The only way to lead<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ludmila-praslova/details/education/1635491374289/single-media-viewer/"> effectively</a> when you can’t force people to do something is to be an example, share information, and lead from a place of caring.If the true goal of leadership is motivating people to achieve goals and effect change, the old model of using positional authority may never have been the most effective.

A New Kind Of Leadership

There are six bases of interpersonal power, or the ability to effect change.<ul><li>Legitimate power: inherent in a position, such as a supervisor’s job title</li><li>Reward power: ability to grant bonuses, raises, promotions, and privileges</li><li>Coercive power: power to punish via termination, demotion, undesirable scheduling, or unpleasant assignments</li><li>Referent power: based on our identification with leaders and the intrinsic desire to follow their example</li><li>Expert power: belief that the leader has a deeper understanding of relevant topics and "knows best"</li><li>Informational Influence/power: adds an element of learning</li></ul>

Effective Leadership Is Not the Same as Formal Authority

<ul><li>Remote and flexible work challenges the traditional workplace authority model.</li><li>Now, positional leaders who used to rely on rewards and punishments have limited options.</li><li>They can attempt to use surveillance where it is likely to harm productivity, such as remote knowledge and creative work.</li><li>Force people into the office, double-down on using reward (perks, bonuses) and punishment (paycuts, firings) power, but risk losing employees and having to deal with a reduced replacement talent pool.</li></ul>

Leadership Without Surveillance

Leaders can lead through referent, expert, and informational power, using purpose-centred inspiration while changing work organization to replace domination with the focus on wellbeing, outcomes, flexibility, and participation.Positional leaders still can and need to use legitimate, reward, and even coercive power when appropriate. However, as work becomes increasingly cognitive or even emotional, the relative importance of the referent, expert, and informational leadership will continue to grow.

Alternate Way Of Leading

Referent power is about leading by example. Aspiring leaders and those retooling to lead in the post-pandemic world can develop their referent power through modelling transparency and authenticity, as well as listening and compassion.Activist leaders must practice what they preach. An effective environmental activist can’t be irresponsibly consuming resources. Similarly, if one expects colleagues to contribute high-quality work, setting an example of competence and commitment is non-negotiable.

Leading By Example

In addition to authenticity, listening to and understanding others underpins human connections. Relationships are much more intrinsically motivating than transactional rewards and punishments. Even before the pandemic, 78% of employees were willing to<a href="https://www.businessolver.com/workplace-empathy-executive-summary"> switch jobs to get more empathy</a>. And 77% were willing to give more hours of work to an empathetic employer. Now, as the stress and burnout are taking a toll on employees, managers face an even taller order to exhibit<a href="https://hbr.org/2022/05/how-to-be-a-compassionate-manager-in-a-heartless-organization"> compassion</a>.

Building Relationships

To build on the referent, expert, and informational power, leadership must center on shared purpose. Both activism leadership and thought leadership unite diverse people from around the world because the <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/movements-social-change-apartheid-civil-rights-suf/#:~:text=Throughout%20history%2C%20movements%20that%20promote,the%20efforts%20of%20these%20leaders.">cause</a> or the idea intrinsically inspires them. Authentically uniting talent around a sense of purpose is increasingly the task of all leaders. Earning the respect of people and supporting them with care and dignity provide the relational foundation for the intrinsically inspired work.

The Bottom Line

Leadership isn't just about giving orders.

Influence is the new power, and managers have a lot to learn from activists and thought leaders.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

We’re in the midst of a fundamental shift in leadership

"The competitive advantage is what you do with the talent once you have it."

“When people are given challenging responsibilities, autonomy to control their outputs, participation in decision making, and visible and valuable recognition, it meets virtually all of the criteria for effective rewards.”

"HR is not about HR, but about delivering real value to the business."

Nurturing a staff culture that will be most beneficial to the organization’s customers, and managing effective employee development and recognition are part of what it takes to develop thriving companiesHowever, along with these organizational competencies, HR professionals as individuals need to devote attention to their less obvious, but extremely valuable, roles. These include being a Strategic Positioner, Credible Activist, and Paradox Navigator, and are required so that HR can have the influence it needs to deliver value to the business.

