Once the corporate culture is identified, we need to work on and eliminate cultural barriers to performance. Cultural barriers could be miscommunication between staff, low motivation, deficient performance, lack of team spirit, misconception of organizational strategic objective, absence of clear individual business roles, and poor corporate image. Considering contemporary management practices, such barriers can be successfully overcome.

What is an organizational culture? Many have tried for many years to define the word ‘culture’ and to highlight its main characteristics. Some would refer to culture as “the glue that would hold the organization together”. Others would add that each organization distinguishes itself by acquiring a certain distinctive personality—or culture. This personality or culture can be identified by observing the behaviors and attitudes of its members. Usually, a shared system of values, beliefs and assumptions governs people’s behaviors in a certain organization and helps to define the culture. An organizational culture can also be identified according to the way employees interact with their customers and the wider community. Other indicators of a culture can include the extent of freedom in decision making, and how sources of information and power are disseminated among employees in different hierarchal levels of the organization.

So what distinguishes people from one culture to the other? Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner developed a model in 1997 in their book Riding the Waves of Culture. This model, focused on seven dimensions of culture, was based on extensive research over 10 years, during which the authors communicated with 46,000 managers in 40 countries. Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner noted that people from different national cultures differ in every aspect according to the culture to which they belong. They also highlighted that each culture has its own unique set of values, beliefs, preferences and before all way of thinking that would fall within the identified seven spectrums.

Powering on Potential, Building an Organizational Culture, The Experience of Startup Companies