10.12 Communicate the plan clearly and have clear metrics conveying whether you are progressing according to it.
People should know the plans and designs within their departments. If you decide to diverge from an agree-upon path, be sure to communicate your thoughts to the relevant parties and get their views so that you are all clear about the new direction. This allows people to buy into the plan or express their lack of confidence and suggest changes. It also makes clear what the goals are and who is keeping up his or her end of the bargain and who is falling short. Goals, tasks, and assigned responsibilities should be reviewed at department meetings at least once a quarter, perhaps as often as once a month.
a. Put things in perspective by going back before going forward.
Before moving forward with a new plan, take the time to reflect on how the machine has been working up till now.
10.11 Hold yourself and your people accountable and appreciate them for holding your accountable.
Holding people accountable means understanding them and their circumstances well enough to assess whether they can and should do some things differently, getting in sync with them about that, and, if they can’t adequately do what is required, removing them from their jobs. It is not micromanaging them, nor is it expecting them to be perfect (holding particularly overloaded people accountable for doing everything excellently is often impractical, not to mention unfair).
But people can resent being held accountable, and you don’t want to have to tell them what to do all the time. Reason with them so that they understand the value of what you’re doing, but never let them off the hook.
a. If you’ve agreed with someone that something is supposed to go a certain way, make sure it goes that way—unless you get in sync about doing it differently.
People will often subconsciously gravitate toward activities they like rather than what’s required. If they lose sight of their priorities, you need to redirect them. This is part of why it’s important to get frequent updates from people about their progress.
10.10 Know that great leadership is generally not what it’s made out to be.
I don’t use the word “leadership” to describe what I do or what I think is good because I don’t believe that what most people think of as “good leadership” is effective. Most people think a good leader is a strong person who engenders confidence in others and motivates them to follow him/her, with the emphasis on “follow.” The stereotypical leader often sees questioning and disagreement as threatening and prefers people do what they’re told. As an extension of this paradigm, the leaders bears the main burden of decision making. But because such leaders are never as all-knowing as they try to appear, disenchantment and even anger tends to set in. That’s why people who once loved their charismatic leaders often want to get rid of them.
This traditional relationship between “leaders” and “followers” is the opposite of what I believe is needed to be most effective, and being maximally effective is the most important thing a “leader” must do. It is more practical to be honest about one’s uncertainties, mistakes, and weaknesses than to pretend they don’t exist. It is also more important to have good challengers than good followers. Thoughtful discussion and disagreement is practical because it stress-tests leaders and brings what they are missing to their attention.
10.9 Don’t treat everyone the same—treat them appropriately.
It’s often said that it is neither fair nor appropriate to treat people differently. But in order to treat people appropriately you must treat them differently. That is because people and their circumstances are different. If you were a tailor you wouldn’t give all of your customers the same size suit.
It is, however, important to treat people according to the same set of rules. That’s why I‘ve tried to flesh out Bridgewater‘s principles in enough depth that differences are accounted for. For example, if someone has worked at Bridgewater for many years, that factors into how they are treated. Likewise, while I find all dishonesty intolerable, I don’t treat all acts of dishonesty and all people who are dishonest the same.
a. Don’t let yourself get squeezed.
Plenty of people have threatened me over the years by saying they’d quit, bring a lawsuit, embarrass me in the press—you name it. While some people have advised me that it’s easier to just make such things go away, I’ve found doing that is almost always shortsighted. Giving in not only compromises your values, it telegraphs that the rules of the game have changed and opens you up to more of the same. Fighting for what’s right can be hard in the short term, of course. But I’m willing to take the punch. What I worry about is doing the right thing and not about what people think about me.
Every key person should have at least one person who can replace him or her. It’s best to have those people designated as likely successors and to have them apprentice and help in doing those jobs.
10.7 Think like an owner, and expect the people you work with to do the same.
It’s a basic reality that if you don’t experience the consequences of your actions, you’ll take less ownership of them. If you are an employee, and you get a paycheck for turning up and pleasing your boss, your mind-set will inevitably be trained to this cause-effect relationship. If you are a manager, make sure you structure incentives and penalties that encourage people to take full ownership of what they do and not just coast by. This includes straightforward things such as spending money like it’s their own and making sure their responsibilities aren’t neglected when they’re out of the office. When people recognize that their own well-being is directly connected to that of their community, the ownership relationship becomes reciprocal.
a. Going on vacation doesn’t mean one can neglect one’s responsibilities.
Thinking like an owner means making sure that your responsibilities are handled well regardless of what comes up. While you are away on vacation, it’s your responsibility to make sure nothing drops. You can do that via a combination of good planning and coordination before you go and staying on top of things while you are away. This needn’t take much time—it can be as little as an hour of good checking from afar and it doesn’t even have to be every day, so you can typically slip it in when it’s convenient.
10.6. Probe deep and hard to learn what you can expect from your machine.
Constantly probe the people who report to you while making sure they understand that it’s good for them and everyone else to surface their problems and mistakes. Doing so is required to make sure you’re getting what you want, even from people who are doing their jobs well (though they can be given a bit more leeway).
Probing shouldn’t just come from the top down. The people who work for you should constantly challenge you, so that you can become as good as you can be. In doing so, they will understand that they are just as responsible for finding solutions as you are. It’s much easier for people to remain spectators than to become players. Forcing them onto the field strengthens the whole team.
a. Get a threshold level of understanding.
When managing an area, you need to gain a rich enough understanding of the people, processes, and problems around you to make well-informed decisions. Without that understanding, you will believe the stories and excuses you are told.
Eliminate any confusion about expectations and ensure that people view their failures to complete their tasks and achieve their goals as personal failures. The most important person on a team is the one who is given the overall responsibility for accomplishing the mission. This person must have both the vision to see what should be done and the discipline to make sure it’s accomplished.
a. Remember who has what responsibilities.
While that might sound obvious, people often fail to stick to their own responsibilities. Even senior people in organizations sometimes act like young kids just learning to play soccer, running after the ball in an effort to help but forgetting what position they are supposed to play. This can undermine rather than improve performance. So make sure that people remember how the team is supposed to work and play their positions well.
