Cultivating World Class Talent, with Ray Dalio

[Music] today my name is j Mugi senior director here at adjm Academy and we are talking about today's session fireside chat which is cultivating world-class Talent with Ray Delio founder and CIO Mentor at Bridgewater Associates Ray it's great to have you welcome back to ababi thank you for having me so let's jump into the discussion uh Ray your journey from building one of the most successful investment firms to writing about principles of life and work has inspired many leaders today as we discussed the topic of cultivating worldclass talent I want us to explore not just the strategies behind attracting and retaining talent but also the ecosystems that allow individuals to thrive thrive and drive Innovation so Ray in the beginning if you can maybe share with the audience a bit about your experience and what are some of the key priorities that you had within your organization when it comes to attracting retaining and having a thriving ecosystem thank you for your question thank you it's it's great to be here um you know I was lucky that uh I started my uh business out of two years out of school and so I think that um leadership is very much an extension of one's values sometimes you go into an organization but every organization has has to have culture which is an extension of their values and for me it was very simply in one sentence I wanted meaningful work and meaningful relationships through radical truthfulness and radical transparency so that was my culture I'm not saying that's the culture for that everyone should have but I think every organization needs to have a very clearly defined culture of how people are going to be with each other for me the meaning work and meaningful relationships means um are you on a mission together for example adgm Academy is on a mission to uh educate and to change human capital okay that everybody's behind and then the meaningful relationships is how you are with each other in order to um build that is it a superficial relationship or do you share each other's lives and and well-being uh I think that there's a great power in that and so when I say meaningful work and meaningful relationships I also believe through radical truthfulness and radical transparency is very important to me when I mean radical truthfulness I think sometimes often it's difficult to talk about the difficult things particularly mistakes and failures but we listen to the discussion of sports and I think that's such a good example so to to know that you have trust not just superficial you know come in everybody gets a high five and then they talk behind each other's backs in a critical way so I for me it was very essential I had a principle speak up own it or get out in other words bring it up to the surface anything you can't speak behind other people's backs so that radical truthfulness to know what people truly think and then to deal with those thoughts it was very important for me and transparency so people could see things firsthand so that they know that there's not um you know they know what the real story is so that was a culture that was very important to me I would say a few other elements relate that and was talked about earlier in the first session is mistakes the the value of mistakes like we all make mistakes and we all have strengths and weaknesses and to be able to deal with those in a forthright way to make a good team these are important elements so I felt that I would I had an extended family of sorts or a team that was working together that was my culture but whatever it is I think it's so important to be crystal clear about what that culture is so what I did was I would always write down this would help me a lot I would think whenever I would make decisions what were the reasons I made those decisions and I would write them down I would call them principles those are my principles for making decisions and having those principles clearly communicated and then people could see them in action I think these things are important definitely so last week when we were having a discussion uh about today's session uh one of the questions was that what does radical transparency look like so we actually have a video to show the audience about what does radical transparency look like within the organization so if we can play the video and give the audience an idea a week after the US election our research team held a meeting to discuss what a trump presidency would mean for the US economy naturally people had different opinions on the matter and how we were approaching the discussion the dot collector collects these views it has a list of a few dozen attributes and so whenever someone thinks something about another person's thinking it's easy for them to convey that assessment they simply note the attribute and provide a rating from 1 to 10 for example as the meeting began a researcher named Jen rated me a three in other words badly for not showing a good balance of assertiveness and open-mindedness has the meeting transpired Jen's assessment to of people added up like this others in the room had very different opinions that's normal different people are always going to have different opinions and who knows who's right let's just look at what people thought about how I was doing some people thought I did well others poorly with each of these views we can explore the thinking behind the numbers here's what Jen and Larry said note that everyone gets to express their thinking including their critical thinking regardless of their position in the company Jan who's 24 years old and fresh out of college can tell me the CEO of the company that I'm approaching things terribly this tool helps people both Express their opinions and separate themselves from their opinions to see things from a higher level when Jen and others shift their attentions from inputting their opinions to looking down on the whole screen their perspective changes they see their own opinions as just one of many and naturally start to ask themselves how do I know my opinion is right that shift in perspec perspective of going above it and seeing the full range of views shifts the conversation from arguing over individual opinions to figuring out objective criteria for determining which opinions are best behind the dot collector is a computer that is watching what all these people are thinking correlates it with how they think and communicates back to each of them based on that then it draws the dat data from the meetings to create a pointless painting of what people are like and how they think and it does all that Guided by algorithms knowing what people are like helps to match them up better with their jobs for example a creative thinker who is unreliable might be matched up with someone who is reliable but not creative knowing what people are like also allows us to decide what responsibilities to give them and to weigh our decisions based on people's merits we call it their believability here's an example of a vote that we took where the majority of people felt one way but when we weighed people's views on the basis of their merits the answer was completely different this process allows us to make decisions not based on democracy and not based on autocracy but based on algorithms that take people's believability into consideration you know we re we really do that stuff Jen wasn't very happy with you that day uh sorry Jen wasn't very happy with you that day in the meeting it's it's it's great sh shouldn't people bring to the surface what they really think or should they keep it under the surface and even in a meeting so few things I want to highlight about that uh first it always struck me that in a meeting the only PE things you know about what people to think or the people who are talking so I don't know right now what you all are thinking but if you had this device I would know what all of you are thinking so it's so great to be able to use a tool like that also the tools that you have embedded in your organization are going to affect the behaviors by having that tool I can reinforce an idea meritocracy so that that the best ideas win out and we can see what everybody body's thinking you also see in