Page 307 - Ray Dalio - Principles

Naturally, growing bigger and more successful attracts
more media attention, and reporters know that salacious and
controversial stories draw more eyeballs than balanced ones.

Bridgewater is especially vulnerable to this kind of reporting
because, with our culture of bringing problems to the surface
and sharing them transparently within the company, we leave
ourselves open to leaks. Would it be better not to be
transparent and so avoid such problems?

I’ve learned that the people whose opinions matter most are
those who know us best—our clients and our employees—and

that our radical transparency serves us well with them. Not
only has it led to our producing better results, but it also builds
trust with our employees and clients so that
mischaracterizations in the press roll off their backs. When we
discuss such situations with them, they say that for us to not
operate transparently would scare them much more.

Having this sort of understanding and support to do the

right things has been immeasurably valuable. But we wouldn’t
have known about these great payoffs if we hadn’t so
steadfastly pushed the limits of this truth and transparency.

a. Use transparency to help enforce justice. When everyone can follow
the discussion leading up to a decision—either in real time in
person or via taped records and email threads—justice is more

likely to prevail. Everyone is held accountable for their
thinking and anyone can weigh in on who should do what
according to shared principles. Absent such a transparent
process, decisions would be settled behind closed doors by
those who have the power to do whatever they want. With
transparency, everyone is held to the same high standards.

b. Share the things that are hardest to share. While it might be

tempting to limit transparency to the things that can’t hurt you,
it is especially important to share the things that are most
difficult to share, because if you don’t share them you will lose
the trust and partnership of the people you are not sharing
with. So, when faced with the decision to share the hardest
things, the question should not be whether to share but how.
The following principles will help you do this well.