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Drawing up a list of beliefs and principles is one thing; putting those beliefs to the test is another. Tough choices are bound to come along, and they force you to examine your beliefs closely. If you run a one-person company, you already know something about what you stand for. In a bigger company, certain beliefs and values are inherent in the ways the company does business. The best way to get to the heart of your company’s beliefs and principles is to imagine how you’d respond to tough dilemmas.

Your company’s values statement represents more than a quick to-do list. The description of your values reaches beyond quarterly goals or even yearly targets. Your values should guide you through tough decisions as you build a sustainable business that lasts and grows over years and decades.

Maybe your company has some sort of values credo already in place but tucked away into a file that hasn’t been accessed in ages. If so, at least you’re a step ahead of the game. (You lose points, however, if you have to glance at a dusty bronzed plaque on the office wall to remember it — even more if you don’t remember where the plaque hangs.)

You may not have the luxury of spending weeks or months developing a values statement, so we show you a quick way to create one that sets your company on the right track. If your company is small, you can follow the steps yourself or with one or two of your colleagues — no need for long meetings and careful review. If you’re part of a larger company, however, you may have to wade through a bit more debate to get a consensus.

You can’t and shouldn’t create a values statement too quickly, but you can quickly begin a process to help capture and articulate the values intrinsic in the behaviors of leadership and employees of your business. Follow these steps to start creating a values statement:

1 Gather your company’s chief decision-makers to talk about the general company values that should (and do) guide employee behavior.Come prepared with an agenda and your own observations and take careful notes. Use good meeting management protocols to ensure all voices are heard and hierarchical or seniority battles don’t arise (for example, ensure the meeting facilitator never dismisses a suggestion out of hand no matter whom it’s from). One useful trick is to bring in a relatively new employee and ask that person the single most important thing that attracted them to the firm.

2 Prepare a first-draft list of all the values discussed in the meeting and circulate copies for review.

3 Schedule one or two follow-up meetings with senior managers to clarify and confirm a final set of values.

4 Create a values statement that captures the agreed-upon values clearly and concisely, and get it approved by the board or other such advisory body if that’s necessary.

5 Meet with managers at all levels to make sure that they understand the importance of, and the reasoning behind, the company values statement.Another useful exercise is to select one value from the statement and start off your next management meeting with some discussion around it; solicit examples, positive and negative, about its deployment, and try to come up with some suggestions for better communicating the value if it appears there’s a problem. Rotate the value under discussion at the next meeting until all have been covered.

6 See that every employee gets a copy of the statement.If you’re in business for yourself, place a hard copy of the values statement near your workspace or at your home office if that’s what you use. Don’t let it gather dust. For a bigger company, print the values statement on wallet-size cards and don’t forget to include it in the annual report. Post it on the company website and make sure it reaches all the stakeholders.