The Less Obvious Roles of HR Professionals

<ul><li>Strategic positioner: position a business to win in its market</li><li>Credible activist: build relationships of trust by having a proactive point of view</li><li>Paradox navigator: manage tensions inherent in making change happen</li><li>Culture and change champion: make change happen and weave change initiatives into culture change</li><li>Human capital curator: manage the flow of talent by developing people and leaders, driving individual performance, and building technical talent.</li></ul>

The 9 HR Competencies Needed Today (1)

<ul><li>Total rewards steward: manage employee wellbeing through financial and non-financial rewards.</li><li>Technology and media integrator: use technology and social media to drive high-performing organizations.</li><li>Analytics designer and interpreter: use analytics to improve decision making.</li><li>Compliance manager: manage the processes related to compliance by following regulatory guidelines.</li></ul>

The 9 HR Competencies Needed Today (2)

Out of the nine critical HR competencies, the role of Paradox Navigator was most closely tied with business performance. Yet this is an area where many HR professionals were lacking expertise.Paradox navigators need to effectively manage tensions between:<ul><li>Global and local demands</li><li>Need for change and stability</li><li>Gathering information and making decisions</li><li>Internal and external hiring</li><li>Individual needs and collective needs</li><li>Employees vs. customers and investors</li><li>Top-down and bottom-up.</li></ul>

Become a Paradox Navigator

<ul><li>Clarify the poles</li><li>Define best outcomes – how both sides relate to success criteria</li><li>See others’ points of view – how do others experience the paradox?</li><li>Find common ground – where do we agree and disagree?</li><li>Take first steps</li></ul>Dealing with cognitive complexity is the top skill that helps to transcend paradox. Cognitive complexity involves seeing different sides of an issue, respecting other people’s points of view, learning new ideas (20-25% every 2 years), and seeing patterns in events.

How To Transcend Paradox

"High potential individuals are interested in on-the-job assignments that are challenging and valuable … because they want to create a track record of documented results."

Using employee involvement to improve staff performance takes an organizational approach to the pervasive problem of low engagement. The goal is to move from cynicism to commitment, isolation to community, and for employees to have a sense of purpose and social responsibility in their work. Initiatives like letting employees choose their next project and being more involved with staffing issues have a positive effect on employee performance.

Improving Employee Performance

One of the most interesting ways companies are involving employees is by connecting them with customers for feedback. This could mean having employees listen to customer service calls, engaging more employees in market research and social media, having customers visit the company’s office, having customers participate in employee training, and even locating employees to work out of a customer’s facility.

Connecting Employees and Customers

Measuring employee performance from an organizational perspective means focusing on organizational-wide talent data, as well as individual data. <ul><li>For example, to measure recruitment, you can look at what percentage of hires remain after two years. </li><li>To measure development, look at what percentage of promotions come from inside vs. outside the company.</li><li> To measure succession readiness, look at what percentage of employees know the company’s mission, long-term goals, and business strategy.</li></ul>

Measuring Employee Performance

#1 Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author Dave Ulrich offers HR professionals a new line of defense in the corporate “war for talent.” Destined to be a classic in the field, this game-changing book from HR visionary Dave Ulrich tackles one of the greatest challenges in Human Resources today: the talent wars. As companies grow increasingly and aggressively competitive in hiring and nurturing individual employees, this book offers a refreshing, revolutionary alternative. By creating dynamic systems that leverage talent throughout the organization, you can create a unified whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. In the long run, that’s what gives your company the competitive edge it needs. Based on the research findings of the latest round of Ulrich’s legendary HR Competency Survey, this groundbreaking book is sure to spark debate, shatter myths, and inspire real change throughout the HR community. Filled with fact-based insights and field-tested strategies, it proves that your organization’s success lies, not in the talent you have, but what you do with the talent once you have it. This book shows you how to build capabilities, strengthen systems, and empower human capital—for longer lasting success.

career

Career

books

Books

humanresources

Human Resources

#1 Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author Dave Ulrich offers HR professionals a new line of defense in the corporate “war for talent.” Destined to be a classic in the field, this game-changing book from HR visionary Dave Ulrich tackles one of the greatest challenges in Human Resources today: the talent wars. As companies grow increasingly and aggressively competitive in hiring and nurturing individual employees, this book offers a refreshing, revolutionary alternative. By creating dynamic systems that leverage talent throughout the organization, you can create a unified whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. In the long run, that’s what gives your company the competitive edge it needs. Based on the research findings of the latest round of Ulrich’s legendary HR Competency Survey, this groundbreaking book is sure to spark debate, shatter myths, and inspire real change throughout the HR community. Filled with fact-based insights and field-tested strategies, it proves that your organization’s success lies, not in the talent you have, but what you do with the talent once you have it. This book shows you how to build capabilities, strengthen systems, and empower human capital—for longer lasting success.

