How many strategy documents have you read in your lifetime? How many have you written or contributed to? As a former policy officer I must have written hundreds! And the final question.....How many of those expensively produced, weighty, sweated over, consulted on tomes have made a long-lasting and significant difference to people's lives, an organisation or a place?

The well-worn phrase 'culture eats strategy for breakfast' is so true. In our hearts we all know it's true. Yet many council chief executives and leaders spend so little of their own time on actively shaping and reshaping the culture of teams, of organisations and of partnerships.