For decades, when people referred to organizational phenomena they did not quite understand, they coined that “strategy”.
No more. Today, when the same thing happens, people refer to “culture.”
Which is just as bad.
Both is just pretty helpless, really:
Because when you refer to fuzzy space-holders, instead of trying to grasp the complex reality, and nailing it down by naming it, appropriately, then actual dialog is evaded. Clarification dies. Improvement becomes impossible. Complexity is being glossed over. That is what really happens when people speak about how “our people are at the heart of everything” or “the culture” being so important.
And no: One (culture) does not eat the other (strategy) for breakfast!
If Peter Drucker actually ever said that, I am sure he did so just to poke at the “strategy industry” of the time.
Today, he would probably say: “Reality eats your strategy and culture for breakfast.”
Or something of the sort.
Let´s name stuff correctly. Let´s avoid the cliché. Call the system the system. Not culture!