P R I N C I P L E S
Principle is a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behaviour or for a chain of reasoning. The Cambridge dictionary defines this as a basic idea or rule that explains or controls how something happens or works. Principles are more basic than policy and objectives and are meant to govern both.
Principles help organisations and individuals in navigating in the “right” direction. They are different than values. Values are subjective whereas principles are objective. They help you to navigate towards your “ true north”.
“Rather than thinking, ‘I’m right.’ I started to ask myself, ‘How do I know I’m right?’”.
Ray Dalio says “ Principles are ways of successfully dealing with reality to get what you want out of life.” “Rather than thinking, ‘I’m right.’ I started to ask myself, ‘How do I know I’m right?’”. Ray Dalio is no ordinary man, founder of Bridgewaters one of the most successful and largest hedge fund management company.
He has published the principles of life and work in his book “Principles”, here is the list my favorites from his book.
- Trust in Truth
- Realize that you have nothing to fear from the truth
- Be extremely open
- Have integrity and demand it from others
- Be radically transparent
- Don't tolerate dishonesty
- Create a culture in which it is OK to make mistakes but unacceptable not to identify, Analyse and learn from them
- Don't worry about looking good - worry about achieving your goals.
- When you experience pain, remember to reflect.
- Teach and reinforce the merits of mistake based learning.
- Be assertive and open-minded at the same time.
- Remember that almost everything good comes from having great people operating in a great culture.
- Recognize that people are built differently.
- Hire Right, because the penalties of hiring wrong are huge.
- Understand the difference between managing, micromanaging, and not managing,
- Put things in perspective
- Go back before going forward.
- Recognize the Power of Knowing How to deal with Not Knowing.
- Remember that the Root cause is the reason, not the action.
- Understand and connect the dots.
- Don't try to please everyone.
Out of the above #1 and #12 are my favorites. What principles resonate with you?
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Here are the selected References -
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/
http://www.businessdictionary.com/
Raghavendra (Raghav) Mithare is a consultant and coach at ProcessWhril Management Consulting, based in London. (rmithare@processwhirl.com)
