Page 331 - Ray Dalio - Principles

. . . because they are how people determine whether their principles are aligned
and resolve their differences. Everyone has his or her own principles
and values, so all relationships entail a certain amount of
negotiation or debate over how people should be with each

other. What you learn about each other will either draw you
together or drive you apart. If your principles are aligned and
you can work out your differences via a process of give-and-
take, you will draw closer together. If not, you will move apart.
Open discussion of differences ensures that there are no
misunderstandings. If that doesn’t happen on an ongoing basis,
gaps in perspective will widen until inevitably there is a major
clash.

a. Spend lavishly on the time and energy you devote to getting in sync, because
it’s the best investment you can make. In the long run, it saves time by
increasing efficiency, but it’s important that you do it well. You
will need to prioritize what you are going to get in sync about
and who you are going to get in sync with because of time
constraints. Your highest priority should be the most important
issues with the most believable and most relevant parties.

4.2 Know how to get in sync and

disagree well.

It is harder to run an idea meritocracy in which disagreements
are encouraged than a top-down autocracy in which they are

suppressed. But when believable parties to disagreements are
willing to learn from each other, their evolution is faster and
their decision making is far better.

The key is in knowing how to move from disagreement to
decision making. It is important that the paths for doing this are
clear so that who is responsible for doing what is known. (This
is the reason I created a tool called the Dispute Resolver, which

lays out the paths and makes clear to everyone if they are
holding on to a different point of view rather than moving it
along to resolution. You can read about it in the tools
appendix.)