Organizational culture reflects why people do things in the company. Culture, which is the soul of any organization, is more felt than seen. Strategy, on the other hand, dictates how people should do things. Taken together, culture and strategy complement each other to achieve the vision of the organization. It is important for any organization to revisit its vision and realign its strategies from time to time to validate their relevance due to the ever-changing environment where we live in.
On the other hand, since companies are built around a culture, culture hardly changes over time unless for compelling reasons. The catchy title, as attributed to management guru Peter Drucker, behooves us to believe that culture is far more important than strategy as manifested by the successful stories of companies like Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, and Nordstrom. But one company, whose culture is so unlike any other commercial enterprise, stands out.
In its 1980 certificate of registration, Coca‑Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated, “CCBCC” for short, distributes, markets and manufactures nonalcoholic Coke, as well as Dr. Pepper, Sundrop and Monster Energy beverages in specific territories in the United States. In the same corporate document, the purpose of CCBCC is to “honor God, to serve others, to pursue excellence and to grow profitably.” David Katz, CCBCC’s erstwhile CFO, who was recently appointed as its president and CEO, said that, among all these corporate purposes, the most important is that they all “strive to honor God in everything we do.” Their core values include atypical norms of conduct, such as humility, morality, optimism and conviction as CCBCC seeks to develop servant leaders. Armed with these core values, the corporate culture in this company allows and encourages its employees to voluntarily participate in various “feel-good” activities, seemingly unrelated to the distribution business, such as programs in homeless shelters, prisons, food banks, community beautification programs and work with nongovernment organizations such as Habitat for Humanity. In direct alignment to its purpose of honoring God, CCBCC supports an organization whose focus is to provide indigenous pastors called Mobile Messengers with the means of transportation so that they may evangelize others in the ministry of Jesus. When asked in an interview whether these activities are welcome in a secular organization like CCBCC, David Katz said that these voluntary activities are offered not to promote a certain religion. These activities allow employees to be more aware that their company is more about faith-based discipleship in a sense that, whenever they serve others and honor God, the company can be profitable in the process. Hence, most if not all of CCBCC employees participate in such events, willingly and happily. And such activities are reflective of the pervading culture of CCBCC. Whatever its strategies, goals, objectives, or income targets set ever year, the culture of this company has mandated that each day will never be business as usual. It comes to no surprise that CCBCC is now the largest independent Coca‑Cola bottler in the United States. In recognition for such corporate culture, Shining Light, an awards organization, said: “Coca-Cola Bottling Company Consolidated is helping to change lives—both in their communities and for eternity.”
In the Bible, Proverbs 16:3 tells us, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and He will establish your plans.” Founded, created and operated by less than a handful of millennials in California, Shareably is a Facebook page with more than 3 million followers. It began as a gateway for controversial news discussed over traditional media but soon evolved as a page where uplifting stories are shared on a daily basis. I do not know why its creators decided to change its course and opted to only publish inspiring stories. Today, topics include animal welfare, student experience, daily parking lot or supermarket encounters, environmental issues and some of the simplest yet thought, provoking real-life stories collected from open sources and edited by Inno Asuncion. A business graduate of the University of California in Berkeley, Inno started his professional career working for a reputable consulting firm in New York. Likely enticed by the opportunity to work in California and be a major player/contributor in an upstart venture, Inno joined Shareably and contributed as many heartwarming stories as he could. With much success of Shareably in recent years, Inno now does more of the editing of the stories written by the many part-time writers dedicated to promote optimism around the world! Shareably’s culture has allowed its creators to stay true to their vision of sharing positive stories online while earning money. Incidentally, Inno is my nephew, whose good nature and cool demeanor can be likened to his favorite tennis player, Roger Federer.
I am not sure whether CCBCC and Shareably conduct a strategic planning session annually. And if they do, I am not sure whether these entities change their cultures to address the dynamic environment they operate within. From my perspective, these organizations do not suffer from any identity crisis. They know their reasons for existence and the purpose of their actions. Seeing that their core values are anchored on God, these organizations will likely be prosperous regardless of their business strategies. For it is written in Proverbs 16:9, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”
So what does “culture eats strategy” mean? For me, it means that a strategic plan can be accomplished as long as the culture supports the strategy. Likened to a ship, if the leadership is its steering wheel and the strategy is its compass, then culture is its anchor. Anyone can only go as far as its anchor allows it to.