Webinar: When Strategy Meets Reality

Webinar

When Strategy Meets Reality

Purpose without execution is just a slogan

Zoom

October 6 2026 14:00 CEST

100 seats

when strategy meet reality

What You Told Us Before We Started

When you registered, we asked one question: what cultural situation does your organisation struggle with most? 120 people from 48 countries signed up, and around 55 gave us an answer that we could use. Even from a sample that small, the split was striking.

Decison makers in organisations named turning culture into action twice as often as communication (30% vs 15%). Everyone else did the opposite: 41% named communication, and only 5% named action.

In other words, leaders know what culture they want but struggle to make it happen, while their teams are still waiting to understand what it means for them.

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Key Takeaways

From expectations to leadership, here are 8 takeaways from the webinar.

Big Words Don't Travel

Our intake survey showed executives struggle to turn culture into action, while employees struggle with how it is communicated.

Niklas Nordling explained the gap: leaders know what they want, then announce it in big words like "speed" or "customer centricity", and teams are left asking what it means for them.

Meaning Is Made by the Nearest Manager

Dilution happens after the first level of leadership. Even a perfectly designed culture at the top can fail if it is not communicated properly.

Our speakers suggested working with the supervisors on how to translate the culture for each team (what does it mean for them in practice).

Culture Belongs on the Executive Desk

"If it’s not owned by CEO in a visible, truthful, and honest way, it won’t happen"

If the CEO and leadership team do not own it, the same way they own strategy, it will not happen.
They need to be vocal about it, make sure it is seen as a priority for them and therefore the rest of the organisation

Culture Fit to What, Exactly?

Should the person fit the team, or the strategy?

Sometimes you hire someone precisely to shake up the status quo. Every team has its own subculture, so know what you are hiring into.

AI magnify your cultural problems

AI will not fix culture problems, it will magnify them. Being AI ready is a change in behaviour, not in technology.

Niklas Nordling: psychological safety, belonging and transparency matter more, not less. Akhilesh Mandal’s rule: design systems where human agency sits on top of AI agents.

Culture Is Never Finished

Markets, companies and people keep changing, so there is no box to tick.

Niklas Nordling called it the dilemma for goal-driven leaders. One panellist expects the culture KPIs to sit at 15 to 20 percent, not 75, and counts holding that level as the win.
The skill that matters most is to keep learning.

Sell the Real Culture, Not the Ideal One

Career pages often promise the target culture, and new hires walk into the actual one.

Akhilesh Mandal's advice: tell them both, upfront. The gap then becomes their call to action, not a broken promise that ends in disengagement and early attrition.

Growth Needs a New Culture

A founder-led startup culture can work brilliantly, until the company scales and the culture that got you there stops working.

Akhilesh Mandal: every stage of growth needs its own target culture to execute its strategy. Skip that step and you end up with competing subcultures, the old guard versus the newcomers.

Why you should join us.

In this webinar, our experts will have a practical discussion on what it takes to close the gap between strategic intent and everyday organisational reality.

You will discover how organisations move beyond superficial values and get a behind-the-scenes look at how culture drives execution at scale. We will also walk you though a concrete framework to align measure, align and when needed change Culture.

What you will gain from this session:

Understand the connection between strategy and culture.
A reflection on how your strategy translates to reality.
Practical exemple of success stories and less than successful transformations.
Actionable alignment tools

PROGRAMME

45 min + Q&A

8:00 EDT / 14:00 CEST / 15:00 EEST / 17:30 IST

Welcome and Introductions
Setting the stage and introducing
What is Culture and why does it matter for strategy
Strategy meets reality
What actually happens inside an organisation when strategic intent fails to match everyday operational reality.
Practical examples of Cultural transformations that work and not
Panel discussion: Closing the gap
A practical discussion on measuring culture, moving beyond superficial values, and introducing concrete frameworks to align strategy with action.
Live Q&A

poornima bidesi

Poornima Bidesi

Culture Change and Organisation Development, Airbus

Poornima Bidesi is an HR and Organisational Development professional with working and living experience across India, France, and the United States.

At Airbus, she leads culture change and organisation development initiatives across a genuinely global workforce.

Her approach: keep her home culture at the core, and integrate the best of what she comes across.

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Egbert Schram

Egbert Schram

Group CEO, The Culture Factor Group

Egbert Schram is an experienced business leader and the CEO of The Culture Factor Group.

With a strong background in International Business and International Management, he specialises in cultural and strategic change projects.

He works effectively with diverse multinational and cross-functional teams, focusing on aligning organisational culture with business strategy to boost corporate performance.

Egbert specialises in creating hands-on solutions for the world's largest organisations, helping them align culture and strategy.

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Artboard 1@2x-1

Niklas Nordling

Organisational development and change leader

Niklas Nordling is an organisational development and change leader with 25 years across Nokia, IBM, PwC, and independent advisory.

He combines behavioural science with business acumen to lead the human side of strategic transformation, culture design, post-merger integration, and large-scale operational change.

As Head of People and Organization Development at Nokia, he shaped culture through the company's biggest transitions.

A PhD in psychology, he grounds his advice in evidence and neuroscience, not fashion. Today he helps organisations build the capability to renew continuously, because AI brings the technology, but people bring the change.

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Akhilesh Mandal

Managing Director, The Culture Factor India

Akhilesh Mandal helps organisations build high-performance culture and authentic leaders as Managing Director of The Culture Factor India.

An engineer by training, he's an ICF and TLC accredited coach, certified in Intercultural Management and Organisation Culture by The Culture Factor Group.

Before consulting, he held senior leadership roles spanning country operations, P&L, sales, and start-up ventures across Aerospace, IT, and Engineering.

He's lived and worked across the UK, Continental Europe, and his home country India.

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