“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” is a quote widely attributed to the late business management guru Peter Drucker. Many of the most successful companies in the world (including Zappos, Southwest Airlines, and Chick-fil-A) currently tout their company culture as a leading reason for their success, which means that chances are your competitors are probably as focused on their own culture as they are on you, their competitor.

The arguments for the importance of culture include the following:

• Employees are loyal to culture, not strategy
• Culture will carry a company through tough times
• Cultural missteps can be more damaging than strategic missteps

Drucker even argued that a company’s culture will “trump” any attempt to create a strategy that’s incompatible with their culture. I’m not here to argue company culture over strategy – at least not today. But can we at least agree that company culture is equally as important as strategy?

Assuming that’s true, my question is this:

Is every single meeting/event and group incentive travel program at your company truly communicating and supporting your company culture? Every meeting, every event, and every group incentive travel program is an opportunity to strengthen your company culture and boost motivation, productivity, and profitability. Ideally, every opportunity you have to stand in front of your team should be a healthy blend of strategy and culture. The strategy piece is rarely left out – even if it’s delivered in the form of “Death by PowerPoint”. What are you doing to ensure that the culture at your organization is being communicated and reinforced?

At ROI – Return on Incentives, we’re passionate about helping companies better communicate their culture through their meetings, events, and incentive travel programs. Let us help you get the most out of your meetings, events, and incentive travel dollars. By the way, Peter Drucker was famous for another quote too – “Do what you do best and outsource the rest.” But, that’s a whole separate blog topic in and of itself.

– Jay Staggs, President and Managing Partner at ROI