“The Principles”… At Work

Principles Book Cover

I just finished a three-month odyssey of reading Ray Dalio’s book, The Principles. It is a 592-page distillation of all that he’s learned in his very successful career. For those of you not familiar with the man, he built the Bridgewater hedge fund into a multibillion-dollar operation and is himself a billionaire. Time said he is one of the world’s 100 most influential people. He is known not just for his investing acumen but also his business leadership qualities.

His section on Work Principles goes from page 296 all the way to page 437. His outline summarizing the work principles was 23 pages. The point is- there is a lot there.

In this article, I will share some of what I learned from this reading and my observations that may apply to how you manage your career and workplace.

“For any group or organization to function well, its work principles must be aligned with its members’ life principles.”

Dalio begins with his four overriding principles about work.

  1. An organization is a machine consisting of two major parts, culture and people.
  2. Tough love is effective in achieving both great work and great relationships.
  3. A believability-weighted idea meritocracy is the best system for making effective decisions.
  4. Make your passion and your work one and the same, and do it with people you want to be with.

One of Dalio’s overarching themes is that of Transparency. It applies to all aspects of a business. Transparency with members, clients, and customers, and transparency with employees. Dalio says never to let loyalty to people stand in the way of truth and the wellbeing of an organization. In my 40+ years of workplace experience, this is a profound statement. I believe we try to please people out of self-preservation. Who wants to piss off the tribal leader anyway? Doing so only puts ourselves at risk.

Managers and leaders must be told that any implication of threat, favoritism, or looking the other way, will not guarantee job security but rather the exit door. It is a matter of trust. People in fear of radical transparency should be removed from an organization. The challenge is… who dares go first? Who dares to say, something’s not right here? Who dares to speak up at the risk of being shunned, retaliated against, or blackballed? Answer: Only those who stand on their principles. And this is the point. The decision by each individual to stand up creates a collective culture that stands up.

I once heard it said that “Culture is defined by how we collectively deal with our shit.” In a Dalio-run company, problems get an open forum where robust dialogue can lead to smart answers.

Dalio talks about the importance of defining the meaning in your work. This comes at both a macro and an individual level. From a macro standpoint, leadership should share what they believe to be the meaning in their work. From a micro level, employees should be encouraged to define that for themselves. This doesn’t happen by accident. It only happens through process and agreement.

So, if I surveyed your employees or even asked you, is there clarity about what your mission is? Clarity about where you exist to serve? Because of my speaking and training experience, I’ve been in hundreds of different offices all around the country. Only a handful of them do a good job of visually defining their mission. In those companies, you must be blind not to know what it is, because it is branded throughout the entire environment. If I went to your company, what story would it tell?

I love it when Dalio talks about delegation. Anyone who is successful has been through the fear and learning curve associated with delegating. The emotional blockage is getting over the reality that people make mistakes. When you delegate to people, they are guaranteed to make mistakes! Just like you did on your way to being an expert at something. But do you want to be an expert anymore at $25/hour work? Or would you be willing to let somebody make a few mistakes so you don’t have to do it anymore?

With my employees, I had a one mistake rule. I expected them to make mistakes, just not the same one twice. We figure out what we have to do so it doesn’t happen again. As Dalio said, “I don’t mind if they scratch the car, just so long as they don’t wreck it.”

I love when Dalio says, “Know that nobody can see themselves objectively.” Amen to that brother! Perhaps the greatest benefit of coaching is that it helps expose a side of yourself you weren’t aware of. My coaches have done that with me, and I’ve gotten better over the years at doing that with my clients. Removing our “blind spots” is an important formula for success. We all have plenty of data and are smart people. It’s our emotional blockages that tend to be the biggest challenge.

I love Dalio’s conversation around meritocracy. It goes along with his idea of transparency. How do you know if you’re succeeding in an organization? Half of the people at any one position are better than the other half. How do you define that boundary? How would you define excellent performance? That can’t be done simply by intuition. If you’re in something like sales, then you can look right to the data. What if it’s not as easy to capture the benchmarks? Answer: Do what you can do, so you create relevant benchmarks.

Dalio encourages us to move away from opinions about what success looks like to as much data as possible. If we consider an opinion, there should be strong logic behind it. Dalio spends many pages talking about improving communications and getting past disagreements.

