
Every team has its own way of working, and the opportunity is to write it down. In this episode of Building the Billion Dollar Business, Ray Sclafani, Founder and CEO of ClientWise, explores how guiding principles turn an invisible culture into a visible agreement that new hires, veterans, and clients can all understand.
Drawing on Korn Ferry’s research on the world’s most admired companies, Google’s Project Aristotle, Amy Edmondson’s work on psychological safety, and Patrick Lencioni’s guidance on values, Ray explains why culture is a balance sheet item and why explicit norms matter more than who is on the team. He then shares five patterns behind principles that work and six practical steps for writing your own.
Firm leaders will leave with a clear next step: bring the team together, start with real moments, and draft a How We Work list built for the team you are becoming.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE
- Why culture is a genuine source of business value and enterprise value
- What Google’s Project Aristotle revealed about explicit team norms and psychological safety
- Why values that are not lived can do more harm than having none at all
- The five patterns that make guiding principles memorable and useful
- Six steps to write guiding principles your team will own
FIVE PATTERNS OF EFFECTIVE GUIDING PRINCIPLES
- They’re observable
- They settle arguments before they begin
- They hold healthy tension
- They sound like the team
- They put people first
SIX STEPS TO BUILD YOUR OWN GUIDING PRINCIPLES
- Write them together
- Start with real moments
- Keep each one short and specific
- Test for authenticity
- Wire them into daily work
- Revisit them on a schedule
REFLECTION QUESTIONS FOR YOUR LEADERSHIP TEAM
- Three years from now, what would we want a new team member to say about how we treat each other?
- What will our clients expect from us in the future that they don’t expect today, and which principle prepares us for it?
- As AI and automation take on more of our routine work, which of our principles become more important, and which need rewriting?
- Which of our current habits would we be embarrassed to see written down, and what should replace them?
- How will we know in a year whether we actually live these principles?
- What principle would help us make a hard decision faster the next time we face one?
- If our team doubled in size, which principles would protect what makes us great today?
- What is the one belief we hold now that we may need to let go of to grow?
RESOURCES MENTIONED
- Korn Ferry, World’s Most Admired Companies research
- Korn Ferry executive survey on culture and values alignment
- Google, Project Aristotle
- Amy Edmondson, Harvard Business School, research on psychological safety
- Patrick Lencioni, “Make Your Values Mean Something,” Harvard Business Review
Building the Billion Dollar Business is hosted by Ray Sclafani, Founder and CEO of ClientWise, the financial services industry's leading executive coaching and team development firm for elite advisors and wealth management teams. Ray Sclafani is also a Wealthies CEO of the Year Finalist (2026) and Luminaries Thought Leader of the Year Finalist (2026).
Find Ray and the ClientWise Team on the ClientWise website or LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
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