If you want strategic change, don't forget to change your cultural artifacts

Abstract

Strategists must manage a number of factors when executing strategy. One of the most important of these is organizational culture. And to successfully manage organizational culture, strategists must manage cultural artifacts. Cultural artifacts include myths and sagas about company successes and the heroes and heroines within the company; language systems and metaphors; rituals, ceremonies, and symbols; certain physical attributes such as the use of space, interior and exterior design, and equipment; and the defining values and norms. In managing execution by managing culture, strategists usually think in terms of managing values and norms. But as it turns out, if they don't also manage existing cultural artifacts, then they build in barriers to failure. Why? Because existing cultural artifacts support the old strategy not the new one. To be successful, strategists must create new cultural artifacts or modify the existing ones so that they support the new strategy. This article uses the case of the successful turnaround at Continental Airlines to demonstrate precisely how managing cultural artifacts enhances strategy execution.