My colleague Chris Cavanaugh recently made the observation that people find themselves in one of two groups these days: lamenting or inventing.

Many of us are looking backwards and lamenting. We grieve what has been taken away, either from us personally, or someone we know:

* our retirement account
* our job
* our house
* our club membership
* our assumptions about the way life works
* our confidence that we know what we are doing

“Lieutenant McKinnon, you are dead!”

I’ll never forget those words, barked at me by the Captain evaluating me on a dusty, hot morning at Fort Knox, Kentucky, early in my officer training. I was leading a six-man team of fellow officers through a series of Leadership Simulation Exercises — the Army’s version of leadership training scenarios like you might encounter in an Outward Bound-type setting. We had a problem, in this case, getting our entire team to the other side of a “room” laced with tripwires and “explosives,” that we had to solve in a limited amount of time. Rapid-fire assessment, delegation, direction-setting, monitoring and action were demanded in a pressure-filled, time-limited environment. The grade would either by Mission Accomplished or Mission Failure — no in-between.

Sound like one of your days at the office?

I’ve noticed that corporate Strategy and corporate Culture often show up in separate conversations with Leaders.

In fact, focus on corporate strategy . . . execution . . . results often receives far greater attention than the corporate culture in which those results are generated.

Why do we have Strategic Planning off-sites, but we don’t have Culture Retreats? We have Performance Reviews and Strategic Reviews, but . . . what would a Culture Review look like? My guess is a 90:10 ratio between activity spent on strategy / performance review and culture. What’s the ratio at your company? When is the last time your executive team sat down to focus specifically on your corporate culture?

I’ve learned that Culture will eat Strategy for lunch every day of the week . . . unless they are intentionally linked.