Culture eats strategy for breakfast
This phrase, attributed to Peter Drucker and repeated ad nauseam in the world of management, resonated strongly once again during the Re-think Industry 2025 event held a couple of weeks ago. It was mentioned by one of the speakers and immediately connects with something that is constantly observed when discussing Artificial Intelligence strategy in companies.
For those unfamiliar with the event, it is a conference organized by the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa, aimed at the region's industrial fabric. Every year, it brings together companies, agents, and professionals from the ecosystem to share innovative experiences on topics such as Digital Transformation, Sustainability, Generational Change, and Business Growth. Once again, it was an interesting and inspiring day, but also one full of very practical lessons.
Among all the reflections from the event, one deserves special mention: no strategy works without a culture to support it.
"This is how we do it here."
When we talk about organizational culture, we are referring to the shared values, habits, behaviors, and beliefs that define how people work, how decisions are made, how they communicate, and how they interact within a company. In essence, "how things are done here."
Culture does not appear overnight: it is not imposed, it is built. It is shaped by people, especially those who lead by example. They are the ones who turn values into everyday reality.
Much has been said about this phrase in the world of organizational management, but we can all agree that we can have a brilliant, detailed, and technically flawless strategy, but if the culture does not support it, it is doomed to failure.
The AI strategy is no different.
As with any other strategy, AI also requires a culture that supports it, with committed individuals who lead the way toward that strategy and push for the cultural change it entails.
When offering support services to companies in the design and implementation of their AI strategy, various aspects are taken into account, such as architecture and systems, data, governance, regulatory compliance, and... culture. The importance of this last aspect is always emphasized in the implementation of an AI strategy in a company.
This is a disruptive technology that represents a transformation in the way things are done, which is not always understood and, like any change, causes initial rejection, even fear, as for many it is uncharted territory.
Despite this, the importance of the cultural aspect within the strategy is not always understood, and in many cases it is relegated to the bottom of the list of requirements for integrating AI.
However, there is no point in investing in technology if the organization is not prepared to adopt, experiment with, and use it naturally. Technological transformation only occurs if cultural transformation occurs first.
People, the focus of the strategy
But what is culture, if not people? At one of the round tables at Re-think Industry, where the discussion focused on digital transformation and the implementation of new technologies, the importance of people within AI strategy was emphasized.
One company that is already traveling this path summed up the consultants' experience perfectly: you can design the best AI strategy, but if the people who make up the organization don't understand it, don't accept it, or don't feel it is theirs, it won't move forward. Technology doesn't transform companies— people do.
For a good AI strategy to be successful, two transformations must always coexist:
TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION + CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION
And to promote the latter, there is one essential ingredient:
- Training, training, and more training.
- Training to understand what AI is and what it is not.
- Training to overcome fear.
- Training to integrate new ways of working.
- Training so that culture evolves at the same pace as technology.
Culture is the soil in which any strategy takes root. And in the case of Artificial Intelligence, this is truer than ever.
Technology can be planned. Systems can be deployed. Flawless architectures can be designed.
But without culture, nothing will work.
Because ultimately, AI does not transform companies. They are transformed by the people who make them possible.
