“Culture” is a seven-letter word that has gained traction in the C-suite and boardroom. As Protiviti’s Jim DeLoach explains, more than ever, senior executives and directors are acutely aware that culture plays a role in delivering outcomes – both good and bad – at the companies they serve.
Every senior executive and director has read stories of companies behaving badly and asked themselves, “What were they thinking?” and perhaps, “Can that happen at my company?” On the flip side, many have also observed successful companies they admire and wondered, “What really makes them tick?”
As Peter Drucker famously pointed out, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
Like everything else that has a demonstrable impact on an enterprise’s success in creating and protecting enterprise value, culture warrants a proactive agenda from directors and senior executives to understand, measure and reinforce it continuously and improve it as circumstances warrant.
In the 2019 Protiviti/North Carolina State University ERM Initiative global survey of board members and C-suite executives,[1] respondents cited resistance to change as the #2 risk – a significant matter, given that the #1 risk is concern over competition from “born digital” firms, with nine of the top 10 risks identified in the survey…
