Align Culture and Strategy to Grow the Business

Align Culture and Strategy If You Want To Grow
If your goal is sustained high growth and performance, the ability to align culture and strategy is non-negotiable. The interplay between a company’s strategy and its culture is a force multiplier. Our research on organizational alignment shows that companies who achieve this alignment:

• Grow revenue 58% faster
• Are 72% more profitable
• Deliver customer satisfaction at a 3.2-to-1 ratio
• Engage employees at a 16.8-to-1 ratio

Alignment isn’t just an operational detail — it’s the competitive advantage that turns business and people strategies into measurable results.

Cultures Are Not Good or Bad
While everyone has their own preference for work environments, we don’t categorize cultures as “good” or “bad.” A company’s culture must be healthy enough to attract, engage, and retain top talent — but organizational health alone rarely sets one company apart from another.

The true differentiator in both business results and people performance is the degree of alignment between a company’s strategy and its culture.

We frame cultures not in terms of quality or type, but alignment. An aligned culture actively enables strategy execution, while an unaligned culture creates friction that inhibits it.

Strategy Must Go Through Culture to Get Implemented
Most executives agree that a sound strategic plan is imperative. No real argument there. Where we do run into skeptics is when we maintain that the success of even a well-crafted strategy is doubtful if the organization’s culture is not in alignment with the business plan.  It’s not just about WHAT needs to get done; it’s about HOW you do it and WHY you do it.

Your corporate culture and strategy must be aligned to grow gracefully over the long haul.

The Definition of Workplace Culture
Most executives agree that a solid strategic plan is essential — that’s rarely debated. The real skepticism emerges when we assert that even the best-crafted strategy can falter if the organization’s culture isn’t aligned with it. Success isn’t just about what gets done; it’s equally about how it gets done and why it matters.

For sustainable, long-term growth, corporate culture and strategy must move in lockstep — aligned, intentional, and mutually reinforcing.

RELATED: TEST YOUR LEVEL OF CULTURAL ALIGNMENT NOW

What an Aligned Culture Provides: The Hidden Engine of High Performance
An aligned culture provides far more than a pleasant work environment; it is a critical driver of business performance. It ensures clarity in decision-making, increases engagement, accelerates strategy execution, enhances customer experience, strengthens resilience, and fuels innovation. Companies that intentionally cultivate alignment between culture and strategy create a durable competitive advantage that translates into measurable growth, profitability, and long-term success.

Corporate Culture Matters
And is some more data for those who still mistakenly believe that workplace culture is “soft HR-type stuff” that can be ignored because it does not have a quantifiable impact on business performance.

• A Harvard Business School research report found that an effective culture can account for up to half of the difference in performance between organizations in the same industry.
• Our organizational culture assessment found that cultural factors account for 40% of the difference between high- and low-performing companies.

These facts should be a powerful motivator to set out to define and create an organizational culture that fits your company and provides the platform for your strategy and your people to thrive.

Six High Performance Culture Warning Signs
Take a moment to assess whether your culture might be holding back your organization’s potential. Watch for these six warning signs of a high-performance culture in trouble:

1. Lack of Goal Clarity
   Success and failure are ambiguously defined at the company, team, or individual level.
2. Underperformance is Tolerated
   Low performers who fail to improve are allowed to remain too long.
3. Belief in Ways of Working Is Low
   Employees are uncertain whether the way they are expected to work actually drives results.
4. KPI’s Are Inadequate
   Performance metrics are confusing, conflicting, perceived as unfair, or poorly balanced.
5. Information Flow is Weak
   Critical information is shared too slowly or is restricted, limiting organizational visibility.
6. Lack of Cohesion
   The way work gets done in terms of customers, decisions, processes, and behaviors is misaligned with the go-to-market strategy for success.

The Bottom Line
If you recognize any of these warning signs in your organization, it’s time to take action. Investing in aligning your culture with your business strategy is essential for sustained growth. Culture and strategy must move in tandem to drive growth that is scalable, intentional, and meaningful.

To learn how to align culture and strategy to grow download, How to Create a Purposeful and Aligned Culture to Take Your Business to the Next Level