This is my third post on the content from “Principles” by Ray Dalio. Although I have already written two parts on the book, there is still a need to add a little more in this post.
You can go back and take a look at the first part here and the second part here.
What I will summarise here is the principles for work. I have to admit that what is about to be written is completely from my understanding and memory. Here goes …
What does an organisation consist of?
Ray Dalio said that he looked at his organisation as a machine which consisted of two parts. They were:
- Culture, and
- People
Whatever we do whether it is in life or in an organisation, we usually have a goal. We know what we want to accomplish.
Machine
In order to reach the objective, Ray Dalio suggested that we should design a process as if we were designing a machine comprised of many components.
Each component had its own functionality. This means that each would have a different specification.
Mapping
Suppose that we were in an organisation, we knew our objectives. We knew the required functionalities, which would lead to achieving the goal. In addition, we must know what type of person would be required for each functionality. We needed to ask ourselves what skills, knowledge and abilities were needed for those functions to proceed.
The important thing to be noted is this. Ray Dalio said that we needed to find a person for that particular function that we required. We must NOT (I emphasise the word “NOT”) adjust the function to fit with the people we had. We must only find a person who could be that function.
Personally, I think it makes perfect sense. This is THE Principle that will really help us accomplish the goal.
Baseball Cards
The question now is: how do we know who fits with the designed function?
The answer lies in a system that Ray Dalio called the Baseball Card system, which I wrote about in the post about the first part of the book here.
To put it simply, a good organisation must have a system that collects and stores employees’ information. Not only the information like how long a person has worked here for or how much they earn. What should really be stored is their expertise, skills and abilities.
This is it. Once we have designed our machine and its functionalities, we will know what type of people are needed. All we have to do now is to map the required functions with the people we have.
What if we have not got the person that perfectly fits with the designed functionalities? Let me answer this. … Either go find one from somewhere or train the ones that we already have.
Summary
In summary, working is like designing a machine. We must not make changes to the machine that we know will get us to our target just to fit the people we have. What we must do is find the ones who fits with what we have designed.
It may sound a bit tough, but with the vast amount of experience that the author has, it is something we should listen to.