Next, Dalio spends a bunch of time talking about hiring responsible people. Having a great hiring process, looking for people who “sparkle”, valuing diversity, constant training, evaluation, and feedback, and be willing to fire or as he says, “Shoot the people you love” and never lower the bar.

Here’s one I like: “Don’t try to be liked, try to be understood.” This is a big problem for managers, especially if they have been promoted out of the ranks. In my experience, it’s also about managers understanding they are responsible to the people they manage, and unless there is some legal obligation, they are not responsible for the people they manage. This is an enormous psychological distinction.

One aspect I found interesting was Dalio’s belief you should create an organizational chart to look like a pyramid with straight lines down that don’t cross. This runs contrary to most of what I’ve been observing and reading. Today, we talk about neural networks, where all parts interact with each other. I don’t believe that Dalio discounts the network effect. What he is harping on is the importance of knowing where the buck stops in terms of responsibility. Stay in your lane until it is appropriate to move out of it.

Dalio says everyone has too much to do. Amen! It wasn’t until my 40s that I’ve realized that highly successful people never get everything done. This is one reason why prioritizing projects and your time is so important. Managing from a carefully crafted calendar as opposed to a to-do list. Making sure the team is in alignment and in agreement on all responsibilities and deliverables. And realize, it will never all get done. Just make sure it’s not urgent or important matters that fall through the cracks.

Finally, Dalio reminds us that no principles, rules, or process can ever substitute for a great relationship.

Question: what principles guide your work?

HR Scorecard Template

Today’s HR executive is being challenged to do more as a strategic partner. One of your best tools is the HR Scorecard. It can take many formats including graphs, tables, Powerpoints, timelines, etc. Let’s discuss how to measure what matters and what to do with the data and information obtained.

  1. Measure what matters. For example, if an objective is to reduce the cost of hire, why is that important? Do you intend to do a lot of hiring in the next 12 months? If not, why bother measuring the data? Strategic HR executives always ask how the data they are analyzing ties to the vision, mission, values, goals, and strategic objectives for the company and their department.
  2. Rank it against other objectives. Is perfecting your cost of hire as important as retaining your existing employees? For example, if you intend to hire 50 employees and reduce the cost per hire by $1,000 each, that’s a savings of $50,000. However, if you lose two well-trained employees, the replacement costs would easily dwarf the cost of savings per hire. Therefore, we want to prioritize our objectives so we work in our highest and best use. That’s optimization of HR as a resource.

Read the rest of this extensive report… full PDF here.

A Workplace Disability Accommodation Tool Kit from JAN

Managing disability accommodations can be a real challenge for both employer and employee. Of course, we want to do it gracefully, comply with the law and make sure the result is a productive employee.

My friends at the Job Accommodation Network have released an awesome Workplace Disability Accommodation Toolkit which includes:

  • Sample accommodation procedures
  • Training presentations
  • Role-play videos
  • Examples of policies and forms from leading U.S. businesses
  • Best practices for creating an inclusive workplace
  • Checklists to track the accommodation process

The Toolkit provides guidance for the different areas of the employment process and a resource for recruiters, hiring managers, supervisors, human resource professionals, accommodation consultants and allies of employees with disabilities.

Here’s an example of a resource page.

You can access the Workplace Accommodation Tool Kit https://AskJAN.org/toolkit

Why Every HR Problem Becomes a Sales Problem

Here’s a reality: half of your competitors hire better than the other half. Some are in the bottom 10%, and then there are those great companies in the top 10%. You can imagine how this variance impacts your bottom line, whether you have 5 or 5000 employees.

The same could be said for your retention practices. What if you had half the turnover of your closest competitor?

I speak with a lot of business owners. I do my best to help them understand there is a great opportunity in Great HR practices. I also let them know somebody must pay for poor HR practices and eventually that somebody is the sales team (which may be you).