Mike Ulrich

Dave Ulrich

David Kryscynski

Wayne Brockbank

Victory Through Organization: Why the War for Talent is Failing Your Company and What You Can Do about It

Victory Through Organization: Why the War for Talent is Failing Your Company and What You Can Do About It

Suffocating bosses—also known as micromanagers—often send this message to subordinates: “I don’t trust you to get the job done, nor to do it right.”Contrary to the best social science research—which shows that people who believe that they are being watched perform at a lower level—micromanagers require incessant updates and daily huddles, and they closely scrutinize, and often criticize, how their employees complete tasks.

Micromanagers

<ul><li>Constantly checks on where workers are.</li><li>Asks to be copied on all team e-mails.</li><li>Is reluctant to delegate.</li><li>Breaks projects into small tasks that make employees feel that their contributions are insignificant.</li><li>Checks and double-checks on deadlines and asks for frequent updates, even about small tasks.</li><li>Rarely asks for input from others.</li><li>Applies the same level of intensity and scrutiny to every task, failing to prioritize.</li><li>Is never quite satisfied with a work product.</li><li>Takes great pride in correcting or changing people’s work.</li><li>Is subject to extreme mood swings.</li></ul>

Traits Of A Micromanager

A micromanager is a person who probably has a poor self-image, so he or she doesn’t believe they deserve to be where they are, and so thinks the same about the people they supervise. So the constant checking and looking over employees’ shoulders are really checks on their own ability to do the job. They don’t believe in themselves, so they believe in no one else.

The Reason Micromanagers Behaving Like This

Employees who work for micromanagers often feel that their boss doesn’t trust them or value their contributions. This can cause workers to feel disrespected, devalued and demoralized. The manager’s mood swings can convince subordinates to avoid interacting with him or her.  Over time, employees’ professional growth is stunted because the micromanager won’t give them opportunities to shine.

The Climate Of Fear: How Micromanagers Effect Others

The belief systems that create the micromanager may not go away overnight. Weaning the micromanager off their controlling belief system takes time and constant feedback. More importantly, the micromanager must know that they’re safe when they allow others to succeed. It doesn’t diminish their value but actually enhances it. Regular coaching sessions are the way to go for most cases.

Handling the Micromanager: Coaching

Suffocating bosses—also known as micromanagers—often send this message to subordinates: “I don’t trust you to get the job done, nor to do it right.”

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

Let It Go: Teaching a Micromanager How to Chill

<ul>
<li>Open, clear and constant communication: across the entire company about the work to be done and challenges being faced.</li>
<li>Radical honesty: telling one another, and management, the truth in a timely fashion and ideally face to face.</li>
<li>Debating based on fact-based opinions: at Netflix, employees are expected to have strong, fact-based opinions and to debate them avidly and test them rigidly.</li>
<li>Customer and company first: people base their actions on what’s best for the customer and the company, not on attempts to prove themselves right.</li>
<li>Preparing teams for the future: The right skills with potential.</li>
</ul>

Powerful: The Five Practices Of Netflix Culture

The most successful organizations will be the ones in which everyone, on every team, understands that all bets are off and everything is changing – and thinks that’s great.Being comfortable with change is not easy. It can feel safer to be a slow-moving, command and control organization where senior leaders have all the answers.One of the biggest mistakes poor leaders and managers make is to want to be the boss,  thinking that they tell everyone what to do, and do not want anyone to challenge them. In today’s rapidly changing, hyper-competitive world, that approach is fatal.

Face the challenges: Being Comfortable with Change

A business leader’s job is to create great teams that do amazing work on time. That’s it. That’s the job of management.If you and your managers build great teams, they will help you solve your toughest problems.While you help them focus on the most important work, many other distractions will melt away; the root problem of many dysfunctional teams is due to misaligned incentives and different visions. If everyone is moving in the same clear direction, and you’ve hired good people, you’ll be amazed how much better things will go.

The One Job Of A Manager

When employees start to whine about a process, the CEO has to really dig into what’s bothering them, because they hate senseless bureaucracy, not discipline.When your company grows, there are more people to keep connected, more to coordinate, and the stakes are higher. It’s only logical to be more disciplined.It may seem like a subtle change from “process” to “discipline”, but it can make a big difference in how your team thinks about the changes that are needed. Many people dislike “process”, but most people agree some level of discipline is helpful.

