Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch: The Secret of Extraordinary Results, Igniting the Passion Within

by Curt Coffman, Kathie Sorensen

Inspired by a quip attributed to management guru, Peter Drucker, “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast,” this book is a crash course for turning culture into competitive advantage. Culture isn’t the enemy of strategy and performance, but an equal player in the game, not to be underestimated or overlooked. Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch is for everyone trying to work within a culture to make something happen. Each of us moves daily through a myriad of cultures, from neighborhood, to organization, school and church. And it is our connection to those cultures, which either inspires the best within us or reduces us to average. The authors teach you how to use the force of culture to make your work environment what you’ve always wanted it to a healthy place with inspired people and boundless organic growth. This book follows in the tradition of Coffman’s first bestseller, First, Break All the Rules, in that the secrets come from the study of high performing organizations, where culture drives results. Effective culture is like a six lane suspension bridge, and poor culture is like a swinging bridge strung together with fraying rope. The practices of extraordinary cultures and their uninspiring counterparts emerged through decades of work and research. The qualities that make a culture excellent are about 80 percent generic and 20 percent unique. Competitive advantage results from the 20 percent that slam-dunks the brand promise to the customer. Coffman and Sorensen, seasoned, highly experienced researchers and consultants, usher in a new perspective which challenges some bedrock, but time-worn organizational practices, from the “little boxes” on the organizational chart to the employee survey and the bureaucratic veneer. Some of our practices are obsolete, but more to the point, our methods no longer match to goals we need to achieve. Why buy the piano when what you want most is to hear the music?

Genres: Leadership, Professional Development, Business

223 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 23, 2013

Reviews

[Chadwick Hunt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent content with a very important, even crucial, truth of business: a business macro-culture is dependent upon a bridging culture of all the micro-cultures within the business. It takes concerted effort to make this bridge culture which is, for most businesses, line of sight to the customer (for non-service businesses a line of sight to the mission of the business). However, I felt it more a conglomérate of loosely related quotes that describe a point that is related to the topic. With discussion and work you can bring these ideas into a fluid understanding that is highly powerful. Even then it seems each reader has different interpretations of the ideas/quotes to make innumerable variations in the message being made. Perhaps this was intentional, if so, it accomplished that objective very well.

If you are looking for a well outlined discussion with clear points and direction, this is. It hour book. If you are looking for a quick easy read, this is not your book.

If you want a book to initiate discussion and opinion then this book provided that (if you have a group of people who put in thought as they read).

[Kathy Wainman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting points but not an easy read.

[Chris Caton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad read it for work and it was a pretty good read

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

No chapters, just a continuous diatribe of stories, examples and the importance of culture in the workplace. Maybe it's my level of emotional intelligence, but much of this seems like common sense. Still, it had some well-put phrases that I'll use with my teams for sure.

[Chris Stratton · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some nuggets in here. I found it hard to follow at times.