Why Company Culture Matters for Strategic Results

You don’t have to look far in the news headlines to find examples of how a good corporate culture can turbocharge performance, while a bad culture can wreak havoc on a company’s reputation and results.

Relying on culture — rather than detailed rules or micromanagement — to shape behavior provides employees the flexibility to seize unexpected opportunities, adapt to local circumstances, and respond quickly to shifting market conditions. Corporate culture, like an organization’s strategic priorities or objectives and key results, represents a powerful way to align behavior with a company’s strategy and mission while allowing employees to exercise judgment and initiative. Culture, in short, is critical to striking the balance between strategic alignment and organizational agility.

With the Culture 500 tool, managers and employees can explore how culture compares among more than 500 leading companies. For leaders, this interactive framework provides an actionable way to think about culture along nine key dimensions, to provide clarity on where companies are leading and lagging when it comes to aligning culture with strategic results.