Don’t Be Fooled by Culture’s Charisma: How Strategy Can Take Charge

N. Sahin, Ph.D.
3 min readApr 7, 2023
Photo by Shirly Niv Marton on Unsplash

Culture has long been hailed as the queen bee of corporate success. The phrase “culture eats strategy for breakfast” has been thrown around so much that it’s practically gospel in some circles. But let’s be real here — culture isn’t some invincible force that can’t be tamed. It’s a complex system created by a set of processes, and like any other system that is stable, it is resistant to change. Yet, that does not mean it cannot change at all. Being exposed to the right amount of strategical changes, at the right frequency and time, and applied to the right components of the system is the key.

To play the game of strategy in the world of culture, we need to think of culture as a complex chess board. We need to understand how each piece works and how they’re all interconnected. This means identifying the components of the system that need to change and figuring out the right moves to make.

First, we need to ensure that the strategical interventions are of the right dose. This means finding the right level of intervention that will have the biggest impact on the culture without causing undue disruption or resistance. It’s important to strike the right balance between being bold and being cautious.

Second, we need to ensure that the interventions are applied at the right time and…

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N. Sahin, Ph.D.
N. Sahin, Ph.D.

Written by N. Sahin, Ph.D.

Data Scientist, Storyteller, System Biologist, People Analytics expert, And a huge fan of systems thinking, organizational design,