Ray Dalio's Work Principles

Ray Dalio’s “Principles” explanation video

• ● An organization is like a machine, mainly composed of two sets of components: culture and people
  • a. Excellent organizations have excellent people and excellent culture.
  • b. Excellent people have noble character and outstanding ability.
  • c. Excellent culture does not cover up problems and differences, but solves them openly and properly, likes to let imagination run wild and is willing to create precedents.
• ● Tough love helps achieve excellent work performance and establish good interpersonal relationships
  • a. In order to achieve a great cause, you must stick to your position and not give in to things that should not be compromised.
• ● Idea meritocracy based on credibility weighting is the best model for achieving effective decision-making
• ● Combine passion and work into one, and work hard with like-minded people
• ● Create a good culture…
  • 1 Believe in extreme truth-seeking and extreme transparency
    • 1.1 Do not be afraid to understand the facts
    • 1.2 Be upright, and ask others to remain upright
      • a. If you don’t want to talk about others to their faces, don’t talk behind their backs. If you want to criticize others, point it out to their faces.
      • b. Do not let loyalty to individuals hinder the pursuit of facts and the interests of the entire organization.
    • 1.3 Create an atmosphere where everyone has the right to understand reasonable things, and cannot remain silent while dissenting
      • a. Express it, and be responsible for your views, otherwise leave.
      • b. Remember to be absolutely open and honest.
      • c. Do not trust dishonest people.
    • 1.4 Maintain extreme transparency
      • a. Achieve justice through transparency.
      • b. Share the hardest things to share.
      • c. Minimize exceptions to extreme transparency.
      • d. Ensure that employees who obtain information due to extreme transparency realize that they are responsible for managing information properly and making wise trade-offs.
      • e. Explain to those who are good at managing information, and for those who are not good at managing information, either be opaque or remove them from the company team.
      • f. Do not provide sensitive information to the company’s enemies.
    • 1.5 Meaningful relationships and meaningful work promote each other, especially in an environment of extreme truth-seeking and extreme transparency
  • 2 Do meaningful work, develop meaningful relationships
    • 2.1 Be loyal to the common mission, not to those who are half-hearted about it
    • 2.2 Be clear about mutual interactions
      • a. Ensure that employees are more considerate of others and ask less of others.
      • b. Ensure that everyone understands the difference between fairness and generosity.
      • c. Know where the boundaries are, and stand on the other side of fairness.
      • d. Remuneration is commensurate with work.
    • 2.3 Realize that the large scale of the organization poses a threat to establishing meaningful relationships
    • 2.4 Remember that many people just pretend to work for you, but are actually pursuing personal gain
    • 2.5 Cherish honest, capable, and consistent employees
  • 3 Create a culture that allows mistakes, but does not tolerate ignoring lessons and repeating mistakes
    • 3.1 Realize that mistakes are a natural part of the evolution of things
      • a. Turn failure into a good thing.
      • b. Don’t be annoyed by your own or others’ mistakes, cherish them!
    • 3.2 Do not dwell on temporary success or failure, focus on achieving goals
      • a. Do not dwell on “blame” or “praise”, but focus on “accuracy” or “inaccuracy”.
    • 3.3 Observe error patterns and determine whether they are caused by shortcomings
    • 3.4 Remember to reflect after experiencing pain
      • a. Be able to reflect, and ensure that your employees can do the same.
      • b. Know that no one can view themselves objectively.
      • c. Teach and reinforce the principle of “learning from a fall”.
    • 3.5 Know which mistakes are acceptable and which are intolerable, and do not let your employees make unacceptable mistakes
    • 4 Seek consensus and stick to it
      • 4.1 Realize that conflict is essential for establishing good relationships, because people use conflict to test whether their principles are consistent and whether they can resolve their differences
        • a. Do not spare time and energy to seek consensus, because this is the best investment you can make.
      • 4.2 Know how to seek consensus and manage differences
        • a. Put potential differences on the table.
