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
Probe deep and hard to learn what you can expect from your machine.
Constantly probe the people who report to you while making sure they understand that it's good for them and everyone else to surface their problems and mistakes. Doing so is required to make sure you're getting what you want, even from people who are doing their jobs well (though they can be given a bit more leeway).
Probing shouldn't just come from the top down. The people who work for you should constantly challenge you, so that you can become as good as you can be. In doing so, they will understand that they are just as responsible for finding solutions as you are. It's much easier for people to remain spectators than to become players. Forcing them onto the field strengthens the whole team.
Work Principle
- Manage as Someone Operating a Machine to Achieve a Goal
Probe deep and hard to learn what you can expect from your machine.
- Get a threshold level of understanding.
- Avoid staying too distant.
- Use daily updates as a tool for staying on top of what your people are doing and thinking.
- Probe so you know whether problems are likely to occur before they actually do.
- Probe to the level below the people who report to you.
- Have the people who report to the people who report to you feel free to escalate their problems to you.
- Don't assume that people's answers are correct.
- Train your ear.
- Make your probing transparent rather than private.
- Welcome probing.
- Remember that people who see things and think one way often have difficulty communicating with and relating to people who see things and think another way.
- Pull all suspicious threads.
- Recognize that there are many ways to skin a cat.
Any person or organization can adopt Principles to better achieve their goals.
Learn what Principles are and how they are applied at Principles.com
