Musings from the CU Suite

Written by Anthony Demangone

Every once in a while, I read something that stops me in my tracks. 

I just had one of those experiences.

Business Insider wrote about Bridgewater, a hedge fund in Connecticut where 25% of employees don't last 18 months.

It sounds like a meat grinder. But the article paints a picture of a very different kind of culture.

• All meetings are filmed.
• Employees rate each other with iPads using a system that creates averages for each person that are publicly available. 
• But you criticize someone behind their back? You're fired.

The goal is to force people to confront their weaknesses with frank feedback. Some people hate it, and they leave. But the folks who are left won't work anywhere else.

And what about the people who stay?  What are they like?

The founder, Ray Dalio, describes them this way.

A person who does decide to stay...,"likes learning more than knowing and recognizes that the best learning comes from making mistakes, getting good feedback, and improving as a result of it. This requires people to be very humble and very open-minded because they realize that what they know is small in relation to what there is to know — and that what they don't know is what can really hurt them."

Likes learning more than knowing. 

That's a pretty good trait.