        • b. Distinguish between pale complaints and demands that help improve work.
        • c. Remember that every story has another side.
      • 4.3 Keep an open mind, but also be firm and decisive
        • a. Distinguish between open-minded and closed-minded people.
        • b. Stay away from closed-minded people.
        • c. Beware of those who are ashamed to admit that they do not know everything.
        • d. Ensure that the person responsible for the work treats problems and others’ opinions with an open mind.
        • e. Realize that seeking consensus is a two-way responsibility.
        • f. Substance is more important than form.
        • g. Be reasonable yourself, and expect others to be reasonable.
        • h. Suggestions, questions, and criticisms are different, so don’t confuse them.
      • 4.4 If you preside over the meeting, you should control the conversation
        • a. Clarify the meeting host and the target audience of the meeting.
        • b. Be clear and accurate to avoid confusion.
        • c. Determine what communication method to adopt based on goals and priorities.
        • d. Be decisive and open-minded when hosting discussions.
        • e. Shuttle and compare in different levels of discussion and dialogue.
        • f. Beware of “going off topic”.
        • g. Adhere to the logic of dialogue.
        • h. Be careful not to lose personal responsibility due to collective decision-making.
        • i. Use the two-minute rule to avoid being constantly interrupted by others.
        • j. Watch out for unquestionable “fast talkers”.
        • k. Let the conversation start and end well.
        • l. Use communication means.
      • 4.5 Great cooperation is like jazz playing
        • a. 1+1=3.
        • b. The efficiency of 3-5 people is higher than that of 20 people.
      • 4.6 Cherish like-minded people
      • 4.7 If you find that you cannot reconcile major differences between each other - especially at the value level - consider whether it is worth maintaining this relationship
    • 5 Start from the credibility of viewpoints when making decisions
      • 5.1 Adopting idea meritocracy requires you to understand the strengths of everyone’s viewpoints
        • a. If you cannot successfully complete something yourself, do not think about guiding others on how to complete it.
        • b. Know that everyone has their own opinion, but it is usually not a good idea.
      • 5.2 Focus on people with the highest credibility who disagree with you, and try to understand their reasoning process
        • a. Analyze people’s credibility to evaluate the likelihood of their viewpoints being correct.
        • b. More credible viewpoints are likely to come from two types of people: (1) those who have successfully solved relevant problems at least three times; (2) those who have reasonable causal analysis of the conclusions reached.
        • c. If someone has no experience, but what they say seems logical and can withstand stress testing, then you must try it.
        • d. Pay more attention to the speaker’s reasoning process rather than their conclusion.
        • e. Inexperienced people also have good ideas, sometimes far better than experienced people.
        • f. Everyone should be confident when expressing their opinions.
      • 5.3 Consider which role you want to play: teacher, student, colleague, should you preach, ask questions or debate
        • a. It is more important for the student to understand the teacher than for the teacher to understand the student, although both are important.
        • b. Everyone has the right and responsibility to try their best to understand important things, and must also remain humble and very open-minded.
      • 5.4 Understand the process and logic of people’s opinions
        • a. No matter who you ask, the other party will generally provide an “answer”, so think carefully about who you ask.
        • b. Letting everyone comment freely on other people’s views is inefficient and a waste of time.
        • c. Beware of speeches starting with “I think…”.
        • d. Systematically sort out employees’ work records and evaluate the credibility of their speeches.
      • 5.5 Handle disagreements efficiently
        • a. Know when to end the debate and promote consensus on the next steps.
        • b. Credibility weighting can be used as a tool, but it cannot replace the decision of the responsible person.
        • c. If you don’t have time to comprehensively review everyone’s ideas, choose credible viewpoints wisely.
        • d. If you are responsible for making decisions, compare the conclusion reached after credibility weighting with your own thoughts.
      • 5.6 Everyone has the right and obligation to try to understand important things
        • a. Communication is to get the best response, so you should communicate with the most relevant people.
