futuramb:

Culture, like brand, is misunderstood and often discounted as a touchy-feely component of business that belongs to HR. It’s not intangible or fluffy, it’s not a vibe or the office décor. It’s one of the most important drivers that has to be set or adjusted to push long-term, sustainable success. It’s not good enough just to have an amazing product and a healthy bank balance. Long-term success is dependent on a culture that is nurtured and alive. Culture is the environment in which your strategy and your brand thrives or dies a slow death.

I would say this even stronger: culture is what is implemented in the organization and in the head of the employees while strategies, plans and organization charts are incomplete and one dimensional sketches of what we want the organization to be. The problem is that we think that we can bypass the concept of culture to get directly from these sketchy plans to changed organizational behavior, when in fact the changed culture is what we really want to achieve.

Cultural Shifts are difficult – challenging, in todays argot – and demand constant reinforcement to actualize.