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A recent Fast Company piece, “Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch ” states “culture, like brand, is misunderstood and often discounted as a touchy-feely component of business that belongs to HR.”

I definitely held this opinion 10 years ago as a first-year MBA student. Why was Organizational Behavior a required class right along with Finance, Accounting and Economics? It sounded like baby stuff. As a second-year student, I still shook my head when every single executive I spoke to had the exact same answer to my favorite (ok, brown-noser) question. “Which business school class has been the most useful to you in your career?” Again and again, they said O.B.

A couple of jobs and companies later, I get it. What I learned in my very first O.B class (I ended up taking four of them) is true—culture can’t be manufactured; it’s not a policy that can be changed. It is a living, breathing, basically uncontrollable thing. I could write a long post about culture (and include something I read recently– that the only way a CEO could ensure a change to corporate culture would be to fire everyone—including herself—on the exact same day!), but the point of this post is to address what I think is a shortfall of the aforementioned blog. How exactly does the black sheep of a brother named Culture best it’s smart, serious, successful brother, Strategy? I’ve got two good reasons.

1. Can you get there? Imagine your dream vacation is a month long solo trek in Bhutan. You get in shape, save the money and do all the paperwork to get into the country. Great. But you have a wife, kids, aging parents, your own business and a garden to tend. You have a vision and a plan, but your circumstances just don’t support you achieving it. Culture is what makes a good strategy achievable. It’s looking around. Can you really do what you want to do with your current staff and working environment? A strategic plan is just a piece of paper if it isn’t executable. The vision, the strategies and the company’s capabilities—resources as well as culture—must all align.

2. Connecting the dots. Companies with highly successful cultures are mobilized, energized and can get stuff done. A functional culture is motivated internally because people BELIEVE in what is going on (a strong culture easily weeds out non-believers). This is a competitive advantage. Management doesn’t have to spend time getting alignment on new initiatives—everyone already gets what the company is about and can connect the dots themselves without a heavy hand from management. Same with day-to-day work. There is no confusion about WHY; therefore, employees can focus on the WHAT. This allows managers more time to think big strategic thoughts (because they do less “bossing”). Employees can make better decisions and, one hopes, also have more fun doing it. Another trip analogy: when you don’t have to revisit the map every mile, it makes driving a lot more enjoyable and your car makes much better time.

Has your employer ever sent you to a conference and you were:

1. Not really sure what you were there to learn or do.
2. Sick at the thought of awkwardly talking to strangers during “networking time.”
3. Guilt-ridden about the recap you were supposed to write of the event—but didn’t.
4. All of the above, and more.

 Yes, we’ve all been there. Conferences can be incredibly stimulating, but they can also be tough on the brain, the ego and, if the chairs are hard, the backside.

 I had an experience last week that will revolutionize the way I participate in conferences.

It seems counter-intuitive that a tool for connecting virtually can exponentially enhance the experience of connecting in person, but social media can. And it did.

At the Fast Company Innovation Uncensored Conference in San Francisco, I experienced the power of social media firsthand. Let me tell you what I saw. 

By my estimation, over half of the audience was using Twitter during the conference to comment on the speaker’s presentation in real time.  The conference organizers (who set up the hashtag #UI11) and the speakers and moderators waiting in the wings were Tweeting too.  This did two big things for those of us in attendance.

One, it allowed all of us to participate in a singular, robust “side conversation” if we so chose. The sessions became interactive and we all benefitted from the insights and opinions of the thought-leaders in the audience as well as those on stage.   Those who weren’t participating in social media were simply on the receiving end of what was presented.

Was it distracting? Not for me. In fact, I’d say it made me pay better attention as I was seeking out key insights to Tweet.

 Two, social media actually facilitated face-to-face networking. After following the conversation all day, it was much easier to approach people during the networking time and pick up where the conversation left off, so to speak. Also, because most everyone has a headshot associated with his or her twitter handle, I could recognize by sight, and comfortably approach, people I’d never actually met.  Social awkwardness practically eliminated.

Of secondary importance, social media allowed attendees to give feedback to the conference organizers in real time. “Can you move the podium? Those of us on the right can’t see” was the most productive tweet. “My ass is mad”—about the hard wooden chairs—gets the humor award.

Lastly, post-conference, a review of the Twitter stream provides a great crowd-sourced recap of the event.  All the key takeaways are right there!

If you think Twitter is about broadcasting to the world what kind of sandwich you made for lunch, let me share with you a few actual tweets from the event.  You’ll see they are thoughtful and each is crafted as a conversation starter, which is what social media is all about.

•  “Big ideas stem from small ideas. You must have the courage to swim against the current” – Padmasree Warrior, CTO of Cisco #iu11
• 20th Century was about hyper consumption; 21st Century about collaborative consumption (via @socialadvoc8) #IU11
• RT @VegasGalB: If you have a smartphone, you have every tool needed to create a revolution #iu11
• Livestrong was founded by VCs so they are not interested in incremental improvements. – Doug Ulman, CEO, Livestrong #IU11

There were three hundred attendees at this conference. If each of us Tweeting has, say, 125 followers, that means that content from this conference reached 18,750 people who weren’t physically there. Not only were the ideas for the event disseminated, Tweets invite engagement, which means the conversation became even that much longer and richer.

This is significant. And I bet not a one of those 18,750 people got the sore bum I did.

We hear it all the time in our industry. Good design relies on empathy. Being able to understand, perceive or feel another person’s feelings facilitates having an insight that generates an innovation.  But why isn’t sympathy part of the design approach?

Sympathy:  the tendency to help others in order to prevent or alleviate their suffering.

An example:  The baby is crying. I don’t know why she is crying, because she can’t tell me. But I’m going to try every trick I know to get her to stop.

So for comparison, empathy is like walking a mile in someone else’s shoes and then, based on that experience, redesigning the shoes.  Sympathy is like calling the guy a taxi so he doesn’t have to walk in the first place.

Sympathy helps fix an immediate problem. Empathy helps provide a permanent solution.

And now for what prompted this post in the first place.

Earlier this week I heard an interview with Maurice Sendak, whom most of us know as the author of Where the Wild Things Are, on Fresh Air. While I am a big fan of NPR, I’m not always into what Fresh Air serves up. But this interview, at various points, stopped me in my tracks.

Terry Gross is interviewing Sendak, now age 83, about the publication of his new book, Bumble-ardy. But the interview takes an interesting and moving turn as Sendak contemplates the recent loss of his partner and, basically, life from the perspective of a guy at the tail end of it.  

Here’s a snippet:

“I have nothing now but praise for my life. I’m not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can’t stop them.

They leave me and I love them more. … What I dread is the isolation. … There are so many beautiful things in the world which

I will have to leave when I die, but I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready.” 

Upon hearing this, I had a never-before-felt flash of insight into an elderly person’s perspective. The bittersweet joy of aging—or rather, having aged– was so poignant. I knew I was feeling empathy, not sympathy, because in a wee way I felt jealous.  How brilliantly painful a life lived must seem.  I came into work wiping away tears.

Perhaps you have to hear the interview to really understand what was so moving about it.

Here is the whole thing, if you have 20 minutes to spare.

If not, start at 15:30 and listen for a mere one minute and 15 seconds and let me know how or if you are moved.

Do you feel like you’ve walked a bit in his shoes?

Or are you compelled to save him from the “deepest pain and the wondrous feeling of coming into [his] own”?

If you don’t make it all the way to the end of the interview, I’ll tell you the last thing Maurice Sendak says, “Live your life. Live your life. Live your life.”

And if that doesn’t make you well up, let me know if I can ever call you a taxi.