        • b. Communication for the purpose of education or promoting consensus is not just to get the best answer, so more people should be involved.
        • c. Realize that you don’t have to judge everything.
      • 5.7 Pay more attention to whether the decision-making mechanism is fair, not whether it is as you wish
      • 6 Know how to transcend differences
        • 6.1 Remember: Principles cannot be ignored when reaching a mutual agreement
          • a. Everyone must abide by the same principles of conduct.
        • 6.2 Do not let everyone confuse the right to complain, make suggestions, and debate openly with the right to make decisions
          • a. When expressing different opinions on the decision itself and the decision-maker, have big picture awareness.
        • 6.3 Do not ignore major differences
          • a. When concentrating on negotiating big things, don’t be bothered by trifles.
          • b. Don’t be bound by differences - either submit to superiors for judgment, or vote!
        • 6.4 Once a decision is made, everyone must comply, even if individuals may have different opinions
          • a. Look at the big picture.
          • b. Don’t let idea meritocracy become lawless.
          • c. Do not tolerate mob tactics.
        • 6.5 If idea meritocracy conflicts with the interests of the organization, it will inevitably cause harm
          • a. Declare “curfew” only in rare or extreme circumstances, at which time compliance with principles may not be considered temporarily.
          • b. Beware that someone may propose to temporarily abandon idea meritocracy for the “interest of the organization”.
        • 6.6 Know that once the person with the power to make decisions does not want to act according to principles, the rules will be broken
• ● Use the right people…
  • 7 Finding the right people to do things is more important than doing things
    • 7.1 Your most important decision is to choose the person responsible for the job
      • a. The most important responsible person is the person responsible for setting goals, planning results and organizing implementation at the highest level.
    • 7.2 The person who bears the ultimate responsibility should be the person who bears the responsibility for the consequences of actions
      • a. Ensure that everyone has a superior leader.
    • 7.3 Remember that behind things is the power of people
  • 8 Use the right people, because the cost of improper employment is high
    • 8.1 Let the right people do the right things
      • a. Consider what values, abilities and skills the person you are looking for should have (in that order).
      • b. Use systematic thinking and scientific methods to recruit talents.
      • c. Note: People and responsibilities must match.
      • d. Look for excellent people, not “this kind will do”.
      • e. Do not use your influence to help others find jobs.
    • 8.2 Remember that there are differences between people, and different cognition and different thinking make different people suitable for different jobs
      • a. Understand how to conduct personality assessments and be clear about the implications of the results.
      • b. People tend to choose people who are similar to themselves, so arrange interviewers to ensure that they can find the person you want to hire.
      • c. Choose those who can view themselves objectively.
      • d. Remember that people generally do not change much over time.
    • 8.3 Treat your team like a sports manager: no one can win alone, but everyone must defeat the opponent
    • 8.4 Pay attention to people’s past experiences
      • a. Check the situation.
      • b. Academic performance cannot fully prove whether this person has the values and abilities you want.
      • c. Strong conceptual thinking ability is certainly the best, but rich experience and outstanding performance are also important.
      • d. Beware of unrealistic idealists.
      • e. Do not assume that people who have succeeded elsewhere will also be competent for the job you require.
      • f. Ensure that the people you choose have good character and strong ability.
    • 8.5 Finding someone is not just to do a specific job, you must also be willing to share your life with them
      • a. Choose people who ask a lot of good questions.
      • b. Let applicants know the dark side of the job.
      • c. Collaborators must be like-minded people, but they must also be outspoken friends.
    • 8.6 When considering compensation, provide stability but also let people see opportunities
      • a. Pay according to the person, not according to the job.
      • b. Compensation should be at least generally linked to performance evaluation results.
      • c. Compensation should be higher than the average level. d. Think more about how to make the cake bigger, rather than how to cut the cake to get the biggest piece for yourself.
