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
Make sure the people at the top of each pyramid have the skills and focus to manage their direct reports and a deep understanding of their jobs.
A few years ago, someone at Bridgewater proposed that our facilities group (the people who take care of the building and grounds, food service, office supplies, etc.) should begin to report to our head of technology because of the overlap in the two areas (computers are a facility too, they use electricity, and so on). But having the people who are responsible for janitorial services and meals report to a technology manager would be as inappropriate as having technology people report to the person taking care of facilities. These functions, even if they're considered "facilities" in the broadest sense, are very different, as are the respective skill sets. Similarly, at another time, we talked about putting the folks who work on client agreements under the same manager as those who do counterparty agreements. But that would have been a mistake because the skills required to reach agreements with clients are very different from the skills required to reach agreements with counterparties. It would be wrong to conflate both departments under the general heading of "agreements," because each calls for specific knowledge and skills.
Work Principle
- Design Improvements to Your Machine to Get Around Your Problems
- Build the organization around goals rather than tasks.
- Make sure the people at the top of each pyramid have the skills and focus to manage their direct reports and a deep understanding of their jobs.
- Build the organization around goals rather than tasks.
Any person or organization can adopt Principles to better achieve their goals.
Learn what Principles are and how they are applied at Principles.com
