Principles are ways of successfully dealing with reality to get what you want out of life.
Ray Dalio, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, cites principles as his key to success.
In 1975, Ray Dalio founded Bridgewater Associates, out of his two-bedroom apartment in New York City. Over forty years later, Bridgewater has grown into the largest hedge fund in the world and the fifth most important private company in the United States (according to Fortune magazine), and Dalio himself has been named to TIME’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Along the way Dalio discovered unique principles that have led to his and Bridgewater’s unique success. It is these principles, and not anything special about Dalio, that he believes are the reason behind whatever success he has had. He is now at a stage in his life that he wants to pass these principles along to others for them to judge for themselves and to do whatever they want with them.
Work Principle
Be willing to "shoot the people you love."
It is very difficult to fire people you care about. Cutting someone that you have a meaningful relationship with but who isn't an A player in their job is difficult because ending good relationships is hard, but it is necessary for the long-term excellence of the company. You may have a need for the work they're doing (even if it's not excellent) and find it hard to make a change. But they will pollute the environment and fail you when you really need them.
Doing this is one of those difficult, necessary things. The best way to do it is to "love the people you shoot"--do it with consideration and in a way that helps them.
RECENT USER EXCHANGES
I made a big mistake by hiring a close friend and then had to fire him and the friendship was never going to be the same.
It’s a great principle to not hire your friends unless there is a clear path for ending one of your two relationships (your friendship and your employer-employee relationship) if the other doesn’t work out.
I think people would be less bothered if this were rephrased without the word shoot.
I understand how my principle can sound cruel and how this is a very controversial principle. To help you understand my perspective, I find that my most important principles come about by wrestling with the most difficult choices. Many of them are shown in Principles in Action (an app that’s available on the Apple App Store). In encountering some most extreme difficult choices, I was forced to make difficult choices that helped me to clarify my principles. Regarding this difficult choice and this principle, for me producing both great work and great relationships are both of paramount importance and I have encountered them being at odds. When I thought hard about the choice of keeping the people I cared about and keeping our culture of excellence and the excellence in our output, I concluded that is is better for our culture of excellence, better for the products we produce, better for our clients and better for the people who are evolving if we keep the standards high. I realized that it was better for the people who I cared about and would let go because it would not be good to protect them from the natural consequences of their weaknesses and that my doing that would stand in the way of their personal evolution to find the best jobs for them. In other words, my experiences and reflecting on them taught me that it’s better for both the person’s evolution and the company’s evolution to require the people to be excellent at both their work and their relationships and let those who can’t be great at both go. To make this choice and principle bold, I chose the title “You Have to be Able to Shoot the People You Love”. Since I want you to think things through to have your own principles, I will ask you to suppose you are responsible for overseeing a team that is given the responsibility of performing excellently and you have close relationships with those on the team who who do their jobs excellently. What would your principle be?
How do you share your heart with someone you know isn’t right in their position?
I explain to them how personal evolution is good - how finding what one is good and bad at and finding the best job for one has to accept one’s realities and keep moving forward to find those fits.
Do you really want to use such language i.e. “shoot people”?
I intentionally phrase things boldly and provocatively to make the concepts pop and to force people into the position of having to make the difficult choice — in this case, would you fire someone who isn’t performing well but you love them? I want to force you into that choice so you’d have to think hard about what your choice would be should be and why.
Does any team only have A players and can a B work just fine for what they do while the As blaze new trails?
I’d like to give you some perspective about my principles and this one in particular. My most important principles came about by wrestling with the most difficult choices. They happened in specific cases that are shown in the cases like those shown in Principles in Action (an app that’s available on the Apple App Store). In looking at some of the most extreme difficult choice cases, I was forced to make choices that helped me clarify my principles. Regarding this principle, for me producing both great work and great relationships are of paramount importance. In the course of running my business I have encountered them being at odds and was faced with having to choose between keeping people who I cared deeply about and excellence of work and outcomes. When I thought hard about this choice I concluded if I chose keeping the people I cared deeply about, that would hurt the quality of our excellence which would hurt our clients. Protecting these people I care about from the natural consequences of their weaknesses would also stand in the way of their personal evolution to find the best jobs for them. In other words, my experiences and reflecting on them taught me that it’s better for both the person’s evolution and the company’s evolution to require the people to be excellent at both their work and their relationships and let those who can’t be great at both go. To make this choice and principle bold I chose the title “You Have to be Able to Shoot the People You Love”. Since I want you to think things through to have your own principles, I will ask you to suppose you are responsible for overseeing a team that is given the responsibility of performing excellently and you have close relationships with those on the team who who do their jobs excellently. What would your principle be?
Do you think when you make a hiring mistake the faster you course correct and free that employee up to find a path that more accurately aligns with their goals and strengths the better is that way to go?
Yes. But it’s difficult. Most importantly it’s controversial so it’s worth having a quality exchange with the people in this exchange to hear their perspectives and to share yours and to be sufficiently open-minded to see those arguments as pros and cons that have to be weighed, and to see if you and they can reach an agreement about what’s best. Developing the ability to do that thoughtful disagreement to find out what’s best, to them make a decision about what should be done and to get past one’s disagreements with others and on to doing things well, is of paramount importance.
Do you think letting go of toxic people is relatively easy, even if they are high performers but the challenge is how to let go of people that are nice colleagues and good persons but do not perform well in a particular role?
Exactly!! It’s very difficult. But it has to be done. That’s why I reflected a lot on this type of situation. It’s why I showed many cases of this happening (some of which are, and will be, available in Principles in Action) and wrote up this principle. You need to think for yourself what principles are best for you.
Work Principle
- Constantly Train, Test, Evaluate, and Sort People
- Train, guardrail, or remove people; don't rehabilitate them.
- Be willing to "shoot the people you love."
- Train, guardrail, or remove people; don't rehabilitate them.
Any person or organization can adopt Principles to better achieve their goals.
Learn what Principles are and how they are applied at Principles.com
