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by Jeanne Bell and Dan Tucker, Co-Founders
Blog No. 7 - April 2024
Among social justice organizations, organizational culture is often viewed as the central force enabling strategy and impact. The term “culture eats strategy for lunch” (or breakfast) is a common short-hand for this. This orientation, we would argue, has negative consequences for leaders and organizations. It leads people to hold and address strategy and culture as wholly distinct notions that require distinct processes; it also leads people to believe that culture work is always a precursor to strategy work. We disagree.
First, the surest way to a healthy, joyful culture is a group of people choosing to apply their energy and unique talents towards a shared purpose. It’s important not to complicate things much more than that. The real challenge is not culture in some generic or absolute sense, but rather that “shared purpose” too often eludes us.
To heal or reset organizational culture, we must first commit honestly and fully to what the organization's purpose is and then (re)design the organization so that people are steeped in and energizing that purpose from wherever they sit every day.
Second, let’s be plain-spoken about why this may be hard to do right now in social justice organizations:
- The organizational purpose may have changed or was never clear in the first place. Therefore, there may be people working at the organization who are not aligned with the actual, current purpose of the organization.
- There may be a lack of alignment about how the organization should best fulfill its purpose–that is, about strategy. Therefore, there may be people working at the organization who either do not have the skills–or do not have the will to apply their skills in needed ways–to execute the strategies the organization will employ to fulfill its purpose.
- Many social justice leaders are straddling old and emerging concepts of organizational structure and decision-making, which exacerbates the challenge of addressing the two dynamics above.
In our experience, the persistent co-existence of the three dynamics above results in an unhealthy culture. Not the other way around.
Thus, to nurture a thriving culture involves three interdependent steps. First, articulating a concise and up-to-date organizational purpose and then spending all the time necessary to build staff and board-wide alignment around it. We believe that vision statements and mission statements can actually complicate this particular project because they leave so much room for interpretation and are often very difficult to disagree with. Here we mean something so clear and unequivocal that people have the chance to say,” yes, I am in” or “no, this isn’t for me right now.” In fact, it may be that some people opt out of the staff or board—or need to be coached out—during the process of rearticulating the organizational purpose. Next, a thriving culture requires everyone working to the same set of strategies to fulfill the updated purpose; there has to be real clarity about how the organization approaches its work. And finally, a thriving culture requires an organizational design–positions, teams, collaborative processes, systems–that empowers people to bring their full energy, agency, and talent to organizational purpose and strategies.
This isn't to suggest that culture should be an afterthought or taken for granted. Not at all. Instead, leaders should embed cultural tenets into the organizational design itself. Decision-making practices, meeting formats, communication norms, and mutual accountability should be features of the design, not left to individuals to come up with or not on their own; these features reinforce intended cultural attributes of equity, transparency, continuous learning, and shared leadership.
And very importantly, an organization’s relationship to and processes for ongoing organizational design are themselves critically important contributors to culture. When leaders socialize and model organizational design as a powerful, agile force for activating strategy rather than merely an org chart arranged from most powerful to least, it greatly impacts the culture. When leaders craft positions, functional and cross-functional teams, and processes so that everyone can bring their best to the work, it’s both clarifying and liberating. Staff aren’t trapped in a single box, but invited to collaborate in ways that match their gifts with the organization's evolving strategic needs. When people are engaging this way across an organization, the culture is one of energy, rigor, and possibility.
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A Short Reading List for You:
- No, Culture Does Not Eat Strategy for Breakfast by Jamie Notter
“But to imply that culture can eat strategy -- that culture is fundamentally a stronger driver of your success -- is where the metaphor starts to fail us.” - Resistance and Radical Love: The Call Forward of a Pro-Black Sector by Dax-Devlon Ross
“While individual organizations are coming to terms with the new reality that changes are necessary, the sector as a whole has yet to fully grasp that the traditional rules of engagement are no longer applicable.” - Design Your Organization to Match Your Strategy by Ron Carucci and Jarrod Shappell
“Leaders must not only design new governance, they must also strip away previous processes and governance that are no longer contributing to the strategy’s success.”
