Charles Schwab's 9 Guiding Principles

  1. Is it fair and responsive to our →customers?

  2. Does it respect our fellow employees and the spirit of → teamwork?

  3. Are we striving relentlessly to improve what we do and how we do it?

  4. Will it earn, and will we be worthy of, our customer's trust?

  5. Will it reinvent the business?

  6. We are willing to risk short-term → revenue to do the right thing for the customer and ensure long-term success.

  7. Will we own the technology?

  8. Does it leverage the brand to build trust?

  9. Will it create and nurture → a spirit of innovation?

Examples of Guiding Principles

CimJoy  ●  CVCI  ●  Google  ●  ITW  ●  Lend Lease

3 NLP Guiding Principles

 

→ Market Leader

Strategic Alignment  ●  → Inspiring Culture

Techniques for Fast Idea Evaluation and Decision Making

Weighted Criteria  ●  4×2 Perceptual Positions

→ IT Leader: New Roles of a CIO

 

 

Charles Schwab pioneered seamless stock trading on → Internet in 1996 – much faster than their large → competitors – and went from a tiny firm to the world's largest financial services company... More

The company's leaders believed that online trading was going to become huge. Acting with lightning speed in accordance with Charles Schwab's Guiding Principles – always own the core technology; reinvent the business; and constantly improve what you do, – the company made fast decisions and was able to introduce online trading service e.schwab to the market within months of conception.1

Initially, Schwab offered two separate products: the new e.schwab online product where customers paid a flat $29.95 per trade and regular online accounts where customers were charged 20% less than is a Schwab rep did the deal. Schwab's front-line personnel felt that customers were confused about the dual pricing structure, and they wanted both full service and $29.95 trades. Pottruck and Schwab, the company leaders decided to end the dual pricing structure and merge e.schwab into the organization.

Though internal documents showed that by moving to flat-rate pricing the company could take a first-year financial hit of $125 million, the Pottruck and Schwab were able to make this tough decision quickly as one of the Schwab's guiding principles stated that they would be willing to risk short-term revenue growth if it was right for the customer and ensured long-term success.

 

References:

1. It's not the BIG and eats the SMALL... it's the FAST that eats the SLOW,
Jason Jennings and Laurence Haughton