Strategic choices and culture development that carry each other instead of alternating
A production site faced the task of becoming profitable as a producer that had to keep up on both cost price and quality. The management team had just been recomposed and was not yet on one line. Strategic choices and culture change therefore had to run alongside each other, without one holding up the other.
In the short term, the site had to turn financially: open up a new market segment, invest in a new packaging line, adjust the shift system and sharpen the product portfolio. In the longer term that called for a culture shift that could carry these choices. Only the team that had to carry both was itself still finding its shape, while the outside world called for speed and unity. Every decision thereby became heavier than it needed to be.
Coach and sounding board for the management team, and facilitator to build consensus around the strategic priorities. The performance and potential of each team member were mapped, and work went into the way the team itself operated: a shared mission, a clear direction and a way of collaborating that also became visible in the rest of the organisation. Alongside that, strategic and operational decisions were guided via work sessions, and an action plan for longer-term culture change was drawn up. A succession plan for the whole organisation and targeted recruitment strengthened the new strategy.
The moment when the management team started seeing itself as one team, rather than as individuals with their own domain. Strategic choices were carried together and the interaction with the rest of the organisation became more consistent. That gave the culture trajectory ground too: the short-term interventions landed better because they fit within a shared story rather than as isolated measures.
A workable combination of sharp short-term choices and a step-by-step culture trajectory. A leadership team that thinks and chooses together makes change deliverable; strategy and culture reinforce each other once the team at the top is truly on one line.