Ray Dalio: “A great manager is an organizational engineer”

It’s easy to fall prey to the urgent, not the important. It’s hard to avoid the daily whirlwind your job and team throw at you.

Teams and organizations exist to deliver outcomes. Get clear on those outcomes, then work every day to get closer to those outcomes.

If you’re not getting there fast enough, think, what’s wrong with my machine?

This is the bigger picture. What can you tweak in your machine to get better outcomes? Confront the brutal reality. Get outside input from people who have succeeded in what you’re doing.

Put aside today’s ever growing email inbox. Cull those low value meetings from the calendar. Take a step back, imagine yourself an organizational engineer, and start doing what only you can do.