Solving Problems With Discipline, Not Processes

Efficient teams are created by hiring talented people who are adults and want nothing more than to tackle a challenge, and then communicating to them, clearly and continuously, about what that challenge is.Are your employees aware of your business’s biggest challenges? Do you listen to their ideas on how to address it? If you hire good people, and communicate your real needs with them, they will help you overcome them and grow.Excellent colleagues, a clear purpose, and a well-understood deliverable: that’s a powerful combination.

Challenges Are Great

The most important thing about giving feedback is that it must be about behaviour, rather than some essential characteristics of a person, like ‘you’re unfocused’.You cannot sugarcoat feedback, or the spirit behind it and its importance can be missed. At the same time, you don’t want to make it a personal attack, either. That will only cause them to become defensive and resistant.Make feedback about an action, not the person, and you may be surprised how much easier feedback discussions become.

Feedback on Action

You have to exhibit the courage you want people to have.Actions speak louder than words. What you do as a leader says more than even the most inspiring speech. Lead by example to have a great company culture. If the CEO of Netflix can admit he’s wrong, then so can any staff member in the organization. If you aren’t willing to live the values you want your team to exhibit, don’t make their values. Otherwise, those un-lived values will become the ones people snicker at and mock when complaining to their friends about their job.

The benefit of being radically honest: If you want to know what people are thinking, there is no good replacement for simply asking them, best of all face to face.If you want a culture of candor and accountability, you may want to consider simple, direct feedback, too.

Feedback: Truth To Power

Collaborating with HR to hire is just the beginning of building a great team. It also includes asking tough questions like, “Are we limited by the team we have, not the team we should have?”Asking hard questions like this helps you not only hire good people now, but make sure you are thinking about what you need in the future. As the Wayne Gretzky attributed saying goes, you should skate where the puck is going.

Great Hiring: Hard But Crucial

Great teams are not created with incentives, procedures, and perks. They are created by hiring talented people who are adults and want nothing more than to tackle a challenge, and then communicating to them, clearly and continuously, about what the challenge is.Instead of perks, one should:<ul><li>Having great managers people enjoy working with.</li><li>Providing (or reimbursing for) the training that will help your employees grow into future roles.</li><li>Increasing salaries to help you compete for the best possible talent that others will be excited to work with.</li></ul>

Perks Don’t Work

There’s a big difference between a team and a family: teams change regularly and are optimized to win at all times, while families strive to stick together no matter what.Treating employees like teammates instead of family can be scary if you’ve never thought that way, but if you’re scaling your business or making significant changes, you may have no choice. Be mindful of the approach you take; loyalty is great, but not if it’s at the cost of your team member’s happiness and the needs of your business.

Work Requires Teams, Not Families

<ol><li>Imagine six months from now, you have the most amazing team you ever assembled and you’re saying to yourself, “Wow, those guys are awesome! I can’t believe what they’re accomplishing.”</li><li>First write down what the team will be accomplishing six months from now that it’s not accomplishing now. now. Use all the figures you want.</li><li>For those different things to be happening, what would people need to know how to do? What kind of skills and experience would it take for the team to operate the way you’re envisioning and accomplish the things you’ll need to do in that future?</li></ol>

Powerful: The Six Month Exercise

Named by The Washington Post as one of the 11 Leadership Books to Read in 2018 When it comes to recruiting, motivating, and creating great teams, Patty McCord says most companies have it all wrong. McCord helped create the unique and high-performing culture at Netflix, where she was chief talent officer. In her new book, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, she shares what she learned there and elsewhere in Silicon Valley. McCord advocates practicing radical honesty in the workplace, saying good-bye to employees who don’t fit the company’s emerging needs, and motivating with challenging work, not promises, perks, and bonus plans. McCord argues that the old standbys of corporate HR—annual performance reviews, retention plans, employee empowerment and engagement programs—often end up being a colossal waste of time and resources. Her road-tested advice, offered with humor and irreverence, provides readers a different path for creating a culture of high performance and profitability. Powerful will change how you think about work and the way a business should be run.

