Part 5 - Culture Lag: The Silent Risk Stalling Your Strategic Future

Part 5 in the Culture Risk Intelligence Series for Boards and Executives

“Cultures, inherently, are prone to protect the status quo because they’ve evolved over time to become a set of shared beliefs, systems, values, and actions. Strategy requires some aspect of that to change — and that’s where the resistance is created” - Roger Martin (Strategy Advisor and Author of Playing to Win)

Strategy is, by definition, a commitment to doing things differently in the future. Whether launching a new growth initiative, restructuring operations, or integrating a new acquisition. Strategic execution requires cultural alignment to succeed.

Often the culture required to enable that strategy is either assumed, misread, or overlooked. The result is a familiar pattern: bold plans stall, change fatigue rises, and execution lags intent. And in hindsight, culture is cited as the reason.

Boards and Executives know this risk well. They’ve seen strategic initiatives and post-merger integrations delayed or derailed not because the strategy was wrong but because the culture wasn’t ready to deliver it.

This is what we call Strategic Execution & Transformation Risk: the risk that culture becomes the friction point in executing strategic priorities.

Why this risk matters

Culture is not simply the “soft stuff” surrounding execution, it is the connective tissue that enables or blocks strategy in motion.

When culture is misaligned:

• Change efforts meet resistance or stall
• Performance signals become distorted
• Trust erodes within and beyond the organisation

When culture is aligned:

• Strategic clarity sharpens
• Transformation efforts accelerate
• Accountability is easier to embed

This isn’t just about behaviour. It’s about business outcomes.

Why this risk is rising

Across industries, Boards and Executives are navigating major shifts:

• Geopolitical and regulatory volatility
• Technological acceleration, particularly through AI
• Increased M&A activity and transformation programs
• Strategy refresh cycles that are faster and more dynamic than ever before

But while strategy is evolving, culture often isn’t or at least not fast enough.

In some cases, the required culture shift may be too great to achieve in the available timeframe. In others, leaders are flying blind unaware of where subcultures conflict, misalign or actively resist change.

Without a structured approach to understanding and managing culture, these risks are hard to detect until momentum is lost.

What this risk looks like in practice

This risk may be active if your organisation:

• Treats transformation as a systems or process shift, not a behavioural one
• Doesn’t assess whether current cultural work practices can support future-state strategy
• Experiences recurring friction in transformation execution or M&A integration
• Assumes culture is “set” without understanding sub-culture differences across divisions, regions, or leadership teams
• Is experiencing slower-than-expected uptake on new ways of working or operating models

Questions for reflection

Boards and Executives may wish to consider:

• Is our culture, and the subcultures across the organisation, aligned to support our future-state strategy and transformation agenda?
• Are cultural dynamics explicitly considered in strategic planning and implementation decisions?
• Is the behaviour of Executives and senior leaders aligned with the cultural settings required to enable execution?

Conclusion

Roger Martin’s insight is as sharp as it is true: culture protects the status quo. Strategy, by contrast, demands movement. That’s where the tension lies. But it’s also where the opportunity lives. When culture is governed, measured and shaped with intent, it becomes a strategic asset - a source of execution advantage in a complex, fast-moving environment.

If your next strategic initiative is bold, ask yourself: can your culture follow, will it enable?

If you’re planning a transformation, integration, or strategic refresh now is the time to build your Culture Risk Intelligence. Because strategy may chart the course. But culture determines whether you get there.