More Ray Dalio Gems!
REMEMBER--THESE Principles and Strategy practices are EXTREMELY RARE and "Radical Candor-and Open Communication is VERY Rarely found in Corporate Cultures!!
BEWARE!~
But if you dare take the Red Pill...... and you want to do what Ray Dalio and Bridgewater have done:
To Get the People Right…
37) Recognize the Most Important Decisions You Make Are Who You Choose to Be Your Responsible Party
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38) Remember that almost everything good comes from having great people operating in a great culture.
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39) First, match the person to the design.
a) Most importantly, find people who share your values.
b) Look for people who are willing to look at themselves objectively and have character.
c) Conceptual thinking and common sense are required in order to assign someone the responsibility for
achieving goals (as distinct from tasks).
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40) Recognize that the inevitable responsible party is the person who bears the consequences of what is done.
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41) By and large, you will get what you deserve over time.
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42) The most important responsible parties are those who are most responsible for the goals, outcomes, and
machines (they are those higher in the pyramid) ...
43) Choose those who understand the difference between goals and tasks to run things...
44) Recognize that People Are Built Very Differently
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45) Think about their very different values, abilities, and skills.
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46) Understand what each person who works for you is like so that you know what to expect from them.
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47) Recognize that the type of person you fit in the job must match the requirements for that job.
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48) Use personality assessment tests and quality reflections on experiences to help you identify these differences.
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49) Understand that different ways of seeing and thinking make people suitable for different jobs.
a) People are best at the jobs that require what they do well.
b) If you’re not naturally good at one type of thinking, it doesn’t mean you’re precluded from paths that
require that type of thinking.
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50) Don’t hide these differences. Explore them openly with the goal of figuring out how you and your people are
built so you can put the right people in the right jobs and clearly assign responsibilities.
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51) Remember that people who see things and think one way often have difficulty communicating and relating to
people who see things and think another way.
52) Hire Right, Because the Penalties of Hiring Wrong Are Huge
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53) Think through what values, abilities, and skills you are looking for.
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54) Weigh values and abilities more heavily than skills in deciding whom to hire.
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55) Write the profile of the person you are looking for into the job description...
56) Select the appropriate people and tests for assessing each of these qualities and compare the results of those
assessments to what you’ve decided is needed for the job.
a) Remember that people tend to pick people like themselves, so pick interviewers who can identify what
you are looking for.
b) Understand how to use and interpret personality assessments.
c) Pay attention to people’s track records.
d) Dig deeply to discover why people did what they did.
e) Recognize that performance in school, while of some value in making assessments, doesn’t tell you much
about whether the person has the values and abilities you are looking for.
f) Ask for past reviews.
g) Check references.
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57) Look for people who have lots of great questions.
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58) Make sure candidates interview you and Bridgewater (or your Company) ...
59) Don’t hire people just to fit the first job they will do at Bridgewater (insert your organization); hire people you want to share your life with.
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60) Look for people who sparkle, not just “another one of those.”
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61) Hear the click: Find the right fit between the role and the person.
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62) Pay for the person, not for the job.
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63) Recognize that no matter how good you are at hiring, there is a high probability that the person you hire will
not be the great person you need for the job.
64) Manage as Someone Who Is Designing and Operating a Machine to Achieve the Goal
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65) Understand the differences between managing, micromanaging, and not managing.
a) Managing the people who report to you should feel like “skiing together.”
b) An excellent skier is probably going to be more critical and a better critic of another skier than a novice skier.
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66) Constantly compare your outcomes to your goals.
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67) Look down on your machine and yourself within it from the higher level.
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68) Connect the case at hand to your principles for handling cases of that type...
69) Conduct the discussion at two levels when a problem occurs: 1) the “machine” level discussion of why the
machine produced that outcome and 2) the “case at hand” discussion of what to do now about the problem.
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70) Don’t try to be followed; try to be understood and to understand others.
a) Don’t try to control people by giving them orders.
b) Communicate the logic and welcome feedback.
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71) Clearly assign responsibilities.
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72) Hold people accountable and appreciate them holding you accountable. a) Distinguish between failures where someone broke their “contract” from ones where there was no
contract to begin with.
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73) Avoid the “sucked down” phenomenon.
a) Watch out for people who confuse goals and tasks, because you can’t trust people with responsibilities if
they don’t understand the goals.
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74) Think like an owner, and expect the people you work with to do the same....
75) Force yourself and the people who work for you to do difficult things.
a) Hold yourself and others accountable.
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76) Don’t worry if your people like you; worry about whether you are helping your people and Bridgewater to be great.
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77) Know what you want and stick to it if you believe it’s right, even if others want to take you in another direction.
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78) Communicate the plan clearly.
a) Have agreed-upon goals and tasks that everyone knows (from the people in the departments to the
people outside the departments who oversee them).
b) Watch out for the unfocused and unproductive “we should (do something).”
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79) Constantly get in synch with your people.
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80) Get a “threshold level of understanding”.
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81) Avoid staying too distant.
a) Tool: Use daily updates as a tool for staying on top of what your people are doing and thinking.