Named by The Washington Post as one of the 11 Leadership Books to Read in 2018 When it comes to recruiting, motivating, and creating great teams, Patty McCord says most companies have it all wrong. McCord helped create the unique and high-performing culture at Netflix, where she was chief talent officer. In her new book, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, she shares what she learned there and elsewhere in Silicon Valley. McCord advocates practicing radical honesty in the workplace, saying good-bye to employees who don’t fit the company’s emerging needs, and motivating with challenging work, not promises, perks, and bonus plans. McCord argues that the old standbys of corporate HR—annual performance reviews, retention plans, employee empowerment and engagement programs—often end up being a colossal waste of time and resources. Her road-tested advice, offered with humor and irreverence, provides readers a different path for creating a culture of high performance and profitability. Powerful will change how you think about work and the way a business should be run.

Patty McCord

Powerful

It is 2021, and there is an app for everything. Now companies are trying new and innovative ways to hook millions to their app.
Many app makers, like those in FinTech(Financial Technology), are trying to boost the performance, engagement levels and ‘stickiness’ of the app by using gamification, where elements of video games are added to the app to make it feel thrilling and slightly addictive to the ‘player’.

Gamification Of Money Apps

Gaming generated USD 179 billion in 2020, making it more valuable than movies or sports. Gamers spend an average of 8 hours per week playing video games but another set of statistics show that more than half of all Americans are living on the edge, with no savings, even while being financially literate.

Good At Gaming Not Saving

<ul><li>App makers are infusing game mechanics and game experiences with their products to add a level of thrill and instant gratification(with variable rewards) and make the experience similar to a slot machine.</li><li>This helps increase engagement levels and people can save money while enjoying a game-like thrill.</li></ul>Social media, fitness, education, crowdfunding, employee training and even social credit systems now deploy gamification enhancements to lure more and more people.

The Lure Of The Game

Gamification works on our motivational levels, satisfying our psychological needs, and providing us with a sense of reward.The brain goes in a ‘neurologic immersion’ state where we crave more ‘variable rewards’ that are unpredictable, emotionally charged and engaging.Example: Scratching a virtual scratch card after making a payment and winning a small cashback releases feel-good neurotransmitters inside the brain, like oxytocin and dopamine.

Feel Good Chemicals In The Brain

The lottery is a USD 70 billion industry.Financial and banking apps use this interest for the lottery and incorporate small ‘games’ inside their apps that encourage customers to make automatic investments and win prizes without hurting their principal amount.Though there is an amount of addiction associated with gamification, the concept is a positive implementation of an otherwise negative trait found in normal people: The thrill of gambling.

Winning The Lottery Every Day

Gamification is the process of incorporating elements of video games into a business, organization, or system, with the goal of boosting engagement or performance.Gamified personal finance apps aim to help people make better financial decisions, often by redirecting destructive financial behaviors (like playing the lottery) toward positive outcomes

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

problemsolving

Problem Solving

product

Product & Design

Gamification: can video games change our money habits?

Real activities on real projects, real work, or real results are more effective than substitution or preparation work. Some examples include:<ul><li>Advancing your career by doing projects at work outside your current abilities.</li><li>Pairing study with real-world use through apprenticeship programs.</li><li>Focus on training relevant to you rather than an unrelated activity that strengthens your mental muscles.</li><li>Speaking a language rather than doing language exercises.</li></ul> However, there are arguments against doing the real thing.

Doing the real thing

Discovery learning is the idea of not giving any instructions - simply present the problem to the pupil and let them figure it out for themselves. But, discovery learning is less efficient than telling people what they ought to do and then letting them do it. What counts is practising the right skills often and early. You don't get a bonus for figuring it out for yourself.

Discovery learning doesn't work that well

Cognitive load theory states that problem-solving is often not enough. We need to keep the details of our goal in our working memory, adding extra load that can interfere with schema acquisition. <ul><li>Students can solve problems faster when they are told how to solve the problem rather than trying to figure it out on their own.</li><li>Exploratory style practice may work better for solving complex problems.</li></ul> But, replacing all problem solving with worked-out examples is based on the assumption that we already understand what skills we need to solve a problem.

Cognitive load makes problem solving inefficient

Deliberate practise and doing the real thing address different problems. <ul><li>Deliberate practise: World-class performers get good by focused, and intensive practise sessions with the intention to improve, not by just doing the skill.</li><li>Doing the real thing: However, for someone trying to advance in a big organisation, it isn't about getting better at a skill they have been doing for twenty years, but developing new skills. The programmer becomes a manager.</li></ul>

Deliberate practice require more than doing your job

Direct practise cannot be a substitute for studying theory. Doing the real thing should be combined with studying theory. If you keep getting stuck on a problem, practising more is unlikely to solve the problem. But exposing yourself to the broader theory behind the problem is more valuable even if it does not directly answer your particular problem.