that that um people think differently um I've created a personality profile test for people to see the different ways of people thinking we all think differently by understanding how we think differently that's terrific in building a team and then also you know that disagreement how do you deal with disagreement do you have just an autocracy the one person who was going to say that this is the way it is or do you have the Democracy like everybody's opinions are equally good that doesn't make any sense anyway though that was what I would uh my Approach I'm not saying that's the approach for everybody but I do think everybody needs to have a culture and you need to know what the culture is and I think then you also have to have tools that reinforce that and I think we're now in an ERA with uh data and um Ai and other other tools that allow allow you to know what people like and now allow themselves to know what they're like to to be objective to know what On's strengths and On's weaknesses are is a great attribute because you can work with others who are strong where you're weak so I think that that's the direction of the Future these have the culture have the tools definitely I want to talk touch a bit more about uh the tools in addition to AI that was mentioned uh you know we see today organiz ganizations are more and more adopting artificial intelligence within the organization and the employees and staff within the organization also utilizing AI what's what do you you know what's your opinion when it comes to the use of AI and how we can cultivate skills to make sure that they're future proof with the you know Advent of aoi I think the biggest issue is can you have everybody agree or most people agree that uh we will find objective ways that we will mutually agree on to understand your strengths and weaknesses like on a team right and because that isn't easy but once people realize that that's a real advantage and that they can use their understand their mistakes and understand what they're like and how they can evolve through that I think that that's a that's the most important thing then the capacity to have tools like the one I just showed so to be able to objectively get at that um this is uh it prod produces a three 60 degree review every meeting and every time and so what would happen would be that people would go to that and at the end of the day look at it and say is that objective is that good feedback and then uh you didn't have to wait till an annual review in which everybody's trying to measure things so I think that um the question is really a question of what you will be able to embrace definitely and when it comes to culture so you mentioned you know that culture is very important when it comes to driving the organization and all of the team members aligning on you know what needs to be done when it comes to the culture element of it how much of it is the you know hiring individuals who already fit the culture of the organization versus those who join that may have a different opinion but then align with that culture within the organization and which are important as well I think it's like uh organizing uh any organization you have to convey is this the right kind of organization What's the culture so I think of it it's been called an intellectual Navy Seals this my kind of culture okay so okay it's going to be this way so then show videos of what it's like explain it and so on and people then will intellectually say okay is that for me or not for me be clear on what that culture is and then um and then they have to experience it so I think it's like the Navy SEALS or something you know okay now I'm going to have to get into the cold water and I'm experiencing it and you prepare them for that and you help them through that but I think you have to be clear you have to be clear on what your culture is and you have to be clear on what they're going to get into and ask them is that for them and and then there's a trial and error period and everybody knows you know that through that trial and error period there's you need guidance and and ways of adapting to make it work well definitely within when it came to Bridgewater and the growth of Bridgewater were there any changes and tweaks that were done throughout the life cycle of the organization any tweaks that you had done and experiences certainly um you know I went from uh a two-bedroom apartment my being my office and and so not many people you know just three of us and then when I found out when we got to um 68 people I knew it was 68 because every holiday season I would pick an individual gift for people and then I would write a lengthy note and I couldn't do it when I was 68 it then dawned on me that okay now I'm uh I went from 68 people to uh 1500 people and so there's how do you know each other in the same way how that was important so at that point I had to do a number of things differently I had to recognize that the units are about a 100 people that you you can have an intimate good relationship with and think about how those units then work together to be aviculture together and then I had to uh I had to make myself so much more clearer that what I had to do was that's why I wrote down all these principles there's a book that when I turned over the CEO job I put it together as a compendium of life and work principles that's the compendium of principles that I wrote down because I had to keep communicating well and then I found that by um videoing things and being very open that everybody could see things happening including people make mistakes and making it acceptable so those were the transitions to make you know just a a smaller group into a bigger company that was able to work well together excellent so uh I want to end by asking you Ray you know you've you've had a lot of success during your life um due to your hard work perseverance what would be uh a piece of advice that you would give individuals and leaders when it comes to maintaining and maximizing the potential of their organization and their Workforce well I think U you know three things um make your work and your passion the same thing and don't forget about the money part you don't have to you don't you have your taste in my don't obsess about the money part either I don't mistake the money for Success uh think about what you want more you have to have enough money to take care of your family and to do those things well but if your work and your passion are the same things and you're doing it with people who you really care about and care about you I think that that's the greatest reward and it's also going to me set you up for the greatest success because if your passion and your work are the same things you're going to get into it you're probably going to be better at it so and I think that that's what makes for a great life you know don't optimize over the traditional um stereotypes of what success is like making a lot of money having a lot of status and so on that's all superficial it's really again this meaningful work that you feel is Meaningful and the relationships and enjoying the benefits of of the learnings from mistakes just as it was said earlier when you have a mistake I have a a principle pain plus reflection equals progress because pain is a messenger it tells you about how the world works okay it's producing that pain and then the reflection what can I do differently to make it go better it's like that process so that would those would be the recommendations I'd make excellent thank you for your time Ray and it was a pleasure discussing this uh you know this very important topic of cultivating world-class Talent during the session we discussed the need to have well-defined culture implementable through various tools and techniques while leveraging AI to make data driven decisions to empower teams and individuals while also motivating people through a shared mission built on meaningful work and meaningful relationships I'd like to thank the attendees and for everyone who is here with us today together we can work towards building a future ready Workforce that is equipped with the right skills to meet the ever evolving demands of the market thank you very much everyone [Music]