Page 405 - Ray Dalio - Principles

10.11 Hold yourself and your people accountable and appreciate
them for holding you accountable.

Holding people accountable means understanding them and their circumstances well enough to
assess whether they can and should do some things differently, getting in sync with them about that,
and, if they can’t adequately do what is required, removing them from their jobs. It is not
micromanaging them, nor is it expecting them to be perfect (holding particularly overloaded people
accountable for doing everything excellently is often impractical, not to mention unfair).
But people can resent being held accountable, and you don’t want to have to tell them what to do
all the time. Reason with them so that they understand the value of what you’re doing, but never let
them off the hook.

a. If you’ve agreed with someone that something is supposed to go a certain way, make sure it goes that way—unless you get
in sync about doing it differently. People will often subconsciously gravitate toward activities they like
rather than what’s required. If they lose sight of their priorities, you need to redirect them. This is
part of why it’s important to get frequent updates from people about their progress.