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
Focus more on making the pie bigger than on exactly how to slice it so that you or anyone else gets the biggest piece.
The best negotiations are the ones with someone in which I say, "You should take more," and they argue back, "No you should take more!" People who operate this way with each other make the relationship better and the pie bigger--and both benefit in the long run.
RECENT USER EXCHANGES
Do you think our politicians and policy‑makers could undergo a paradigm shift toward the principle of focusing more on making the pie bigger than on how it is sliced, and if so, what would it take for such a shift to take hold in our system of governance?
No, I don’t yet see any of the politicians (i.e., any of our presidential candidates) intelligently exploring ways to make the whole pie greater and how to divide fairly. I instead see most politicians representing segments of the population who want more in a battle against other segments that also want more. I don’t see any of them understanding, or even caring to understand what it’s like to be the others’s shoes or the real economic consequences of the policies they’re proposing. Instead I see antagonism, arrogance and naïveté.
Isn’t the real principle to focus more on making the pie bigger than on how to slice it—something I learned from my grandmother, who cooked double every day so she could feed neighbors who didn’t have enough, and who taught me that it is our obligation to help those who cannot help themselves, because disparities between those who have and those who don’t are shameful, especially when people at the top act as if they don’t matter?
I agree.
If the principle is to focus on making the pie bigger rather than fighting over slices, doesn’t that strip out something fundamental—the very human drive for winning, dominance, and the visceral satisfaction of beating others—so that in rejecting materialism for the spiritual or emotional high ground, you actually give up the kinds of victories people remember and care about in the long run?
Wrong. It’s exactly this way - i.e., it was our focusing on how to make the whole pie grow and then dividing it generously that Bridgewater has been winning and celebrating both our wins and our relationships. It’s a winning approach.
Here's an example of applying the principle of focusing more on making the pie bigger than on exactly how to slice it—so that everyone wins—when you’ve seen it lived out firsthand, like when a VP at a family-held company (now $28B) stopped a major supplier not to negotiate harder, but to ask about his life, his growth, his margins, whether he was being paid within five days, and told him to call personally if there was ever an imbalance, leaving the supplier in tears saying, “We’ll work 24 hours for this company,” and thinking, this is the way business should be?
You got it!!! That approach works because it provides better business results and better relationships.
Work Principle
- Hire Right, Because the Penalties for Hiring Wrong Are Huge
- When considering compensation, provide both stability and opportunity.
- Focus more on making the pie bigger than on exactly how to slice it so that you or anyone else gets the biggest piece.
- When considering compensation, provide both stability and opportunity.
Any person or organization can adopt Principles to better achieve their goals.
Learn what Principles are and how they are applied at Principles.com
