A funny thing happens to a lot of organizations as they expand — they take what made them succeed in the first place and suffocate it. The infrastructure and procedures that allow a company to hire faster, increase sales, and boost production often crush the creative, entrepreneurial spirit that drove the company’s early success. While there are certainly exceptions, they are just that: exceptions. Many big companies eventually get in their own way.

It’s understandable. As companies expand, it invariably becomes more difficult to create consensus between managers. An established corporation with thousands of employees is often a victim of analysis paralysis, hamstrung by its own internal bureaucracy. Everyone senses it’s needlessly difficult to get anything done, but it’s easy to justify the caution—if a bold choice goes bust, there’s a lot to lose.

Support spirited internal debate and investigation of proposals for new ways of doing things. And follow through on the best ideas – it’s critical for staff to see the company doesn’t just talk the talk, but actually walks the walk and implements strong suggestions.

2. Common sense over specific rules

Startups aren’t trapped by old rules—they’re in the process of inventing themselves.

Obviously, established companies can’t just completely throw out the rulebook. But remember rules should exist to help, not just because they’ve always been there. Otherwise, people wind up blindly following often annoying processes without thinking about the end goal. For example, if multiple clients ask for a product feature that hasn’t been included, but there isn’t a feature review meeting until the next quarter, does it make sense to follow the rules and wait? Or should staff be empowered to add the feature (or, at least, fast-track a product review)?

Beware of any policy that exists because “We’ve-always-done-things-this-way.”

If you find initiatives that are logical are consistently being blocked by rules that aren’t, it’s time for a rethink.

3. Fire poor performers fast

This one is a little counterintuitive to many folks. When imagining a great company culture, many inexperienced executives envision a culture of support, a rising tide that lifts all boats, and a happy workforce rolling up their sleeves. And while we obviously all want that, what’s often surprising is how critical it is to get rid of the bad folks as quickly as possible.

When running a startup, personnel decisions are usually made fast – they don’t yet have the hiring and review processes present at more mature organizations. What’s more, even one or two poor performers can not only threaten the survival of the project, they can destroy the whole company.

At larger organizations, a poor performer can hide or be overlooked a lot more easily, and firing someone can be a process that takes months, not days.

Incompetent workers can take a terrible toll. To start, everything’s harder when the people around you don’t carry their weight. It’s also demoralizing—you’re working so hard and hitting all your goals, while the person next to you fails spectacularly and apparently isn’t penalized for it. Over time, you’re likely to grow bitter or just stop trying so hard since results clearly don’t matter.

And it should go without saying it’s impossible to build a healthy culture in an environment filled with people actively contemptuous of their employer.

Ignoring weak performances and bad behavior chases away talented people and creates a negative feedback loop that, once it begins, is very difficult to reverse.

4. Support small, efficient teams

Amazon is known for the famed two-pizza rule. (No team should be so large it can’t be fed by two pizzas, to prevent teams from growing so large they become unwieldy.)

It’s a great concept, but also an outdated one. It was eventually refined and replaced by something deeper, albeit with a less catchy name: single-threaded leader teams.

Suddenly, someone had the ability to focus on a single task and the authority to take action. At Amazon, it turned out the surest way to doom a project was to make it someone’s part-time assignment. (It’s a philosophy consistent with startups—nothing focuses the mind like knowing you’ve burned through almost all your cash and nothing’s ready for market yet.)

Single-threaded leader teams resulted in multiple massive innovations, like Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), as third-party retailers gained access to Amazon’s warehouse and shipping services.

If your company has promising initiatives that never seem to reach completion, this might be what you need. It may not make you the world’s biggest retailer, but there should be a bump.

5. Encourage employees to think like owners

By 36, Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay had already twice led his team to the Super Bowl, winning it all last season. He credits the championship to giving his assistants more control over personnel decisions: “When you have the right types of people, you can empower them to onboard other great people.”

There’s nothing wrong with personal goals. But it’s crucial to create an environment where everyone is focused on the company’s success, and where team members are truly encouraging and helping each other, not competing with each other. At startups, people often have more equity in lieu of fair market salaries, so it’s easier to stay focused on the big picture of the company’s value.