Drucker’s famous quote means that when strategy and culture collide, culture will win. Rarely has Drucker’s quote had more direct applicability than with respect to the legal system in Ukraine.
Culture refers to the dominant set of professional values, attitudes and behavioral expectations in a given organization or identifiable group of people, whether we are speaking of the prosecution service or the judiciary or all of a country’s lawyers. Strategy consists of plans and actions that can formally be imposed or chosen, such as structural or organizational changes or changes in rules or changes in personnel or action plans. The Drucker quote does not mean that strategy is unimportant. Culture and strategy interact with one another and in some sense are mutually reinforcing. For example, a culture change in the judiciary needs to be accompanied by decent salaries and some effective law enforcement entity capable of investigating judicial corruption. But, again, what “culture eats strategy for breakfast” means is that when the two collide, culture will win. And when it comes to the legal system in Ukraine, such collisions are routine.
