This book by Bridgewater Associates founder, Ray Dalio comes in three parts: I. “Where I’m Coming From” where Ray gives an autobiographical account of his life to date. II. “Life Principles” gives the overarching principles that drive Dalio’s approach to everything. III. “Work Principles” details the principles that govern how Bridgewater Associates works as an idea meritocracy that tries to deliver meaningful work and relationships through radical truth and radical transparency. It’s refreshing to see someone lay out the blueprint of their thinking in such a systematic way. The principles that Dalio lays out are definitely thought-provoking. I will say that that for me, the first section (“Where I’m Coming From”) was the most interesting and engaging part of the book. “Life Principles” provided much food for thought but “Work Principles” started getting a bit heavy going. A summary of the principles is giving below: “Think for yourself to decide 1) what you want, 2) what is true, and 3) what you should do to achieve #1 in light of #2, and do that with humility and open-mindedness so that you consider the best thinking that is available to you.” LIFE PRINCIPLES 1. Embrace Reality and Deal With It 2. Use the 5-step Process to Get What You Want Out of Life 2.1 Have clear goals 2.2 Identify and don’t tolerate the problems that stand in the way of your achieving those goals 2.3 Accurately diagnose the problems to get at their root causes. 2.4 Design plans that will get you around them 2.5 Do what’s necessary to push these designs through to results.
3. Be Radically Open-Minded 4. Understand That People Are Wired Very Differently 5. Learn How To Make Decisions Effectively WORK PRINCIPLES To Get The Culture Right 1. Trust in Radical Truth and Radical Transparency 2. Cultivate Meaningful Work and Meaningful Relationships 3. Create a Culture in Which It Is Okay to Make Mistakes and Learn from Them 4. Get and Stay in Sync 5. Believability Weight Your Decision 6. Recognize How to Get Beyond Disagreements To Get The People Right 7. Remember That the WHO Is More Important Than The What 8. Hire Right, Because the Penalties for Hiring Wrong and Huge 9. Constantly Train, Test, Evaluate and Sort people To Build And Evolve Your Machine 10. Manage as Someone Operating a Machine to Achieve a Goal 11. Perceive and Don’t Tolerate Problems 12. Diagnose Problems to Get at Their Root Causes 13. Design Improvements to Your Machine to Get Around Your Problems 14. DO What You Set Out to Do 15. Use Tools and Protocols to Shape How Work Is Done 16. And for Heaven’s Sake, Don’t Overlook Governance! Dalio’s Equations Dreams + Reality + Determination = A Succesful Life Pain + Reflection = Progress Idea Meritocracy = Radical Truth + Radical Transparency + Believability-Weighted Decision Making