Define the values that will shape your team's behavior, decisions, and culture as you grow.
Write down every value, principle, or belief that matters to you and your business. Do not filter yet. Include how you want people to treat each other, how you want to treat clients, and what non-negotiable standards you hold. Aim for 15 to 20 items, then you will narrow down.
This is as important as what you stand for. Write down the behaviors, attitudes, and patterns that are deal-breakers in your business. These are your anti-values. They help you make hard calls about who stays and who goes.
Values that only live on a wall or a website are useless. For each value, write one specific behavior that proves it. If you cannot point to a daily behavior, the value is not real yet.
Take your brainstorm list and rank the top 5 to 7 values. These are the ones that define your company. If two values conflict in a real situation, the higher-ranked one wins. This ranking is your tiebreaker.
Write your values as a clean, concise list. Each value gets a name and one sentence that explains what it means in practice. This is what you share with your team, put in your hiring materials, and use in performance reviews.