    • 8.7 Remember that to maintain a great cooperative relationship, thoughtfulness and generosity are more important than money
      • a. Be generous to people, and ask that of others too.
    • 8.8 Excellent people are not easy to find, so think about how to keep them
  • 9 Continuously train, test, evaluate and deploy employees
    • 9.1 Understand that you and your subordinates will experience personal growth
      • a. After recognizing strengths and weaknesses, individuals will grow rapidly. As a result, the career path is not as originally expected.
      • b. Training guides personal development.
      • c. Teach people to fish, rather than giving them a fish, even if it means making them make some mistakes.
      • d. Experience will form internalized learning, which cannot be replaced by book learning.
    • 9.2 Provide continuous feedback
    • 9.3 Evaluate people accurately, don’t be “Mr. Nice Guy”
      • a. In the end, accuracy and kindness are the same thing.
      • b. Use praise and criticism correctly.
      • c. Consider accuracy, not consequences.
      • d. Make accurate evaluations.
      • e. Learn from failure just like learning from success.
      • f. What most people have done and what they are doing is not as important as they think.
    • 9.4 Tough love is the hardest to give, but also the most important love (because it is very unpopular)
      • a. Although most people like to hear good words, accurate criticism is rarer.
    • 9.5 Do not be secretive about observing people
      • a. Judge comprehensively from specific details.
      • b. Discover useful information from points.
      • c. Do not dig too deep into a certain point.
      • d. Adopt evaluation tools such as performance surveys, performance indicators and formal assessments to record all of a person’s performance.
    • 9.6 Make the learning process open, growth-oriented and constantly repeated
      • a. Performance indicators should be clear and fair.
      • b. Encourage employees to reflect objectively on their performance.
      • c. Have a global view.
      • d. For performance evaluation, start with specific cases, find patterns, and explore evidence with the person being evaluated to seek consensus.
      • e. When evaluating people, the two biggest mistakes you may make are: overconfidence in your own evaluation, and inability to reach a consensus.
      • f. Reaching evaluation consensus cannot be based on hierarchy.
      • g. Understand your employee, and let the employee understand you, through candid dialogue about mistakes and their roots.
      • h. Ensure that employees do a good job, without having to supervise every detail.
      • i. Change is hard.
      • j. Help people tide over difficulties by discovering their shortcomings.
    • 9.7 Understanding how people handle things and judging whether this way of handling can achieve good results is more important than understanding what they did
      • a. If a person does not do a job well, consider whether it is due to lack of learning or lack of ability.
      • b. When training and testing a poor-performing employee, the common mistake lies in only looking at whether they master the required skills, rather than evaluating their abilities.
    • 9.8 If you really reach a consensus with someone about their shortcomings, these shortcomings may really exist
      • a. When judging employees, it is not necessary to reach the state of “no doubt”.
      • b. In less than a year, you will be able to understand what kind of person someone is and whether they are suitable for their position.
      • c. Continuously evaluate during the employee’s tenure.
      • d. Evaluate employees as strictly as you evaluate candidates.
    • 9.9 Train, protect or fire employees, do not fix them
      • a. Do not let employees occupy positions without doing anything.
      • b. Be prepared to “shoot the one you love”.
      • c. When someone is “not suitable for a certain position”, consider whether there is a more suitable vacancy for them, or whether you need to let them leave the company.
      • d. Be careful about moving incompetent employees to new jobs.
    • 9.10 Changing jobs is to make the best use of talents, which is beneficial to the whole team
      • a. Before moving to a new job, let employees “complete their duties”.
    • 9.11 Do not lower standards
• ● Build and evolve your machine…
  • 10 Management is like operating a machine to achieve goals
    • 10.1 Look at your machine and yourself from a high level
      • a. Constantly compare results with your goals.
      • b. An excellent manager is an organizational engineer.
      • c. Develop quantitative evaluation tools.
      • d. Be careful not to devote too much energy to dealing with various affairs and ignore your machine.
