What does culture eats strategy for breakfast mean?

What does “culture eats strategy for breakfast” mean? The adage was coined by management consultant, educator, and author Peter Drucker, and it has huge relevance to the world of corporate governance.

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” means that companies can’t hope for their strategies to create success unless they have a good corporate culture backing them up.

It’s a blunt reflection on the reality of doing business: the best minds in the world could come together and create a flawless blueprint for success. However, if the people involved with implementation suffer from low morale, infighting, mistrust, one-upmanship, box-ticking, or anything else that holds teams back from their potential, the blueprint is entirely useless. 

It’s so important because culture is one of the most crucial factors for business success. If you have a good culture, you’re far more likely to succeed. If you have a bad culture, it’s a barrier to success. 

This view is shared by a multitude of prominent business analysts worldwide. Drawing on years of qualitative and quantitative data, they have observed a clear link between business success metrics and the atmosphere of collaboration, both on boards and on the teams of employees who report to boards.

PwC’s 2025 Annual Corporate Directors Survey has found that poor cultural elements – such as collegiality (the desire to avoid confrontation at the expense of important issues), reluctance to take on big jobs like replacing a director, or a desire to let problems “sort themselves out” long-term – are core drivers of underperformance.

It went on to conclude that a “culture of respect and civility is crucial to effective governance. But when it becomes an obstacle to change, it can prevent a board from seizing on opportunities to bring in fresh perspectives, align skills with strategy, respond to risk with agility and model the behaviour it expects from management.”

Meanwhile, the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance has highlighted the importance of culture to investors. Culture is a trickier thing to measure, but in modern contexts, it often falls into ESG-related categories – specifically the “S” (social metrics) and “G” (governance metrics). Investors use data in these areas as tools to decide whether they want to put forward capital or not, and this trend is increasing. Ergo, if your company can’t demonstrate a solid corporate culture, your chances for more funding will dry up, rendering any strategy redundant.

The above is a blunt reflection on the reality of doing business: the best minds in the world could come together and create a flawless blueprint for success. However, if the people involved with implementation suffer from low morale, infighting, mistrust, one-upmanship, box-ticking, or anything else that holds teams back from their potential, the blueprint is entirely useless. 

There’s no better example of “culture eats strategy for breakfast” in the 2020s than that of aviation giant Boeing. Once a showcase company of American business, it has been plagued by multiple incidents of aircraft failures, whistleblower revelations, and even a Netflix documentary criticising its desire for profit and market domination at the expense of safety. 

Boeing’s main goals in the 2010s and 2020s could be summed up pretty simply: build and sell as many aircraft as possible, beating back rival Airbus along the way, and become a Wall Street powerhouse in the process. Its entire strategy was crafted in support of those goals.

But things took a turn: two 737 MAX aircraft crashed in 2018 and 2019 with serious loss of life. Investigations found that they were both due to problems with Boeing’s flight stabilising system (MCAS) that had been designed specifically for that vehicle type. In 2024, a door plug blew off another 737 MAX aircraft mid-flight. No deaths this time, but the shocking idea of a door simply “falling off” made international headlines, especially when it emerged that it happened because essential bolts were removed at Boeing’s factory and never put back. 

Multiple news outlets ultimately reported that Boeing was considering replacing the 737 MAX altogether, following its questionable reputation, but that did little to address the whistleblower complaints that have come alongside these crises, accusing Boeing of “shortcuts” to increase productivity. The same can be said for the multiple departures at the C-suite and board level, including former CEO Dave Calhoun and chair Larry Kellner. In short, there was serious dissatisfaction at the employee level and a lack of direction at the leadership level. It all adds up to a culture nightmare.

Boeing’s strategy, designed to bring it market domination that it hasn’t enjoyed since the 1980s, now seems like a distant memory because it’s firmly in defence mode. Even if Boeing spends the remainder of the 2020s focused on fixing its internal issues, that cultural problem will be hard to bounce back from.

The quote culture eats strategy for breakfast means that no matter how well-designed your strategic plan is, it will fall flat unless your team shares the appropriate culture. 

At the end of the day, the people who implement the plan matter.

Unless your employees are enthusiastic about your company’s vision, they won’t put much effort into executing your strategy. 

A company’s culture is created primarily by the actions of its founders and executives, and it is the role of the board to monitor the culture. Most of it is created unknowingly by the founders. Whether you work on your company’s culture or not, it will still develop.

An effective board understands a company’s behaviour and challenges the areas where values aren’t aligned or understood. 

Boards should invest time and resources into assessing their company culture and consider how they report on it because culture does indeed eat strategy for breakfast. 

• 2025 Annual Corporate Directors Survey