“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” “Leaders behave the culture to the organization.”

Culture is both powerful and ambiguous at the same time – as the quotes above indicate. Leaders are fairly well equipped to formulate and execute their strategy – at least when compared to the readiness to address culture. However, as the first quote above states, culture can easily hinder companies from achieving their vision and to execute their strategy. While being aware of this, leaders sometimes find it difficult to address the culture as it is non-tangible– and personal in the light if the second quote above.

We have found that it is extremely helpful to address a company culture in more concrete terms. The Denison Model is a useful approach here. This research based model measures four traits of the culture: Mission, Consistency, Involvement and Adaptability, each with three indices. The model is much more relevant to business when the culture measurements are compared to business performance– like customer satisfaction in the example below.

The research made by Denison consulting shows that there is a consistent correlation with business results and the culture survey scores.

We would like to share more about how companies have used the Denison model. To do this, we are arranging two workshops during 2010 as follows:

• Friday 29.10.2010 between 8-13 at Hanasaari Cultural Centre
• Friday 3.12.2010 between  8-13 Technopolis Innopoli 1.

To join one of the workshops please contact us. Welcome!