There’s a lot of variance in the cost of that turnover depending on whether they were poor performers or great performers, took people with them, filed unemployment or work comp claims, etc.  To get a true sense of this exposure, I encourage you to fill in your “replacement” costs:

  1. The time and money it takes to find a replacement. Sourcing, interviewing, referral fees, etc. If you are a small shop and doing the hiring yourself that cost adds up quickly (What’s a few hours of your time worth?) __________________
  2. Time and cost of background checks and pre-hire fit for duty exams. (You do both…right?) Typically $75- $100 per new hire, if you do it right. ______________
  3. Short -term replacements costs such as paying for overtime, hiring a temporary employee or best of all, doing the job yourself. _______________________
  4. The cost of customer dissatisfaction (they lost a contact they liked and trust, or you lost the customer because of that employee they never want to see again) and loss of “brand value.” (What’s the “lifetime” value of a customer? What’s the value of your brand?) _________________________
  5. Training, onboarding, new hire paperwork, payroll, benefits, handbook, etc. _________________________
  6. A poor player affects team productivity. (How many people do they typically work with on a team?) ________________________
  7. Poor employees generate safety and work comp costs. (The most dangerous employee is a new employee. ) ____________________________
  8. It affects unemployment payments __________________
  9. It affects overall morale, reducing engagement and “discretionary” effort. (What % of total payroll costs is affected? If it causes even a 5% dent that’s a huge number. ) ____________________________
  10. It drives you crazy and that is… priceless!

Let’s say the turnover cost is conservatively $5,000 per rank and file worker. The ratio jumps dramatically higher with office personnel.  It is an expense that comes right out of ownership’s pocket. There’s no insurance for it, or any way to amortize the cost. Let’s say you lost three rank and file employees at $15/hr. and an office worker at $30/hr. That will cost you at least $75,000. To put that $75,000 back into ownership’s pocket, you must now produce a certain level of replacement revenue. Sometimes people are quick to think that’s an ROI figure, meaning if the company has a 10% ROI then it will cost $750,000 in revenue to place the $75,000 back into the pockets (bottom line).

Not so fast.

After speaking at two CPA conferences, I learned this was not the case. Because there are many fixed overheads involved, the replacement figure is closer to a 4:1 to 6:1 ratio. Meaning you must bring in top-line revenue of anywhere from $300,000 to $450,000 to put the $75,000 back into your pocket! And…that’s just so you can break-even!

Now that’s a much bigger problem!

It gets owners attention when they connect the dots and realize their personnel practices are not just creating cost problems but revenue problems too. That revenue can be broken down into the number of sales, customers, marketing efforts, engagements and other activities required to generate it. For example, if you’re earning $2,000-$4000 on each new contract sold you must sell at least 75-150 contracts to break even on losing those employees. What will you have to drive those additional sales?

I’ll say it again…getting your HR act together is one of the most underutilized opportunities at most companies, and most likely yours. Everything I hear from owners is about getting talent, getting talent, getting talent. Is your HR dept. (even if it’s somebody wearing three hats, like you) helping to attract great employees? Do you have robust referral programs? Is there great onboarding and engagement practices?

In future articles, I’ll drive further into best practices you can consider…but it all starts with knowing the math.

Whether you are an owner reading this, in HR, or simply interested, I will send you an Excel doc where you can help quantify your Turnover Costs and another spreadsheet to help you determine the most cost-effective Retention Programs to use.

Here’s to growing your bottom line!

Don

don@donphin.com

(619) 852-4580

www.donphin.com

www.linkedin.com/in/donphin

66 Powerful Strategies for Great HR

Great HR represents a competitive advantage for your company and career. It affects you whether you are in HR…or not. In the 66 POWERFUL STRATEGIES FOR GREAT HR e-book I discuss the reality that half of all HR managers are more effective than the other half. It’s also a fact the top 10% of HR managers get healthy six figure salaries and a seat at the strategic table.

Would you like me to show you how to break away from the pack and launch into the stratosphere of the top 10%?

Not only am I happy to share this e-book… but for the first 10 people who contact me, I will provide a free one hour coaching session. There is no cost for this and no obligation of any kind. You will love the experience.

I offer this free session because I’m excited about helping HR managers make a difference… and get paid well for it too! I know that if you find value in my help, you may also be interested in one of my programs.

Here’s what you do next. If you want to schedule a coaching session, all you have to do is email me at don@donphin.com and let me know your availability. Once I have your information, I’ll do some research on you and your company and we’ll set up the time for our meeting. I promise to get back to you within 2 business days.

Here’s to your success, Don