Theories are useful, but invisible

<ul><li>When choosing an approach to learning, there is a trade-off between cost and convenience, and doing the real thing.</li><li>Ill-defined goals can make it harder to improve your practice. Dabbling may be useful to gauge your interest in a subject.</li><li>Credentials may be necessary to signal your commitment.</li></ul>

Other arguments against doing the real thing

An essay looking at some of the best arguments *against* my personal view--that doing the "real" thing is essential for learning.

productivity

Productivity

strategy

Strategy

education

Learning & Education

What are the Best Arguments Against Doing the Real Thing? | Scott H Young

"Your ability to rethink and unlearn matters far more than raw intelligence."

The Founder Syndrome is when one who has overgeneralized the wrong lesson when he betted against the consensus, thus admitting to themselves that they have better judgment.The approach to take in situations stated above is to analyze the reason why we were right and why others were wrong. It is important to attribute your success to something specific instead of following your intuition blindly.

Beware of "Founder Syndrome"

Being overly confident is a double-edged sword. In order to curb this, we must give ourselves at least one reason why we might end up wrong.When forming an opinion, we can ask ourselves "what would have to happen in order to prove myself or my opinion wrong?" This gives us the opportunity to analyze our opinion and the possibility of a fresh perspective.

One Reason You Might Be Wrong

No matter how self-aware we are and how conscious we are in making decisions, we are still unlikely to see all of our blindspots. To help with this, forming a team of employees you trust who are willing to challenge you can help you ensure that honest feedback will be given. Disagreeable people often give honest feedback because they operate in a psychologically safe environment where mistakes are seen as learning opportunities instead of facing repercussions.

Develop A Trusted "Challenge Network"

When we learn to consider our ideas, conclusions, or theories to be provisional or as something that can be changed or proven wrong later on, we are then less likely to commit to a losing strategy.

Find Joy In Being Wrong

Adam Grant makes some good points about leadership

communication

Communication

Why the Best Leaders Love Being Wrong

Ray Dalio, the founder of the largest hedge fund in the world, lays down his rules and frameworks he uses to navigate his life. He calls them principles. Principles are fundamental for decision making and allow you to live a life according to your values. Ray Dalio uses principles to guide his personal life, his relationships or to build businesses.

Ray Dalio’s Principles

All principles come from a set of values.Your values are what you consider important and they define who you want to be. However, they are not practical to use when you are faced with tough decisions.For example: You may value to “live a healthy lifestyle”. What does “being healthy” mean in practice? What are the daily decisions you are going to make?Instead of using your values to make decisions, you should defer to principles.To “live a healthy lifestyle”, you need to create a set of principles to guide you: like “I do not eat fast food during the week” and “I exercise 3 times / week”.

Principles = Fundamental Truths

“Principles connect your values to your actions; they are beacons that guide your actions, and help you successfully deal with the laws of reality. It is to your principles that you turn when you face hard choices.”

Most people adopt pre-packaged principles from parents, religious institutions, or other influential figures without much thought. This exposes you to the risk of inconsistency with your true values. Holding incompatible principles will lead to conflict between values and actions.To make sure your principles and your values are aligned, you need to:<ol><li>Define what do you want</li><li>Ask yourself “what is true?”</li><li>Plan what should be done according to 1 and 2</li></ol>

Where Do Your Principles Come From?

Reality + Dreams + Determination = A Successful Life.The quality of your life depends on the quality of the decisions you make.And to make better decisions, you need to adopt “hyperrealism”.Ray describes “hyperrealism” as accepting the reality as it is rather than wishing it was different. Understanding the reality allows you to learn how to work with them rather than fight them, which leads to greater success.

Ray Dalio’s Formula for a Successful Life

<ul><li>Working for what he wanted, not for what others wanted him to do</li><li>Coming up with the best independent opinions he could conceive</li><li>Stress-testing his opinions by having the smartest people finding the flaws in his thinking</li><li>Being wary about overconfidence, and good at not knowing</li><li>Embracing reality, experiencing the results of his decisions, and reflecting on what he did to improve.</li></ul>

Ray Dalio’s 5 Guiding Principles

A correct understanding of reality is the essential foundation for any good outcome.<ul><li>Don’t get attached to your views about how things should be; there should always be space for learning.</li><li>Evolution is the single greatest force in the universe. Evolving is life’s greatest accomplishment and its greatest reward.</li><li>“No pain, no gain”. Evolution won’t always feel good.</li><li>Pain + Reflection = Progress. The quality of your life will depend on the decisions you make at those painful moments.</li><li>Weigh second and third-order consequences.</li></ul>

Understand Reality and Deal With It

"I believe that life consists of an enormous number of choices that come at us and that each decision we make has consequences, so the quality of our lives depends on the quality of the decisions we make."

