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
Use "double-do" rather than "double-check" to make sure mission-critical tasks are done correctly.
Double-checking has a much higher rate of errors than double-doing, which is having two different people do the same task so that they produce two independent answers. This not only ensures better answers but will allow you to see the differences in people's performance and abilities. I use double-do's in critical areas such as finance, where large amounts of money are at risk.
And because an audit is only as effective as the auditor is knowledgeable, remember that a good double-check can only be done by someone capable of double-doing. If the person double-checking the work isn't capable of doing the work himself, how could he possibly evaluate it accurately?
Work Principle
- Design Improvements to Your Machine to Get Around Your Problems
- Build the organization around goals rather than tasks.
- Use "double-do" rather than "double-check" to make sure mission-critical tasks are done correctly.
- 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
