A Modern Leader’s Guide to Strategic Planning and Culture Building
Read time: 13 minutes
Build vibrant, high-performing organizations by integrating strategy and culture… with intentionality and courage
We are in a new era of work. Many sectors are facing unpredictable market conditions, changing staff expectations, a labour shortage, rapid technological change, and yet a desire for growth to increase impact.
Executives recognize that strategy and culture are their two main responsibilities. Given the increased complexity, speed, and challenges of leading organizations in today’s work world, intentional strategy and culture are more important than ever – they can no longer be an afterthought or reactionary.
Exceptional modern executives often know all the solid leadership concepts but lack the time and in-house resources to conduct their own strategic planning or culture design. Their teams might be struggling with culture challenges (for example, low morale, difficulty attracting and retaining staff, or dysfunctional dynamics) and/or strategy challenges (such as development of meaningful strategy, implementation progress, or measuring results for continual improvement and innovation). So they call me to help.
In this post, I explain the principles of integrating strategy and culture and share the process we use at Hello Courage for designing strategy and building culture.
Defining terms in strategic planning and culture building
Dr. Graham Kenny, an HRB author on strategy, shares that “leadership goes hand-in-hand with strategy formation and most leaders understand the fundamentals of strategy. Culture, however, is a more elusive lever, because much of it is anchored in unspoken behaviors, mindsets, and social patterns.”
So let’s define some important terms before we dive in.
Strategy: a series of intentional choices and trade offs that your organization makes in order to be successful in its market.
Effective strategy should provide clarity and focus about which customers to serve with a compelling value proposition that staff can use as a filter in their decision-making and actions.
Organizational culture: the social patterns for how people behave and interact and the underlying shared values, beliefs, and processes that form those unspoken rules of the group.
Culture is often referred to as the unspoken “way we do things around here.” Culture is behaviour at scale. Most organizational culture is invisible through interactions, stories, and emotions while some parts of culture are revealed visibly through symbols, rituals, attire, and systems. Culture is as permeable as the air in an organization.
Strategic planning: an overarching four-stage process to design, plan, implement, and measure strategy.
There are four main stages of the strategy cycle:
periodic strategy design to make intentional choices and trade offs,
periodic operational planning (translating those strategic choices into detailed operating plans using implementation levers including resource allocation, structure, systems, behaviours, and metrics),
daily strategy implementation, and
frequent measurement and adjustments for improvement.
Some strategy experts only refer to stage 2 as strategic planning. While that is technically the only true “planning” stage, we have found most executives and strategy practitioners refer to the overarching four-stage strategy process as “strategic planning” so that’s how the term is used in this article. The process is also known as corporate business planning in some organizations.
Culture building: the intentional design and implementation of culture components to create the conditions for teams to thrive and deliver exceptional results.
Strategy&Culture: our approach at Hello Courage for intentionally integrating strategic planning and culture building through every stage in the design, plan, implement, and measure cycle.
Why are strategy and culture so important?
A strong, positive culture that is integrated with strategy is a significant competitive advantage that drives organizational results and employee thriving. Plus, as Adam Grant says “the culture of a workplace - an organization's values, norms, and practices - has a huge impact on employee happiness and success.”
On the other hand, “a strong culture can be a significant liability when it is misaligned with strategy.” - Groysberg, Lee, Price, and Yo-Jud Cheng, HBR researchers. This situation – where the culture is toxic and/or awry – negatively impacts organizational results and employee well-being.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
I recommend an evidence-based, human-centered process: intentional culture building that is integrated with strategy. Work can indeed be mutually about getting great results and connecting with one another as human beings. It takes some intentionality and courage, but it is possible and helps make our world a better place.
Let’s get started.
How I support executives
Most executives want to create the strategy and culture conditions for their teams to thrive and achieve ambitious goals together. They just don’t always have the specialization or available time to fully dedicate to these areas – so they call me.
I support collaborative leaders to intentionally design strategy and build culture
that maximizes their success and lasting impact. My consulting and facilitation firm, Hello Courage, works with executives in medium to large organizations across Western Canada consulting and facilitation for strategic planning, culture change, Executive Team and Board facilitation, and keynote speaking.
