The culture at most start-ups is often misinterpreted and misunderstood.

The bean bags, immense flexibility, no dress code is not culture.

A bean bag can tell you nothing about the culture of a place.

Even open office architecture and free lunch are just standards.

They don’t define culture.

Culture is the set of shared attitudes, #values, goals, and practices that characterizes an organization.

Culture has more to do with shared values and beliefs.

If the employees don’t value collaboration and don’t completely believe that seamless collaboration leads to better team efficiencies then what is the point of having open office architecture?

Want to define culture? try to search for norms in a workplace that are linked to values.

Is it a norm to be assertive and openly express your ideas?
Is it a norm that management listens to those ideas and readily implements them?
Is it a norm that you are left to your own good judgment without being micromanaged?
Is it okay to hold a different opinion without being reprimanded?

Answers to these questions can give you some hints about the #culture

Even organizations that are heavily hierarchical, bureaucratic, having conventional chairs, cubicles, and rigid policies could be great #workplaces.

They only need to have better norms. 🙂