The recent admission by President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. that the K-to-12 program failed to deliver on its promises speaks volumes about a deeper problem in government programs and even in organizations. Launched in 2012 with the vision of improving the quality of education and making Filipino graduates more globally competitive, the K-to-12 program had a clear strategy on paper. It aimed to add two more years to the basic education cycle, align the curriculum with global standards, and supposedly prepare students for employment or higher education. But more than a decade later, the outcomes are underwhelming. Employers still complain about underprepared graduates. Students and teachers are burdened. And the public continues to question what those extra two years were for.
Why did K-to-12 fail? It wasn’t just about poor implementation. The strategy might have looked good in theory, but the execution was fragmented, rushed, and under-resourced. But beyond that, there was a bigger disconnect — the culture. Education culture in the Philippines is still rigid, textbook-heavy, and exam-oriented. Teachers weren’t fully on board or properly trained. The system rewarded compliance, not innovation or adaptability. When strategy, execution, and culture are misaligned, even the best-intentioned programs collapse under their own weight.
This isn’t just a government problem. It happens in businesses, nonprofits, schools, and even startups. We often talk about “strategic plans” like they’re magic blueprints. But a strategy without strong execution is just wishful thinking. And both will fail if the culture doesn’t support them. These three — strategy, execution, and culture — are like a three-legged stool. Remove one, and the whole thing topples.
Now let’s look at countries that got it right. Estonia is a striking example. After gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, it had little money and outdated infrastructure. But its leaders made a bold bet on digital. They didn’t just craft a strategy to go digital — they built the execution muscle and cultivated a culture of innovation and trust in government tech. Today, Estonians can vote, access healthcare, pay taxes, and even sign legal documents online. It’s not just because they had good software. It’s because the people believed in the system. That belief shaped behaviors. The execution matched the vision. Culture followed and reinforced it.
Singapore’s Smart Nation journey tells a similar story. When the government launched the initiative, it wasn’t just about putting sensors on lampposts or building apps — it was about changing how people live, work, and interact with the state. They aligned strategy with detailed roadmaps, poured in investments, created agencies to own the programs, and educated citizens to embrace the shift. Civil servants were trained and incentivized. Tech adoption became a norm, not a disruption. Culture was actively shaped from classrooms, to public offices, and to homes.
In the private sector, Apple is a familiar example. Its strategy has always been about designing beautiful, integrated products that just work. That strategy shows up not just in their product roadmap but also in how teams are structured, how decisions are made, and how people think and behave across the company. Engineers know they’re expected to care as much about the user experience as the hardware specs. Designers and product managers are wired to collaborate closely. This alignment between what Apple says it will do (strategy), how it does it (execution), and how people behave and think (culture) is why it can repeatedly deliver breakthrough products.
Another great example is Netflix. When it shifted from DVD rentals to streaming, and then from content delivery to content creation, it didn’t just change the business model. It rewired the organization. Its now famous culture deck talks about freedom with responsibility, high performance, and transparency. That wasn’t fluff. It was a signal to every employee: this is how we operate now. Their strategy needed bold risk-taking. Their execution demanded fast, empowered teams. Their culture was intentionally designed to make that happen.
We can’t separate these three. Many leaders still fall into the trap of treating them as separate pieces. They craft vision documents then throw them over to operations teams and hope for the best. They obsess over execution metrics without asking if people actually believe in what they’re doing. They launch culture initiatives — town halls, posters, values campaigns — without connecting them to real decisions or business goals.
Culture, in particular, is the hardest to shape. It’s invisible but powerful. It shows up in what people reward, what gets punished, what leaders tolerate, and what stories get told in the hallway. You can’t fake it. If a strategy calls for innovation but employees are penalized for failure, they’ll play safe. If execution needs agility, but managers demand strict hierarchy, nothing moves. If culture values loyalty over results, even the best ideas stall.
So, what can leaders do? First, stop thinking of strategy, execution, and culture separately. They’re deeply intertwined. Every strategic plan should ask: do we have the systems and people to deliver this? Will our culture support or resist it? Every execution plan should ask: does this tie back to what we’re really trying to achieve? Does our team know and believe in the mission? Every culture initiative should ask: is this just symbolic, or does it change how we work and make decisions?
In the end, organizations that win aren’t the ones with the smartest plans or the biggest budgets. They’re the ones where vision, action, and values move in sync, where strategy isn’t just a document, execution isn’t just a checklist, and culture isn’t just a poster — they’re built into each other. That’s what makes success not just possible, but sustainable.
The views expressed herein are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of his office as well as FINEX.
Reynaldo C. Lugtu, Jr. is the founder and CEO of Hungry Workhorse Consulting, a digital, culture, and customer experience transformation consulting firm. He is a fellow at the US-based Institute for Digital Transformation. He is the chair of the IT Governance Committee of FINEX Academy. He teaches strategic management and digital transformation in the MBA Program of De La Salle University. The author may be e-mailed at rey.lugtu@hungryworkhorse.com