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” Your capacity to achieve goals is all about the systems you implement in your “machine”.To work on your machine, you need to separate your two personalities:<ul><li>The “Designer”. The one who manages and plans the systems to achieve your goals</li><li>The “Doer”. The one who works according to the plan created by the “Designer”</li></ul>Your job as a “Designer” is to look at your yourself as a “Doer” objectively to create the most efficient machine possible. If you are not the best for the job, find a good replacement.

Your Two Yous & Your Machine

<ul><li>Know and understand the biggest threat to good decision making - harmful emotions</li><li>Decision making is a two-step process: first learning, then deciding</li><li>Synthesize the situation you're dealing with</li><li>Make your decisions as expected value calculations</li><li>Prioritize by weighing the value of additional information against the cost of not deciding</li><li>Use Principles and convert them into algorithms and have the computer make decisions alongside you.</li></ul>

How to Make Decisions Effectively

<ul><li>Value knowing the truth. You have nothing to fear from knowing it</li><li>Cultivate meaningful work and meaningful relationships</li><li>Foster a culture that allows mistakes and encourages learning from them</li><li>Weight your decision making in a realistic way</li><li>Recognize how to get beyond disagreement</li><li>Remember that WHO is more important than WHAT</li><li>Hire right, because the costs for hiring wrong are huge</li><li>Constantly train, test, evaluate, and sort people</li><li>Identify and don’t tolerate problems</li><li>Diagnose problems to get at their root causes</li><li>Design improvements to your machine to get around your problems</li><li>Do what you set out to do</li></ul>

Work Principles

#1 New York Times Bestseller “Significant...The book is both instructive and surprisingly moving.” —The New York Times Ray Dalio, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he’s developed, refined, and used over the past forty years to create unique results in both life and business—and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals. In 1975, Ray Dalio founded an investment firm, Bridgewater Associates, out of his two-bedroom apartment in New York City. Forty years later, Bridgewater has made more money for its clients than any other hedge fund in history and grown into the fifth most important private company in the United States, according to Fortune magazine. Dalio himself has been named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Along the way, Dalio discovered a set of unique principles that have led to Bridgewater’s exceptionally effective culture, which he describes as “an idea meritocracy that strives to achieve meaningful work and meaningful relationships through radical transparency.” It is these principles, and not anything special about Dalio—who grew up an ordinary kid in a middle-class Long Island neighborhood—that he believes are the reason behind his success. In Principles, Dalio shares what he’s learned over the course of his remarkable career. He argues that life, management, economics, and investing can all be systemized into rules and understood like machines. The book’s hundreds of practical lessons, which are built around his cornerstones of “radical truth” and “radical transparency,” include Dalio laying out the most effective ways for individuals and organizations to make decisions, approach challenges, and build strong teams. He also describes the innovative tools the firm uses to bring an idea meritocracy to life, such as creating “baseball cards” for all employees that distill their strengths and weaknesses, and employing computerized decision-making systems to make believability-weighted decisions. While the book brims with novel ideas for organizations and institutions, Principles also offers a clear, straightforward approach to decision-making that Dalio believes anyone can apply, no matter what they’re seeking to achieve. Here, from a man who has been called both “the Steve Jobs of investing” and “the philosopher king of the financial universe” (CIO magazine), is a rare opportunity to gain proven advice unlike anything you’ll find in the conventional business press.