I’m best known for humanizing strategy – after all, it is the people in organizations
who are going to implement the strategy. As a Certified Professional Facilitator and a Chartered Professional in Human Resources with training in performance metrics
and Brene Brown’s Dare to Lead program, I bring a unique blend of expertise to support my clients in both strategy and culture.
Integrating strategy and culture is critical to organizational success
Exceptional leaders know that developing strategy and building culture are some of the most important – and challenging – responsibilities for an organization’s executive team and Board.
Many executives think of strategy and culture as two separate spheres. Some say that culture eats strategy for breakfast and, on the other hand, some really overlook the importance of culture. I argue that organizations need both – intertwined 50/50 – in order to be successful.
You need a strong, connected culture so that your strategy is actually carried out. You need all employees to contribute to the strategy and be committed to it day in and day out. You also need a strong, compelling strategy that provides clear direction for the mission, work, and culture of the organization.
When you integrate strategy and culture, both benefit. From design to planning and implementation to measurement, integrating strategy and culture at every stage in the cycle makes both components stronger. When fully integrated, they reinforce one another to drive performance within thriving teams.
ATB, a leading Canadian bank, puts it this way: We delight our clients and sustain market leadership through the high performance of our team members. Together, we pursue growth, seek and share feedback, hold each other accountable, and celebrate our successes. “We exist to ‘make it possible’ for our clients and that’s thanks to our culture of collaboration, belonging, and performance.” – Tara Lockyer, ATB Chief People, Culture, Brand, and Communications Officer.
Intentional culture building drives organizational performance
Organizational culture will emerge by chance or by design. Many executives unintentionally take culture for granted and forget that is requires equal attention and investment as strategic planning. Some leaders relegate culture building to the backburner and others delegate culture to HR.
Culture design requires intentionality. Leaders need to remember that a strong, positive, aligned culture doesn't just happen organically; it requires discipline, a process, and effort. Culture building requires resource allocation and the willingness to invest time in bringing culture to life.
Strategic planning, on the other hand, sometimes gets more attention from executives. This is because it is often linked to budget planning cycles so there is a built-in mechanism for executives to design and implement strategy with a more visible link to profitability and funding models.
But a compelling strategy requires a connected culture to support and implement those choices. Strategy execution occurs through culture. When intentionally cultivated and integrated with strategic direction, culture becomes a powerful force influencing employee behavior, well-being, engagement as well as organizational innovation, performance, and overall impact.
Culture drives strategy and top performance. A healthy workplace culture increases business performance by 20-30% compared to weak ones. For example, Darren Entwistle, CEO at Telus, says it is their world-leading culture that empowers team members to deliver on the top corporate priority of providing the best client experience in the industry.
Success stories from integrating strategy and culture
One of our strategic planning clients this year was an organization starting from scratch on their strategic plan including vision, mission, and values for their organization. Their leader is very progressive and wanted to use a collaborative strategic planning process. We engaged their staff, clients, stakeholders, and industry partners in meaningful, interactive workshops to collectively determine the organization’s foundation and future direction. The process was just as important as the content we created.
Staff shared that this was the most input they had every provided into a planning process and were appreciative and enthused about the foundation and direction they created together. Their metrics showed a 48% increase in clear expectations for their organizational culture and 20% increase in sense of belonging and teamwork during our strategic planning process.
Another client was struggling to fully implement their strategic plan. Their executive team is fantastic and recognized that they needed to improve both strategy and culture – not just one or the other. Our firm is working with them to design strategy implementation processes (shared goals and expectations, reporting mechanisms, and resource allocation) as well as processes to strengthen their culture (clear roles and responsibilities, establishing team norms, and coaching on having honest and difficult conversations). They are making great progress.
The role of courageous leadership when integrating strategy and culture
In this new era of work, many exceptional modern executives use a new leadership style that I call courageous leadership. This approach combines humanity and accountability… a style that cares equally about the people you’re working with and achieving great results together.
Courageous leadership = accountability + humanity
Courage is needed to lead with intentional strategy and culture.
It takes courage to pause from the day-to-day pace to step back and thoughtfully design compelling strategy. It takes courage to collaborate with your team to make challenging intentional choices and tradeoffs in order to position your organization to succeed. And then actually execute.
It takes courage to design and live a connected organizational culture: deliberately translating values into behaviours and practices that inspire and strengthen your team each day.
