I am of a mind to believe culture is a significant factor –perhaps THE factor- in determining long term company success.  Those of us in the strategy game ignore the power of culture at our peril.

But while culture can be crucial to enabling success, it does have its dark side.  A recent edition of Seena Sharp’s Sharp Insights titled Playing the Blame Game reminded me of a sad chapter in American corporate history.  In her newsletter Seena shared examples of companies that blamed “factors beyond our control” for failures that with keen analysis, insight and action could have been avoided.  The example that struck me concerned Anheuser-Busch…

“Anheuser-Busch, MillerCoors and other big players in the brewski business are blaming the economy and even cooler weather for declining sales. So why have craft beers seen double-digit sales increases every year for the past four years?”

Seena’s example has deeper, cultural roots at Anheuser-Busch.

I had the opportunity to visit with Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis about 3 years before InBev bought them.  Topics were marketing and product development strategies.  To AB’s credit, they were in a major campaign of launching flankers and new brands to try to seize a piece of the growing micro-brew, non-lager market.  They had also tried to use their merchandising and infrastructure weight to sign up the bigger micro-brew producers to distribution deals.

During the meetings, they let us peak under the tent and the charts were ugly.  The core of the lager business (Budweiser, Michelob, etc.) was simply falling apart.  The peripheral light products (Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, etc.) were treading water, at best.

So what about all these new brands (think Shock Top, Michelob Amber Bock, Bud Light Lime, etc., etc.)?  The charts showed a lot of fire and fall back.  So why?

Well, a couple of reasons.  One, leadership would not shift marketing and merchandising support to these new products … they were too busy spending the largesse on “saving the flagships”.  Further, the pencil pushers would cut the marketing support for new brands because ROI couldn’t be demonstrated beyond the introduction period despite rapid take off (never mind the amazing negative ROI of marketing on the sinking flagships!).

Second, the engineers (brew masters) would not produce any of these new products inside AB facilities.  They contract manufactured them which drove up costs.  Reason:  They didn’t want the yeasts and hop residues to “contaminate” their process equipment.

Why?  Well here’s the clincher.  The VP of Brewery Operations told us –serious as a heart attack—“because those micro-brews … they don’t taste the way beer is supposed to taste”.   Budweiser, apparently, is the one true beer.

Imagine the arrogance!!!  Talk about the blame!!!  When a culture programs itself to believe it is the truth and the way then it has lost the ability to understand, accept and address change.  New strategies and plans never rise above the status of side show.