Once you’ve internalized this axiom; “Culture Beats Strategy” it is easy to easy to see every contest or competition through that lens. That was a nice strategy the Atlanta Falcons had last night. too bad that were playing against a team with a strong culture. A strategy is a nice thing to have. A culture is essential.
When a team, group, company or family builds a culture it doesn’t need for things to go perfectly. People know what to do in situations that haven’t been thought through and game planned. A team with a culture has a lot of group cohesion around a few basic assumptions. People can take independent action because they know the organization’s goals without having to be directed. A strategy is merely a list of things you want to happen. A culture operates on an entirely different plane.
When Republicans beat Democrats with policies that add up to a lot of threadbare nonsense under the most fleeting scrutiny – they are winning on culture. Democrats seem to be constantly confused about this. They shouldn’t be. Culture beats strategy.
Group membership means something to people in a culture. Group membership is a means to personal ends for people executing a strategy. Members of a culture share values, spoken and unspoken, and you don’t need to explain how any given policy fits into the values of a culture. It either does or doesn’t on its face.