#1 New York Times Bestseller “Significant...The book is both instructive and surprisingly moving.” —The New York Times Ray Dalio, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he’s developed, refined, and used over the past forty years to create unique results in both life and business—and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals. In 1975, Ray Dalio founded an investment firm, Bridgewater Associates, out of his two-bedroom apartment in New York City. Forty years later, Bridgewater has made more money for its clients than any other hedge fund in history and grown into the fifth most important private company in the United States, according to Fortune magazine. Dalio himself has been named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Along the way, Dalio discovered a set of unique principles that have led to Bridgewater’s exceptionally effective culture, which he describes as “an idea meritocracy that strives to achieve meaningful work and meaningful relationships through radical transparency.” It is these principles, and not anything special about Dalio—who grew up an ordinary kid in a middle-class Long Island neighborhood—that he believes are the reason behind his success. In Principles, Dalio shares what he’s learned over the course of his remarkable career. He argues that life, management, economics, and investing can all be systemized into rules and understood like machines. The book’s hundreds of practical lessons, which are built around his cornerstones of “radical truth” and “radical transparency,” include Dalio laying out the most effective ways for individuals and organizations to make decisions, approach challenges, and build strong teams. He also describes the innovative tools the firm uses to bring an idea meritocracy to life, such as creating “baseball cards” for all employees that distill their strengths and weaknesses, and employing computerized decision-making systems to make believability-weighted decisions. While the book brims with novel ideas for organizations and institutions, Principles also offers a clear, straightforward approach to decision-making that Dalio believes anyone can apply, no matter what they’re seeking to achieve. Here, from a man who has been called both “the Steve Jobs of investing” and “the philosopher king of the financial universe” (CIO magazine), is a rare opportunity to gain proven advice unlike anything you’ll find in the conventional business press.

Raymond Dalio (born August 8, 1949) is an American investor, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. Dalio is the founder of investment firm Bridgewater Associates, one of the world's largest hedge funds.

Ray Dalio

Principles

Most of us reach a point in our careers where accomplishing goals doesn't return the same rewards. Despite succeeding at your performance goals, you may be told that you are "not ready" for a promotion.
This type of feedback often means that you've spent more time on building your skills and not enough on building relationships. However, there are certain actions you can take to strengthen your relationships and put you on the path to promotion.

You "just aren't ready" for a promotion

Companies achieve results through collective leadership. To be considered for a promotion, you need to demonstrate your ability to work well with others.
Identify what makes you great at your job.
<ul>
<li>What are you known for?</li>
<li>What types of problems do people frequently come to you to help solve?</li>
</ul>
Take that skill and find a friendly way to share your gift with others.

Share your gift with others

Find opportunities for feedback on how you appear to others. It will help you become aware of behaviours that may interfere with your effectiveness.
Shift your perspective from "me" to "we." Instead of being a lone achiever, it is important to involve your team, listening more, and talking less.

Understand how others see you

Jack Welch said: “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”
We learn best when we are teaching others. Your earliest opportunity to lead others comes from volunteering. Reach out to a person outside your business unit that would welcome your help. Then commit to helping them work on an issue they raise.

Mentor others

There are often people that we have greater difficulty working with than others. The sooner you can identify personality characteristics that you find challenging, the more time you have to develop strategies for working effectively with them.
When you take accountability for getting along with all kinds of coworkers, you eliminate friction and make it easy for management to promote you.

Learn how to work with difficult personalities

To advance and take on more responsibility does not mean you have to say yes to everything. However, you should learn how to delegate and know which things to say no to.
<ul>
<li>Volunteer for cross-functional task forces and opportunities that broaden your network.</li>
<li>Learn new skills outside your comfort zone.</li>
<li>Earn support of other executives outside your direct reporting line.</li>
<li>Aim for projects that are revenue-generating or strategic.</li>
<li>Avoid purely social projects or those that lack takeoff.</li>
</ul>

Set healthy boundaries

Five strategies for employees who’ve been told they’re “just not ready.”

teamwork

Teamwork

Promotions Aren’t Just About Your Skills – They’re About Your Relationships

<ol><li>Offer a drop box for ideas to make people feel safer in bringing them up.</li><li>Consider the ramifications of a decision to everything that may be affected by it. Organization, individual, trust, brand, culture, etc. </li><li>Don’t settle for surface level answers and tradition. To avoid making others feel judged, frame your inquiry as wanting a greater understanding of a rationale rather than an explanation of it. </li><li>Find a mentor or coach to help broaden your strategic thinking. Mentors offer guidance according to their expertise. Coaches guide you to find insights from within yourself.</li></ol>

Four Ways To Broaden Your Thinking

4 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Leading a company isn't easy. On the one hand, a leader needs to keep a pulse on the heartbeat of the organization today while, on the other hand, maintaining a vision for tomorrow. Essentially, he or she has to be in two different places mentally.

We’re in the midst of a fundamental shift in leadership

Victory Through Organization: Why the War for Talent is Failing Your Company and What You Can Do About It

Let It Go: Teaching a Micromanager How to Chill

Powerful

Gamification: can video games change our money habits?

Elena A.