Management Tip of the Day: Get your values right early

When starting a business it is important to establish a set of genuine values before your enterprise gets too complex and thus harder to change, says Harvard Business Review.

The Management Tip of the Day offers quick, practical management tips and ideas from Harvard Business Review and HBR.org. Any opinions expressed are not endorsed by Reuters.

"As a start-up gets off the ground, it has a short-lived opportunity to decide how it wants to do business. With each new hire company culture becomes more entrenched and somewhere after two dozen employees, it tends to cement.

Establish a set of genuine values before your start-up gets too complex. Articulate a coherent philosophy about who you are and how you will work. Also be clear about who you aren't and what you won't do. This will make decisions easier and ultimately improve results.

Rather than analyzing each new decision afresh, you'll have a common foundation from which to make them. If you don't do this deliberately when your organization is young, the culture will (often rigidly) form itself."

- Today's management tip was adapted from "Four Things to Get Right When Starting a Company" by Bruce Gibney and Ken Howery.