13.5 Build the organization around goals rather than tasks.
Giving each department a clear focus and the appropriate resources to achieve its goals makes the diagnosis of resoure allocations more straightforward and reduces job slip. As an example of how this works, at Bridgewater we have a Marketing Department (goal: to market) that is separate from our Client Service Department (goal: to service clients), even though they do similar things and there would be advantages to having them work together. But marketing and servicing clients are two distinct goals; if they were merged, the department head, salespeople, client advisors, analysts, and others would be giving and receiving conflicting feedback. If asked why clients were receiving relatively poor attention, the answer might be: “We have incentives to raise sales.” If asked why they weren’t making sales, the merged department might explain that they need to take care of their clients.
a. Build your organization from the top down.
An organization is the opposite of a building: Its foundation is at the top, so make sure you hire managers before you hire their reports. Managers can help design the machine and choose the people who complement it. People overseeing departments need to be able to think strategically as well as run the day-to-day. If they don’t anticipate what’s coming up, they’ll run the day-to-day off a cliff.
13.4 Recognize that design is an iterative process. Between a bad “now” and a good “then” is a “working through it” period.
That “working through it” period is when you try out different processes and people, seeing what goes well or poorly, learning from the iterations, and moving toward the ideal systematic design. Even with a good future design picture in mind, it will naturally take some mistakes and learning to get to a good “then” state.
People frequetnly complain about this kind of iterative process because it tends to be true that people are happier with nothing at all than with something imperfect, even though it would be more logical to have the imperfect thing. That kind of thinking doesn’t make sense, so don’t let it distract you.
13.3 Remember that a good plan should resemble a movie script.
The more vividly you can visualize how the scenario you create will play out, the more likely it is to happen as you plan. Visualize who will do what when and the result they’ll produce. This is your mental map of your machine. Recognize that some people are better or worse at visualization. Accurately assess your own abilities and those of others so you can use the most capable people to create your plans.
a. Put yourself in the position of pain for a while so that you gain a richer understanding of what you’re designing for.
Either literally or vicariously (through reading reports, job descriptions, etc.), temporarily insert yourself into the workflow of the area you’re looking at to gain a better understanding of what it is that you are dealing with. As you design, you’ll be able to apply what you’ve learned, and revise the machine appropriately as a result.
13.2 Systemize your principles and how they will be implemented.
If you have good principles that guide you from your values to your day-to-day decisions but you don’t have a systematic way of making sure they’re regularly applied, they’re not of much use. It’s essential to build your most important principles into habits and help others do so as well. Bridgewater‘s tools and culture are designed to do just that.
a. Create great decision-making machines by thinking through the criteria you are using to make decisions while you are making them.
Whenever I make an investment decision, I observe myself making it and think about the criteria I used. I ask myself how I would handle another one of those situations and write down my principles for doing so. Then I turn them into algorithms. I am now doing the same for management and I have gotten in the habit of doing it for all my decisions.
Focus on each task or case at hand and you will be stuck dealing with them one by one. Instead, build a machine by observing what you’re doing and why, extrapolating the relevant principles from the cases at hand, and systemizing that process. It typically takes about twice as long to build a machine as it does to resolve the task at hand, but it pays off many times over becuase the learning and efficiency compound into the future.
12.5 Understand that diagnosis is foundational to both progress and quality relationships.
If you and others are open-minded and engage in a quality back-and-forth, not only will you find better solutions, you will also get to know each other better. It is an opportunity for you to assess your people and to help them grow—and vice versa.
12.4 Use the following “drill-down” technique to gain an 80/20 understanding of a department or sub-department that is having problems.
A drill-down is a process that allows you to gain an understanding of the root causes of the biggest problems in a department or area so you can design a plan to make the area excellent. Drill-downs are not diagnoses, but a form of broad and deep probing. They’re not intended to uncover the causes of every problem: only the 20 or so percent of causes that produce 80 percent of the suboptimal effects. A drill-down takes place in two steps and is then followed by design and execution steps. If done well, the two drill-down steps can be done in about four hours. It is very important that the steps be done separately and independently, so as not to go in too many directions at once. Let me take you through the drill-down process, offering guidance and examples for each step.
Step 1: List the Problems.
Quickly inventory all the core problems. Be very specific, as this is the only way to effectively find solutions. Don’t generalize or use the plural “we” or “they.” Name the names of the people experiencing the problems.
12.3 Keep in mind that diagnoses should produce outcomes.
If they don’t, there’s no purpose to them. At a minimum, a diagnosis should take the form of theories about root causes and clarity about what information needs to be gathered to find out more. At best, it should lead directly to a plan or design to fix the problem or problems.
a. Remember that if you have the same people doing the same things, you should expect the same results.
Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Don’t fall into this trap because you’ll have a hard time getting out of it.
