Align Your Company’s Culture With Its Strategy and Purpose

Traditionally, good strategy has been seen as the key to business success; and more recently, purpose has become an essential element.  What has received much less attention is culture — the essential elements of how an organization and its employees behave, as well as its governing beliefs and principles. Hubert Joly, the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Best Buy Company, Inc. thinks of purpose, strategy and culture as a triangle. Each side connects with and shapes the other two: If one side changes, the other two must evolve and adjust. Joly presents three types of levers companies can use to profoundly shape an effective culture and allow their strategy to come to fruition — business levers, management levers, and “human magic” levers. In a world that is now particularly volatile, uncertain and complex, crafting and pursuing a top-down and linear strategy is no longer the direction to follow. Instead, it is the interconnection of purpose, strategy and culture that creates an environment in which employees are eager and able to fully give their energy and talent.