Undefined values can lead to compounding culture debt

When a company is small, the high degree of interaction between team members allows for efficient decisions without having values defined. But as a company starts to grow, communication and alignment around decision-making and hiring become increasingly challenging. Delegating responsibility becomes more difficult because you may lack the confidence that your employees will do things right.

Without common principles guiding decision making, a natural consequence is to implement top-down policies. The well-intentioned policies make it harder to attract and retain top talent that thrives on freedom and responsibility. In turn, it leads to lower performance and stricter top-down control.