      • e. Don’t be distracted by unexpected events.
    • 10.2 The means of dealing with every problem must serve two purposes: (1) bring you closer to the goal; (2) be able to train and test the machine (people and design)
      • a. Everything experienced is a case.
      • b. If a problem occurs, discuss it at two levels: (1) machine level (how the result happened); (2) case level (how to deal with it).
      • c. When making rules, explain the principles behind them clearly.
      • d. Your policies should be a natural extension of your principles.
      • e. Although good principles and policies will almost always provide good guidelines, remember that every rule has exceptions.
    • 10.3 Understand the difference between management, micromanagement and non-management
      • a. Managers must ensure that the areas they are responsible for operate effectively.
      • b. Managing your subordinates is like “skiing together”.
      • c. Excellent skiers are better as ski coaches than novices as coaches.
      • d. You should delegate specific work to employees.
    • 10.4 Understand employees and their motivation for work, because people are your most important resource
      • a. Always know the people who are important to you and the company.
      • b. Confidence in employees should come from understanding, not random guessing.
      • c. Conduct different degrees of investigation and understanding based on the size of your confidence.
    • 10.5 Clarify responsibilities
      • a. Remember who is responsible for what.
      • b. Prevent “role dislocation”.
    • 10.6 Delve into your machine to understand what you can expect from it
      • a. Obtain a sufficient degree of understanding.
      • b. Do not keep too far a distance.
      • c. Use “daily updates” to understand the behavior and thoughts of team members.
      • d. Accountability to understand whether problems will happen suddenly.
      • e. The accountability process should touch the next level of your direct subordinates.
      • f. Allow your subordinates’ subordinates to report to you at any time by skipping levels.
      • g. Do not assume that employees’ answers are always correct.
      • h. Learn to be observant.
      • i. Make the accountability process transparent, not private. j. Welcome accountability.
      • k. Communication between people with completely different views and ways of thinking is usually poor.
      • l. Do not miss a suspicious clue.
      • m. There are many ways to solve problems.
    • 10.7 Think like the owner of the company, and ask your colleagues to do the same
      • a. Responsibility should not be forgotten even on vacation.
      • b. Force yourself and your employee to do difficult things.
    • 10.8 Recognize and deal with key person risks well
    • 10.9 Do not treat everyone equally, treat them reasonably and differently
      • a. Don’t be forced to compromise easily.
      • b. Care about employees.
    • 10.10 Excellent leaders are generally not as simple as they seem
      • a. Be both weak and strong.
      • b. Don’t worry about whether your employees like you, and don’t let them tell you how to do things.
      • c. Do not issue orders to let others obey you, but try to be understood and understand others to reach a consensus.
    • 10.11 Ensure that you and your employees bear corresponding responsibilities, and also welcome others to supervise you to take responsibility
      • a. If you have agreed with others on how to do something, ensure that they do so, unless you have reached a consensus on changing the method.
      • b. Distinguish between two different failure situations, the first is failure to comply with the agreement, and the second is no agreement at all.
      • c. Avoid the sinking phenomenon.
      • d. Watch out for those who confuse goals and tasks, because if they cannot distinguish clearly, you cannot trust them and delegate responsibilities to them.
      • e. Watch out for “should theoretically” that lacks focus and is futile.
    • 10.12 Communicate plans clearly and evaluate progress with clear quantitative indicators
      • a. Review plan execution before moving forward.
    • 10.13 When you cannot fully fulfill your responsibilities, refer the problem to your superior, and let your subordinates take the initiative to do so as well
  • 11 Discover problems, do not tolerate problems
    • 11.1 If you are not worried, you need to worry; if you are worried, you don’t need to worry
    • 11.2 Design and monitor the machine to ensure that you can discover what is done well and what is not good enough, otherwise do it yourself
      • a. Assign employees to be responsible for discovering problems, give them time to review, and ensure that they have independent reporting lines to report problems without fear of the consequences of revealing ugliness.
