ABSTRACT
Even the most venerable and best-run organizations need new strategies from time to time, but new strategies can often conflict with the organization’s existing culture. The Esquire culture thrives on decentralization, market dominance, and sustaining uniqueness. Any management unwilling to commit the time and money to develop a new culture or adapt an old one should reconsider its goals. Stressing its unique flour, the company is expanding its distribution of that product through an independent broker organization, and it has introduced a new product, stone-ground wheat flour, that has gotten off to a handsome start. If growth requires a brilliant new strategy that poses a threat to the organization’s culture, the brilliant strategy should be left on the drawing board. But if vision and patience uncover a weak strategy-culture marriage, a brilliant new strategy may provide the best means of appropriately modifying the culture.
