Page 354 - Ray Dalio - Principles

6 Recognize How to Get

Beyond Disagreements

It is the rare dispute that is resolved to both parties’ equal
satisfaction. Imagine you are having an argument with your

neighbor about a tree of theirs that has fallen onto your
property. Who is responsible for its removal? Who owns the
firewood? Who pays for the damage? While you might not be
able to resolve the disagreement yourselves, the legal system
has procedures and guidelines that allow it to determine what’s
true and what to do about it, and once it renders its judgment
it’s done, even if one of you didn’t get what you wanted.
That’s just the way life is.

At Bridgewater, our principles and policies work in
essentially the same way, providing a path for settling disputes
that’s not unlike what you’d find in the courts (though it’s less
formal). Having such a system is essential in an idea
meritocracy, because you can’t just encourage people to think
independently and fight for what they believe is true. You also

have to provide them with a way to get past their
disagreements and move forward.

Managing this well is especially important at Bridgewater
because we have so much more thoughtful disagreement than
other places. While in most cases people disagreeing can work
things out on their own, it is still often the case that people
can’t agree on what’s true and what to do about it. In those

cases, we follow our procedures for believability-weighted
voting and go with the verdict; or, in the cases where the RP
wants to do it his/her way contrary to the vote and has the
power to do so, we accept that and move on.