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
Know what your people are like and what makes them tick, because your people are your most important resource.
Develop a full profile of each person's values, abilities, and skills. These qualities are the real drivers of behavior, so knowing them in detail will tell you which jobs a person can and cannot do well, which ones they should avoid, and how the person should be trained. These profiles should change as the people change.
If you don't know your people well, you don't know what you can expect from them. You're flying blind and you have no one to blame but yourself if you don't get the outcomes you're expecting.
Work Principle
- Manage as Someone Operating a Machine to Achieve a Goal
Know what your people are like and what makes them tick, because your people are your most important resource.
- Regularly take the temperature of each person who is important to you and to the organization.
- Learn how much confidence to have in your people—don't assume it.
- Vary your involvement based on your confidence.
- When a crisis appears to be brewing, contact should be so close that it’s extremely unlikely that there will be any surprises.
Any person or organization can adopt Principles to better achieve their goals.
Learn what Principles are and how they are applied at Principles.com
