new norms. Don’t just wish for them.
The Culture-Strategy Fit Map
Map each strategic priority against current cultural behaviors. Wherever there’s friction, you’ll find the source of failure. Strategy doesn’t fail in planning, it fails in unaddressed behaviors.
Remember: culture is not the enemy of strategy. But it is the gatekeeper. If you don’t convert it, you can’t cross.
Until next Tuesday,
