Culture Eats Strategy Every Day of the Week

OK. The title should be in quotes and accredited directly to Carleen Haas, VP of Human Resources at Humana, the Kentucky-based health insurance company. (Heck, my health insurance company!)

I'm delighted when a senior manager puts culture and engagement together. In her interview with Talent Management, Haas makes clear that leadership at Humana is expected to create a culture of engagement.

My question is how?

What is expected of leaders when it comes to implementing continually a culture of engagement?

How do we want those leaders to engage those expectations?  (Interesting, isn't it, that expectations and engagement are of concern regarding leaders just as regarding front-line employees.)

Humana offers a one-day orientation for employees that touches cultural expectations, values and mission. That's a good start for any organization.

But what's the leader's role in continuing employees' awareness and appreciation of the specific culture? What's the leader's role in maintaining the culture?

I come back to my four components of building the CORE of an organizational culture. These should be on every leader's List of Responsibilities.

Communication: Every leader, every manager must hold herself accountable for regular communication with employees. This communication should, among other things, (re)vitalize the organization's culture. For quite a few postings about communication, click Communication in Categories to the right. 

Opportunity: Every leader, every manager must ensure that specific opportunities are made available for employees to engage in aspects of the organizational culture. An opportunity, by the way, requires a time and place. For examples of opportunities, check this earlier posting.

Resources: Every leader, every manager must see that the resources employees will use to take on effective engagement are made available. Resources include tools, information, mentoring, training, and more. Here's an earlier posting and here's a downloadable pdf.

Engagement: Every leader, every manager must be certain that every individual who supervises employees does so with an "engagement commitment." The objectives of the organization are more successfully achieved when employees are engaged. Managers/supervisors should give ample attention (and encouragement) to employee engagement.

Carleen, I append to your statement: "Culture eats strategy every day of the week to the CORE."