Page 279 - Ray Dalio - Principles

“employees.” In a nutshell, I was looking for meaningful work
and meaningful relationships. I quickly learned that the best
way to do that was to have great partnerships with great

people.

To me, great partnerships come from sharing common
values and interests, having similar approaches to pursuing
them, and being reasonable with, and having consideration for,
each other. At the same time, partners must be willing to hold
each other to high standards and work through their
disagreements. The main test of a great partnership is not

whether the partners ever disagree—people in all healthy
relationships disagree—but whether they can bring their
disagreements to the surface and get through them well.
Having clear processes for resolving disagreements efficiently
and clearly is essential for business partnerships, marriages,
and all other forms of partnership.

My wanting these things attracted others who wanted the

same things, which drove how we shaped Bridgewater
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together. When there were five of us it was totally different
than when there were fifty of us, which was totally different
than it was when we were five hundred, a thousand, and so on.
As we grew, most everything changed beyond recognition,
except for our core values and principles.

When Bridgewater was still a small company, the principles
by which we operated were more implicit than explicit. But as
more and more new people came in, I couldn’t take for granted
that they would understand and preserve them. I realized that I
needed to write our principles out explicitly and explain the
logic behind them. I remember the precise moment when this
shift occurred—it was when the number of people at
Bridgewater passed sixty-seven. Up until then, I had

personally chosen each employee’s holiday gift and written
them a lengthy personalized card, but trying to do it that year
broke my back. From that point on, an increasing number of
people came in who didn’t work closely with me, so I couldn’t
assume they would understand where I was coming from or

what I was striving to create, which was an idea meritocracy
built on tough love.