Written by You often hear people say that culture eats strategy for breakfast or lunch. I assume someone thinks it eats it for dinner, too. Everyone seems to be talking about culture these days, or at least they are watching Ted Lasso and learning about the importance of building a strong culture for a team and an organization. Culture is having its day, and it’s long overdue.
But what if you make building a culture your strategy? What is eating what?
It’s easy to spot organizations that fall into this trap because you hear them talk about culture. A lot. They say, “We are building a strong culture around here,” or “We need people who fit into our culture.” That’s what is happening at a couple of football teams I used to follow, and it doesn’t seem to be working well for them. At least, not so far.
Three years ago, the University of Nebraska hired Scott Frost to be its new football coach. Frost was a successful quarterback for the Cornhuskers, winning a national championship in 1997. His success continued as a coach, initially as offensive coordinator for Oregon and then as head coach for Central Florida. Nearly everyone viewed Frost as precisely what Nebraska needed, that his presence would restore the Huskers to its rightful place as a perennial contender for a national championship.
As soon as Frost arrived in Lincoln, he started talking about culture. He talked about it constantly, referring to complicated horizontal and vertical leadership schemes reminiscent of what existed when he was a player at Nebraska. The implication was that the team’s current culture was terrible and that fixing it would translate into victories. It was all good stuff, but it was clear that his strategy was to change the culture. He was walking straight into the trap.
Last year, Frost claimed victory on his mission of culture change. Nebraska’s roster had been a revolving door with numerous transfers into and out of the program. “I think this is the first time we feel like the team culture is where we want it,” he said. “It can always get better, but I feel really good about where we are as a football team right now and the type of people we have on our team.”
What happened? A disappointing 3-5 season. After losing its season opener this year to Illinois, and Frost is on the hot seat. Fans care about winning.
The Houston Texans finished 4-12 last year, and everyone agreed that its culture was toxic. The Texans, to their credit, knew this as well and were proactive at dealing with their cultural problems. They had hired an executive named Jack Easterby as the Director of Football Operations in 2020 and then hired Nick Caserio as its General Manager earlier this year. Easterby and Caserio had worked together at New England under Bill Belichick.
The Texans are going through a roster overhaul like no NFL team has gone through before, driven by a desire to change the culture. Will good guys with a better vibe and energy equate to wins this year? Nobody thinks so, and the team seems determined to go through a rebuilding process. But was it necessary to burn the team to the ground and start over? Will they be able to find enough good players who fit their culture to build a winning team? Caserio is taking a “process-oriented” approach this season rather than a “results-oriented” one.
What the Cornhuskers and Texans are trying to do is to impose a culture onto their team. Frost is attempting to turn back time to the ’90s, and Easterby and Caserio are trying to create a southern division of the Patriots. They are replicating cultures they have seen work effectively before in other settings with other players and assuming it will work again. Those that they don’t see as “culture fits” must be replaced with those that do.
Is this the best way to change a team’s culture?
Not according to sports psychologist Jim Taylor. Taylor does agree about the importance of a healthy culture on a team. He says, “A culture is the expression of a team’s values, attitudes, and beliefs about sports and competition. It determines whether, for example, the team’s focus is on fun, mastery, or winning or whether it promotes individual accomplishment or team success.”
However, Taylor recommends an organic or, better yet, a collaborative approach where leadership actively engages the team to identify its core values and create expectations for behavior. Doing this creates buy-in and increases the chances that the culture changes are effective.
Author Simon Sinek suggests that you identify people in your organization who are motivated and willing to do the work to implement the change to the culture. They become early adopters, and his research shows that if you start with this group, the others will follow.
Doing the hard work to implement a winning team culture with the team you already have allows you to see results faster. Fictional AFC Richmond took this approach and is turning things around already in season two of Ted Lasso. Nebraska is still losing in Scott Frost’s fourth season, and who knows how its scorched-earth culture change strategy will take to bear any fruit for the Texans.
Changing a culture isn’t a one-time event. Successful teams like Clemson know that you must start over again regularly. Every season, they re-install the program, the values, the philosophy, and the “why.” Dabo Swinney has built and nurtured a thriving team culture at Clemson that is key to their success.
Teams that can manufacture and maintain their culture can then focus on bringing in players based on their talents or the team’s specific needs. They have the confidence that the player will adopt the values and expected behaviors established by the team. Teams that only bring in players they feel are “culture fits” are picking from a smaller talent pool.
Winning teams have culture built-in to their infrastructure. They talk about winning instead of their strategy or their culture.