Principles: Life and Work

by Ray Dalio

closed-minded people will waste your time.

c. Watch out for people who think it’s embarrassing not to know.

a. Make it clear who is directing the meeting and whom it is meant to serve.

“believability weighting.”

Treating all people equally is more likely to lead away from truth than toward it. But at the same time, all views should be considered in an open-minded way, though placed in the proper context of the experiences and track records of the people expressing them.

a. If you can’t successfully do something, don’t think you can tell others how it should be done.

b. Remember that everyone has opinions and they are often bad.

Be especially wary of those who comment from the stands without having played on the field themselves and who don’t have good logic, as they are dangerous to themselves and others.

d. Don’t pay as much attention to people’s conclusions as to the reasoning that led them to their conclusions.

5.3 Think about

All parties should remember that the purpose of debate is to get at truth, not to prove that someone is right or wrong, and that each party should be willing to change their mind based on the logic and evidence.

It’s more important to do big things well than to do the small things perfectly.

c. Recognize that you don’t need to make judgments about everything.

Don’t hold opinions about things you don’t know anything about.

Don’t let this narcissism of small differences happen to you.

a. Make sure that everyone has someone they report to.

replace creators with noncreators and you stop having creations.

It is futile to give responsibilities to people who do not have the qualities required to succeed.

Don’t design jobs to fit people; over time, this almost always turns out to be a mistake.

In picking people for long-term relationships, values are most important, abilities come next, and skills are the least important.

8.2 Remember that people are built very differently and that different ways of seeing and thinking make people suitable for different jobs.

8.5 Don’t hire people just to fit the first job they will do; hire people you want to share your life with.

You will always have uses for great people.

Remember that the only purpose of money is to get you what you want, so think hard about what you value and put it above money.

Feedback should reflect what is succeeding and what is not in proportion to the actual situation, rather than in an attempt to balance compliments and criticisms.

Radical truth doesn’t require you to be negative all the time.

work from the specifics up

a. Constantly compare your outcomes to your goals.

Great managers are not philosophers, entertainers, doers, or artists. They are engineers.

d. Your policies should be natural extensions of your principles.

Great managers orchestrate rather than do.

Think like an owner, and expect the people you work with to do the same.

Don’t treat everyone the same—treat them appropriately.

There is no greater failure than to fail to escalate a responsibility you cannot handle.

you need to beware of the chronic use of consultants to do work that should be done by employees.

Create guardrails when needed—and remember it’s better not to guardrail at all.

a. Don’t put the expedient ahead of the strategic.

Recognize that everyone has too much to do.

There’s nothing you can’t accomplish if you think creatively and have the character to do the difficult things.

Build downtime into your schedule

When you and your team have successfully pushed through to achieve your goals, celebrate!