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82) Learn confidence in your people—don’t presume it.
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83) Vary your involvement based on your confidence.
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84) Avoid the “theoretical should.”
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85) Care about the people who work for you.
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86) Logic, reason, and common sense must trump everything else in decision-making.
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87) While logic drives our decisions, feelings are very relevant.
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88) Escalate when you can’t adequately handle your responsibilities, and make sure that the people who work for
you do the same.
a) Make sure your people know to be proactive.
b) Tool: An escalation button.
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89) Involve the person who is the point of the pyramid when encountering material cross-departmental or cross
sub-departmental issues.
90) Probe Deep and Hard to Learn What to Expect from Your “Machine”
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91) Know what your people are like, and make sure they do their jobs excellently.
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92) Constantly probe the people who report to you, and encourage them to probe you.
a) Remind the people you are probing that problems and mistakes are fuel for improvement.
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93) Probe to the level below the people who work for you.
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94) Remember that few people see themselves objectively, so it’s important to welcome probing and to probe others.
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95) Probe so that you have a good enough understanding of whether problems are likely to occur before they
actually do.
a) When a crisis appears to be brewing, contact should be so close that it’s extremely unlikely that there
will be any surprises.
b) Investigate and let people know you are going to investigate so there are no surprises and they don’t take
it personally.
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96) Don’t “pick your battles.” Fight them all.
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97) Don’t let people off the hook.
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98) Don’t assume that people’s answers are correct.
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99) Make the probing transparent rather than private.
100) Evaluate People Accurately, Not “Kindly”
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101) Make accurate assessments.
a) Use evaluation tools such as performance surveys, metrics, and formal reviews to document all aspects
of a person’s performance. These will help clarify assessments and communication surrounding them.
b) Maintain “baseball cards” and/or “believably matrices” for your people. ..
102) Evaluate employees with the same rigor as you evaluate job candidates.
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103) Know what makes your people tick, because people are your most important resource.
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104) Recognize that while most people prefer compliments over criticisms, there is nothing more valuable than
accurate criticisms.
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105) Make this discovery process open, evolutionary, and iterative.
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106) Provide constant, clear, and honest feedback, and encourage discussion of this feedback.
a) Put your compliments and criticisms into perspective.
b) Remember that convincing people of their strengths is generally much easier than convincing them of
their weaknesses.
c) Encourage objective reflection.
d) Employee reviews:
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107) Understand that you and the people you manage will go through a process of personal evolution.
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108) Recognize that your evolution at Bridgewater (your company) should be relatively rapid and a natural consequence of
discovering your strengths and weaknesses; as a result, your career path is not planned at the outset.
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109) Remember that the only purpose of looking at what people did is to learn what they are like.
a) Look at patterns of behaviors and don’t read too much into any one event.
b) Don’t believe that being good or bad at some things means that the person is good or bad at everything.
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110) If someone is doing their job poorly, consider whether this is due to inadequate learning (i.e., training/
experience) or inadequate ability.
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111) Remember that when it comes to assessing people, the two biggest mistakes are being overconfident in your
assessment and failing to get in synch on that assessment. Don’t make those mistakes.
a) Get in synch in a non-hierarchical way regarding assessments.
b) Learn about your people and have them learn about you with very frank conversations about mistakes
and their root causes.
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112) Help people through the pain that comes with exploring their weaknesses.
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113) Recognize that when you are really in synch with people about weaknesses, whether yours or theirs, they are
probably true.
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114) Remember that you don’t need to get to the point of “beyond a shadow of a doubt” when judging people.
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115) Understand that you should be able to learn the most about what a person is like and whether they are a
“click” for the job in their first year.
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116) Continue assessing people throughout their time at Bridgewater.
117) Train and Test People Through Experiences
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118) Understand that training is really guiding the process of personal evolution.
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119) Know that experience creates internalization.
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120) Provide constant feedback to put the learning in perspective.
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121) Remember that everything is a case study.
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122) Teach your people to fish rather than give them fish.
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123) Recognize that sometimes it is better to let people make mistakes so that they can learn from them rather
than tell them the better decision.
a) When criticizing, try to make helpful suggestions.
b) Learn from success as well as from failure.
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124) Know what types of mistakes are acceptable and unacceptable, and don’t allow the people who work for you
to make the unacceptable ones.
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125) Recognize that behavior modification typically takes about 18 months of constant reinforcement.
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126) Train people; don’t rehabilitate them.
a) A common mistake: training and testing a poor performer to see if he or she can acquire the required
skills without simultaneously trying to assess their abilities.
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127) After you decide “what’s true” (i.e., after you figure out what your people are like), think carefully about
“what to do about it.”....
128) Sort People into Other Jobs at Bridgewater, or Remove Them from Bridgewater
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129) When you find that someone is not a good “click” for a job, get them out of it ASAP.....
130) Know that it is much worse to keep someone in a job who is not suited for it than it is to fire someone.
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131) When people are “without a box,” consider whether there is an open box at Bridgewater that would be a
better fit. If not, fire them.
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132) Do not lower the bar!
