Ray Dalio: recommendation

Transcript context

…What’s your model for why more of the world hasn’t followed suit? Is it that leaders are cowards, too many workers are too emotionally fragile, just status quo bias, or what? I think it starts partially neurologically, and partially how we’re raised. There’s an instinct to view disagreement as a fight. There’s a fight or flight response, sometimes, to disagreement, rather than a curiosity to try to find out what’s true. Then, I think that we’re raised in an educational system in which people are reinforced for having the correct answer. Like there is a correct answer. Certainly, there’s a correct answer — two plus two is four — but sometimes, in things, there isn’t, and to not know well and to disagree are bad things. I think we’re raised that way. It becomes a habit that disagreement causes angst. My theory — I ask neuroscientists, I ask psychologists about it, and they come back with those kinds of answers as to why that’s the case. I found it in Bridgewater and other ways that that’s, for most people — maybe half the population or more — with practice and in an environment in which it’s valued intellectually, that they can get used to it and then not want it any other way. Let me just reverse it, and I would say, like I would say to anybody if we disagree, do you want me to have a good conversation with you? Maybe you and I are having some disagreement as to how the economy works, or whether the markets are efficient, and so on. Is this a good thing, or is that something that produces angst? I think it’s a good thing. Do you want me to be totally transparent with you about what I think? Or do you want me to hold it to myself, and ask you the same question? I’d say I want to hear whatever you think because if it’s on the table, we can deal with it. There’re two parts to our brain. There’s the intellectual part of our brain, and there’s the emotional part of our brain. The intellectual part of the brain usually says, “Yes, I would like to know, and I’d like to be able to have that exchange.” And the emotional part of our brain seems in conflict with that. That’s what the psychologists and neuroscientists say, and that’s why it’s interesting to them to see how we’ve created this different culture. It’s not easy, but it’s like eating healthy and doing exercise, and so on. If you’re around a lot of people who recognize that it’s healthy, and you live in that kind of an environment, you’d probably want to do that. You, in fact, wouldn’t want it to be the other way. Many people who work at Bridgewater would find it very difficult to work in most other companies because they wouldn’t operate that way. That’s what I think causes it. The experts, who are more expert at figuring out the reasons, explained to me. That rings true, and it’s been consistent with our experiences. With work from a distance, we’re now recording many more business calls. Do you think your method of recording every conversation in the company will actually win out through a backdoor mechanism?…

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