Company culture falls into one of three ‘Culture States,’ based on their degree of Resilience and Adaptability. Resilience correlates with ability to reliably deliver products and services. Adaptability reflects ability to interpret how the ecosystem that defines your market is changing, and to initiate timely changes – as we pointed out in our blog “It Starts and Ends with Vision”.
The diagram below depicts these Three Culture States and how they relate to each other:
CULTURE STATE DEFINITIONS
Synergistic: Organizations that are both resilient and adaptive. They have successfully aligned people to Vision, Products, Operations, and KPIs – and continue to evolve them as necessary in tune with the ecosystem that defines them.
Tribes: Organizations with strong connections within defined boundaries – resulting in pockets of disjointed resilience that lack synergy and restrict their ability to translate new opportunity into Products and Operations.
Mercenaries: Organizations that are rigid and fragile due to their one-to-many transactional nature. They are at risk of being disrupted – without the necessary connectivity to maintain resilience and adaptability.
Take Amazon for example. They started out delivering books and did it so well they soon became a logistics company. With each new market they launched into, they aligned operations to deliver reliably and profitably. Witness how Whole Foods continues to deliver and adapt, now using AI to help with marketing, purchasing, and stocking decisions.
Aston Martin, on the other hand, had great success as an ‘elite car company’ but faltered badly when attempting to expand newfound success as an ‘elite brand.’ Women’s accessories, speed boats, and high-end condos – all required very different kinds of operations Aston Martin was ill equipped to manage. Fortunately, they retreated to their core market before their mistakes forced another round of bankruptcy.
What is your Culture State? What degree of resilience and adaptability exists in your organization? Take our survey to find out and learn what is missing to get to a higher state.
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