      • b. Watch out for “boiled frog syndrome”.
      • c. Watch out for herd mentality. Even if no one is worried, it does not mean that there are no problems.
      • d. When a problem is discovered, compare the result with the goal.
      • e. “Taste the soup”.
      • f. Try to get more eyes to look for problems.
      • g. “Open the bottle”.
      • h. People most familiar with the work have the most say.
    • 11.3 Be very specific when analyzing problems, do not generalize
      • a. Do not use terms like “we” and “they” that do not name names to cover up personal responsibility.
    • 11.4 Do not be afraid to solve difficult problems
      • a. Must understand that problems with good solutions are different from problems with no solutions.
      • b. Discover problems in a machine way.
  • 12 Diagnose problems and explore root causes
    • 12.1 To make a good diagnosis, ask the following questions first: 1. Is the result good or bad? 2. Who is responsible for the result? 3. If the result is bad, is it because the responsible person is not capable enough or there is a problem with the machine design?
      • a. Ask yourself: “Can anyone else do this job in another way?”
      • b. Find out which step in the five-step process went wrong.
      • c. Find out which principles were violated.
      • d. Avoid “hindsight”.
      • e. Do not confuse the quality of someone’s environment with the quality of their coping methods.
      • f. Realize the fact that others not knowing how to do it does not mean that you know how to do it.
      • g. The root cause of the problem is not a single action but a cause.
      • h. In order to distinguish between understaffing problems and lack of ability problems, consider how well the work would be done if there were enough staff in a specific position.
      • i. Remember that managers usually fail or fail to achieve their goals for one of the following 5 reasons (or more).
    • 12.2 Keep comprehensive judgment up to date through continuous diagnosis
    • 12.3 Diagnosis should be fruitful
      • a. If you let the same people do the same thing, you will get the same results.
    • 12.4 Use the following “dig deep” techniques to form an impression based on the 80/20 rule for the department or subordinate with problems
    • 12.5 Diagnosis is the basis for progress and establishing good relationships
  • 13 Improve the machine and solve problems
    • 13.1 Build your machine
    • 13.2 Systematize principles and methods of implementing principles
      • a. Think carefully about the criteria on which you base your decisions, and build an excellent decision-making machine based on this.
    • 13.3 A good plan should be like a movie script
      • a. Put yourself in a “painful position” for a while to understand more deeply what you are designing for.
      • b. Imagine other possible alternative machines and the results of their operation, and then make a choice.
      • c. Not only consider the consequences of the first round, but also consider the consequences of the second and third rounds.
      • d. Hold regular meetings to keep the company running as accurately as a Swiss watch.
      • e. A good machine should take into account the fact that people may not be perfect.
    • 13.4 Design is a cyclical process, and there is a “constant effort” stage between the unsatisfactory “present” and the beautiful “future”
      • a. Understand the power of “cleansing storm”.
    • 13.5 When designing the organizational structure, center around goals rather than tasks
      • a. Build the organization from top to bottom.
      • b. Everyone must be supervised by a person with credibility and high standards.
      • c. People at the top of the pyramid should have the skills and focus of managing direct subordinates, and have a deep understanding of their subordinates’ work.
      • d. When designing an organization, using the five-step process is a shortcut to success, and different employees can play a good role in different steps.
      • e. Do not let an organization adapt to employees.
      • f. Consider the appropriate size of the organization.
      • g. According to the law of “universal gravitation”, divide business departments and their subordinate departments in the most logical way.
      • h. Make departments as self-sufficient as possible to control the required resources.
      • i. To ensure smooth contact and communication, the ratio of senior managers to grassroots managers, and the ratio of grassroots managers to their direct subordinates should be controlled within a certain range.
      • j. Consider succession plans and training arrangements in the design.
      • k. Do not just stare at your own work, but also pay attention to how the work will be carried out if you are not present.
