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
A believability-weighted idea meritocracy is the best system for making effective decisions.
I believe an idea meritocracy-i.e., a system that brings together smart, independent thinkers and has them productively disagree to come up with the best possible collective thinking and resolve their disagreements in a believability-weighted way-will outperform any other decision-making system.
To have an idea meritocracy:
- Put your honest thoughts on the table
- Have thoughtful disagreement
- Abide by agreed-upon ways of getting past disagreement
RECENT USER EXCHANGES
Have you thought about how a believabiliy weighted meritocracy could be integrated into the government?
I’ve thought about it a lot. I might have us play with this as an approach to see how it would work in the next presidential election as a way of having it/us choose the next president. It would allow us to come up with our criteria which can be derived by looking at past indicators of success, being explicit about the criteria (which can be subjective as well as objective) and then have the choices line up with those criteria. It would be a fun and interesting exercise that would give everyone an opportunity to see how this process works. Its just an idea.
How do you deal with ego at the top and measuring believability?
Ego that blinds people is a killer. I suggest that you read Life Principle 3.1a to understand my thinking about how to deal with it because I have several thoughts that I won’t be able to squeeze in here. However, most importantly we deal with it by intellectually understanding how it can hurt the quality of people’s decision making so that they want to guard themselves against having it and by creating an evidence based system that helps people know what peole’s strengths and weaknesses are. “Decisions of the heart” or intuitions can be great ways of making decisions (or terrible). The main thing is to measure them to obtain reasonably accurate assessments rather than to not have assessments and have people live with their self-delusions.
Have you ever thought about how this idea of meritocracy could be integrated into a system of government?
I’ve thought about it a lot. I might have us play with this as an approach to see how it would work in the next presidential election as a way of having it/us choose the next president. It would allow us to come up with our criteria which can be derived by looking at past indicators of success, being explicit about the criteria (which can be subjective as well as objective) and then have the choices line up with those criteria. It would be a fun and interesting exercise that would give everyone an opportunity to see how this process works. Its just an idea.
How can you empirically measure something subjective such as "believability?"
Think of it as being like a grade point average in school. It’s determined by gathering all sorts of data - assessment results, project grades, assessments of others, etc. - into a numerical index rating. You can construct it however you think is best. We all mentally think about how believable someone is when considering the merit of their opinions so this just makes it explicit. You can simply take a forced ranking survey of what people think of others credibility in various areas or use review grade data. We of course collect lots of data to make it more evidence based. The important thing is that you’re explicit rather than subliminal because being explicit is invaluable in helping people see what they’re strong and weak at which helps their personal development, their assignments into roles and believability weighted decisions (which is a more effective and more meritocratic way of making good decisions). As you start doing this it will naturally get better because people will come up with ways of making it better.
How do you identify the most believability by person for any given decision?
Believability (think of it as being the same as credentials) is determined by gathering all sorts of data - assessment results, project grades, assessments of others, etc. - into a numerical index rating. Think of it as being something like your grade point average in school. You have the option of constructing it however you think ia best. We all mentally think about how believable someone is when considering the merit of their opinions. Creating believability grades makes that assessment more evidence based and more explicit which is invaluable in helping people see what they’re strong and weak at which helps their personal development, their assignments into roles and believability weighted decisions (which is a more effective and more meritocratic way of making good decisions).
How can you empirically measure something subjective such as "believability?"
Think of it as being like a grade point average in school. It’s determined by gathering all sorts of data - assessment results, project grades, assessments of others, etc. - into a numerical index rating. You can construct it however you think is best. We all mentally think about how believable someone is when considering the merit of their opinions so this just makes it explicit. You can simply take a forced ranking survey of what people think of others credibility in various areas or use review grade data. We of course collect lots of data to make it more evidence based. The important thing is that you’re explicit rather than subliminal because being explicit is invaluable in helping people see what they’re strong and weak at which helps their personal development, their assignments into roles and believability weighted decisions (which is a more effective and more meritocratic way of making good decisions). As you start doing this it will naturally get better because people will come up with ways of making it better.
How do you deal with egos at the top of an organization when measuring believability. Also Amazon's Jeff Bezos noted that some of the best decisions are of the heart(intuitive) not rational(head). How do you account for that in your system?
Ego that blinds people is a killer. I suggest that you read Life Principle 3.1a to understand my thinking about how to deal with it because I have several thoughts that I won’t be able to squeeze in here. However, most importantly we deal with it by intellectually understanding how it can hurt the quality of people’s decision making so that they want to guard themselves against having it and by creating an evidence based system that helps people know what peole’s strengths and weaknesses are. “Decisions of the heart” or intuitions can be great ways of making decisions (or terrible). The main thing is to measure them to obtain reasonably accurate assessments rather than to not have assessments and have people live with their self-delusions.
What about those who don’t fit into the variables described here for instance independent thinkers, smart and extroverted enough to clearly describe their ideas?
The beauty of the system is that it can measure all of these things. For example, we weigh how independent (as well as how good) a decision maker is because we want independent thinkers, we want to know how extroverted or introverted someone is so we can help them communicate well.
Is it possible to build an absolutely meritocratic organization?
Your meritocratic organization will never be perfect but it will be radically better than the alternatives if you strive for it.
Are people's believability scores used to calculate ideas' believability and, if so, is there a risk of moving away from idea meritocracy to personal meritocracy?
An idea-meritocracy requires knowing the likely merits of different peoples perspectives. In selecting who (or which group of people) should make the decision, all people’s views aren’t equally valuable so a democratic vote wouldn’t make sense. Similarly it’s unlikely that the one person who happens to have power is the best decision maker so autocratic decision making is suboptimal. The best way to make decisions is to know who are the people who are most likely to make the good decisions (i.e. most believable) and have them triangulate well and then decide by weighing their thinking well. Systemizing how that’s done is the goal of an idea-meritocracy and believability weighted decision making. Because that was very important to me I built protocols and tools for achieving that. You don’t have to use mine; the key question you have to answer for yourself is do you want merit based collective decision making and, if so, how should you achieve it. Since I have found merit based collective decision making radically better than any other form of decision making that I know of, I had to have it which forced me to figure out how to have it.
How does one earn believability?
Through track records and assessments. Each organization own particular way for doing that will depend on each organizations own particular circumstance. If you want it as a goal and work toward achieving that, you will find good ways of mostly and imperfectly achieving that goal which is radically better than not doing that.
Any person or organization can adopt Principles to better achieve their goals.
Learn what Principles are and how they are applied at Principles.com
