Francis Wade | Your Strategy Failed. Culture Isn’t Why.

As a member of the C-suite, you want answers. Your team’s recent strategic plan was not implemented. Some blame company culture. Fortunately, AI has opened a path around that explanation.

The problem with the popular meme “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” isn’t that it is false. The mistake lies in what it does next. It ends the search for real answers.

CEO Roberta did everything right. Once the strategy was crafted, she followed the full communication playbook: town-halls, explainer videos, a one-page infographic, focus groups. A month later, her engagement surveys showed more confusion, not less. “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” her C-suite explained.

But if culture, oversharing, discipline, and willpower all fall short, what can move the needle?

The Real Reason

The problem has little to do with the volume of communication and its connection to corporate culture. Instead, it has everything to do with the fact that the communication used by Roberta’s company only ran in one direction.

It never used to matter. One-way was simply the best available method.

Now it does matter. I recently interviewed Joe Pine, author of Transformation Economy, about the role of real-time, two-way conversations that produce a transformation – and how that applies to activating staff around a strategy.

Activation means far more than simply being informed.

In this context, activation points to an employee who is exposed to corporate strategy in a way that produces a transformation. The individual becomes a different person in the process.

Many managers have witnessed similar behaviour shifts firsthand. An aspiring employee seeks out a manager, coach, or mentor. After a series of committed discussions, the staff member becomes a different kind of worker.

In small companies, these interactions happen constantly – they are essential to rapid growth.

But as organisations grow, these chats become more difficult to arrange.

Failing Substitutes

Faced with a classic scaling problem, perhaps your company has tried, like most, to find a substitute for individual chats.

An FAQ document that answers questions anticipated in advance, just not the ones the employee actually has.

All-staff Q&As where the intent is to be interactive, but only a handful make polite queries. Most spectate.

The supervisor-led cascade ends up being a game of “Chinese telephone” where original messages become hopelessly garbled.

An engagement survey captures reactions long after the fact and is acted on months later.

Roberta’s confusion was built on tactics from this list. Like other leaders, she resorted to impersonal mass communication. It only results in strategies that never take hold.

Thankfully, there is a specific class of AI-powered interactives that can help.

A New Use of AI

The first solution that comes to mind is one many companies think they already have. Their use of informational chatbots with customers leads them to believe they can do the same with staff.

However, these highly scripted responses, popular with local phone companies, offer rote answers that are annoyingly tone-deaf. They function merely as a robotic FAQ.

Contrast that with the new, transformational discussions allowed by emerging AI personas. These Socratic dialogues let an employee bring their own situation into the exchange - a genuine back-and-forth, not a script. Here is where a transformation can occur.

Cases and New Tools in Development

My work designing personas for a virtual conference on AI and Strategy Creation shows that they can be trained on narrow problem areas. They are a far cry from the digital twins and clones existing elsewhere, which attempt too much.

For example:

The Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group in Japan built an “AI CEO” modelled on Group CEO Toru Nakashima. Employees were taught how to use it to refine proposals and understand strategic direction.

The Norwegian School of Economics’ AI conducted strategic interviews with 800+ people. The method became a powerful two-way channel for the institution’s futures. Interestingly, it was modelled on top leader Helge Thorbjørnsen.

Contextuum AI is software built to transform one-way strategy communication into interactive, real-time strategic decision support. It uses role-based simulations to force users to make strategic choices in detailed scenarios, thereby teaching them how to use the new thinking.

This AI-driven approach is a direct antidote to the traditional “information dump” of a strategy rollout. Consequently, an employee’s first encounter with a fresh strategy is not passive but active. Placing them immediately in a simulated environment makes the approach a powerful cognitive explainer.

In summary, Roberta didn’t need another town-hall. She needed a channel that ran in two directions. At scale.

Real activation requires a different shape of conversation. It is emerging as one that allows for immediate give and take.

A strategy leader should never again treat activation as something announced once then left to survive on its own.

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To search his prior columns on productivity, strategy, engagement and business processes, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com.