It takes courage to lead in a human-centered way while also achieving success and impact.
Courage is the pathway to problem solving, innovation, high-performing thriving teams, and making a positive difference in our companies and our world. It is a daily practice for executives to recognize when you need to call upon your courage to be brave, do the hard thing, ask for support and input, and push through the fear and uncertainty to be the kind of leader you want to be.
As Brené Brown says, “courage is contagious. To scale daring leadership and build courage in teams and organizations, we have to cultivate a culture in which brave work, tough conversations, and whole hearts are the expectation.”
We know that leadership is full of risk and uncertainty. But for those who feel called to lead organizations to create impact and legacy, the journey is worth it. Luvvie Ajayi Jones puts it this way: “the point is not to be fearless. It is to know we are afraid and to charge forward regardless, to recognize the things we must do are more significant than the things we are afraid to do.”
A modern process for strategic planning and culture building: an integrated strategy&culture approach
With intentionality, leaders can build a strong positive culture that reinforces the organization’s strategy with this iterative four step process. Executives and staff will strengthen their capacity and competency for strategic planning and culture building each time they go through this strategy&culture process that we use at Hello Courage. It does take time to develop sophistication throughout this cycle.
Most importantly, the investment of time, energy, and resources in this intentional, evidence-based, human-centered approach pays off with significant dividends from thriving teams achieving ambitious organizational goals.
Phase 1 – Design Compelling Strategy&Culture Direction
Periodic strategy&culture design to collectively make intentional choices and trade offs
Why do we do this work? What impact do we want to make? Who do we need to be along the journey to make that difference?
Where are we now? Where do we want to go? Who are we now?
What route will we take? What choices and trade offs will we collectively agree on? What fewest, essential priorities will push us from here closer toward our vision? Who will we be on that journey? What organizational levers will we use?
Phase 2 – Translate Strategy&Culture into Plans
Periodic operating planning (translating those strategy&culture choices into detailed operating plans using implementation levers including resource allocation, structure, systems, behaviours, and metrics)
How will we work together with our people and resources to get us there?
What levers will we use to encourage behaviors and results that move us along the route?
Phase 3 – Implement Strategy&Culture
Daily, disciplined implementation of strategy&culture priorities
When and how will we make progress and stay true to the plan?
Phase 4 – Measure and Adjust Strategy&Culture to Celebrate and Improve
Frequent measurement and adjustments to celebrate and improve.
Who will be open to learning and improvement?
How will we use metrics to help us make decisions, make adjustments, and celebrate our wins?
This iterative process will support leaders to integrate organizational strategy and culture in a systematic way and create extraordinary teams who achieve ambitious goals together in a human way.
Admittedly, this is no easy feat.
Like so many others, I’m a big fan of Glennon Doyle and Dr. Jody Carrington. I combined Glennon’s “we can do hard things” phrase and Dr. Jody’s “we are wired for community” into:
“we can do hard things…together.”
I use this saying often in my integrated strategy&culture consulting work with executive teams and Boards. The term helps convey that teams are capable of achieving wildly ambitious goals when they have one another’s support and are fully able to contribute to thrive and succeed.
Final Key Takeaways
Integrating strategy and culture, rather than treating them separately, strengthens both.
Leaders who integrate strategy&culture create extraordinary teams who achieve ambitious goals together in a human way.
With intentionality and courage, it is possible to lead well and create lasting impact through your organization’s compelling strategy and connected culture.
To learn more about designing strategy and building a strong culture, sign up for our Hello Courage newsletter.
Stay tuned in our newsletter for an article coming soon with more details on the integrated strategy&culture process we use with our clients and their success stories.
Trina McCarroll, CPF, CPHR is passionate about helping groups become high-performing teams… because it’s good for people and it’s good for business. As we design work to be more human, we can use compelling strategy, connected culture, and courageous leadership to achieve great things together.
Trina is an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator™ (CPF) and a Chartered Professional in Human Resources (CPHR). She has over 15 years of experience in strategic planning, facilitation, leadership, governance, organizational effectiveness, organizational culture, and performance metrics (KPIs). Trina is Dare to Lead trained and is a proud alumnus of the University of Alberta School of Business with specializations in strategic management and organizational analysis.
