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
Disagreeing must be done efficiently.
Working oneself through disagreements can be time-consuming, so you can imagine how an idea meritocracy--where disagreement is not just tolerated but encouraged--could become dysfunctional if it's not managed well. Imagine how inefficient it would be if a teacher ran a large class by asking each of the students individually what they thought, and then debated with all of them, instead of conveying their own views first and taking questions later.
People who want to disagree must keep this in mind and follow the tools and protocols for disagreeing well.
Work Principle
- Believability Weight Your Decision Making
Disagreeing must be done efficiently.
- Know when to stop debating and move on to agreeing about what should be done.
- Use believability weighting as a tool rather than a substitute for decision making by Responsible Parties.
- Since you don't have the time to thoroughly examine everyone's thinking yourself, choose your believable people wisely.
- When you're responsible for a decision, compare the believability-weighted decision making of the crowd to what you believe.
Any person or organization can adopt Principles to better achieve their goals.
Learn what Principles are and how they are applied at Principles.com
