Foster an environment of confidence and fairness by having clearly-stated principles that are implemented in tools and protocols so that the conclusions reached can be assessed by tracking the logic and data behind them. In all organizations, it’s always the case that some of the people judged to be ineffective will argue that those judgments are wrong. When that happens, a data and rules-based system with clearly laid-out criteria allows less room for such arguments and greater belief that the system is fair. Though the system won’t be perfect, it is much less arbitrary, and can much more easily be examined for bias, than the much less specified and much less open decision-making of individuals with authority. My ideal is to have a process in which everyone contributes criteria for good decision-making and those criteria are assessed and selected by appropriately assigned (believable) people. If people maintain the right balance of open-mindedness and assertiveness so they understand where they are and aren’t believable to make decisions, having these open discussions on the criteria for assessing and managing people can be very powerful in building and reinforcing the idea-meritocracy. We have early-stage tools that achieve these things and we are striving to refine them so that our people management system operates as effectively as our investment management system. Even with its imperfections, our evidence-based approach to learning about people, guiding them, and sorting them is much fairer and more effective than the arbitrary and subjective management systems that most organizations still rely on. I believe that the forces of evolution will push most organizations toward systems that combine human and computer intelligence to program principles into algorithms that substantially improve decision-making.
And for Heaven’s Sake, Don’t Overlook Governance! All that I’ve said thus far will be useless if you don’t have good governance. Governance is the oversight system that removes the people and the processes if they aren’t working well. It is the process that checks and balances power to assure that the principles and interests of the community as a whole are always placed above the interests and power of any individual or faction. Because power will rule, power must be put in the hands of capable people in key roles who have the right values, do their jobs well, and will check and balance the power of others. I didn’t realize the importance of this sort of governance until after I transitioned out of the CEO role, because I was an entrepreneur and company builder (as well as an investment manager) who largely did what I thought was best. While I needed and developed double-checks on myself, I created a Management Committee that I put above me so that I had to report to it, I always had the power of my equity to change things, though I never used it. Some might say that I was a benevolent despot because while I had all the power (the complete voting rights), I exercised my power in an idea-meritocratic way, recognizing that the good of the whole was best for us all, and that I needed to be double-checked. I certainly did not create the sort of governance system appropriate for Bridgewater, given its scale. For example, Bridgewater didn’t have a board of directors overseeing the CEOs, there were no internal regulations, no judicial system for people to appeal to, and no enforcement system, because we didn’t need them. I, with the help of others, simply created the rules and enforced them, though everyone had the right to appeal and overturn my and others’ judgments. Our principles were the equivalent of what the Articles of Confederation had been to the United States in its first years, and our policies were like our laws, but I never created a formal way of operating such as a “Constitution” or a justice system to enforce them and resolve disputes. As a result, when I stepped out and passed the power to others, confusions about decision rights arose. After conferring with some of the world’s greatest experts on governance, we put a new system in place based on these principles. Still, I want to make clear that I don’t consider myself an expert on governance and can’t vouch for the following principles as much as I can vouch for the previous ones, because they are still new as of this writing.