      • l. To ensure that key tasks are completed correctly, it is better to “do it twice” than to “double confirm”.
      • m. Use consultants wisely and avoid over-reliance on consultants.
    • 13.6 Draw a hierarchical organizational chart, where any two lines connecting the top of the tower to the bottom should not cross
      • a. When encountering cross-departmental or cross-sub-departmental problems, let the person at the intersection of the pyramid handle it.
      • b. Do not do work for people in other departments, and do not take people from other departments to work for you, unless you get the consent of the manager of that department.
      • c. Prevent “department dislocation”.
    • 13.7 Create “guardrails” when necessary, but it is best not to have “guardrails”
      • a. Do not expect people to realize and eliminate their blind spots.
      • b. Consider the “clover” style design.
    • 13.8 Keep strategic planning unchanged, and make appropriate tactical adjustments when circumstances permit
      • a. Do not let expediency override strategic goals.
      • b. Consider both the big picture and the details, and understand the relationship between the two.
    • 13.9 Maintain appropriate monitoring so that lies have no chance
      • a. Investigate and let employees know that you will conduct an investigation.
      • b. Know that without police (auditors), the law is meaningless.
      • c. Watch out for rubber stamps.
      • d. People who spend money according to your requirements may spend lavishly.
      • e. Prevent bad behavior by “killing the chicken to scare the monkey”.
    • 13.10 Reporting lines and job descriptions should be as clear as possible
      • a. Assign responsibilities not based on job titles, but based on workflow design and personnel capabilities.
      • b. Constantly think about how to produce small-to-big leverage effects.
      • c. Hiring a few smart people and giving them the best technical means is far better than hiring a large number of ordinary people and providing general technology.
      • d. Use assistants to improve efficiency.
    • 13.11 Know that almost everything you do will take more time and money than you expect
    • 14 Stick to the plan
      • 14.1 Aim for goals that excite you and your organization, and think about how to link tasks to those goals
        • a. Coordination motivates everyone to move forward.
        • b. Don’t be impulsive, sharpening the knife does not delay the woodcutter.
        • c. Look for creative and smart solutions.
      • 14.2 Realize that everyone is very busy
        • a. Don’t be discouraged.
      • 14.3 Use checklists
        • a. Do not confuse checklists with personal responsibility.
      • 14.4 Set aside time for rest
      • 14.5 Ring the bell to celebrate
    • 15 Work with tools and codes of conduct
      • 15.1 Embedding systematic principles into tools to practice idea meritocracy has special value
        • a. To promote real behavioral change, learning must be internalized or turned into a habit.
        • b. Use tools to collect and process data to form conclusions and actions.
        • c. Clarify principles, use various tools and plans to promote implementation, and form an atmosphere of trust and fairness, so that any conclusion can be evaluated by tracking the logic and data behind it.
    • 16 Do not ignore corporate governance
      • 16.1 To succeed, all organizations must establish checks and balances mechanisms
        • a. Even under idea meritocracy, winning by viewpoints is not the only determinant for assigning responsibility and authority.
        • b. Ensure that no one in the company is stronger than the system, and no one is important enough to be irreplaceable.
        • c. Watch out for feudal separatism.
        • d. When designing the organizational structure and rules of an organization, ensure that checks and balances mechanisms can work.
        • e. Ensure that reporting lines are clear.
        • f. Ownership of decision-making power should be clear.
        • g. Ensure that people conducting performance evaluations: (1) have time to master comprehensive information about the work of the person being evaluated; (2) have the ability to conduct evaluations; (3) do not have conflicts of interest that hinder their effective exercise of supervisory power.
        • h. Decision-makers can access information needed to make decisions, but must keep credit and keep information safe.
      • 16.2 Under idea meritocracy, CEO single decision-making is not as good as collective decision-making
      • 16.3 A governance system composed of principles, rules, checks and balances cannot replace excellent partnerships

Published at: Oct 8, 2025 · Modified at: Dec 11, 2025