By Richard Feloni From Business Insider

Every week, employees at the world’s largest hedge fund spend at least an hour with “management principles training” lessons (MPTs), where they analyze recordings of meetings and answer questions about what they observed.

Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio implemented this process around 10 years ago as a way to further instill his unique management insights into his growing firm, which now has $150 billion in assets under management and 1,700 employees in its Westport, Connecticut offices.

Dalio founded his hedge fund out of his apartment in 1975, and in the ’80s developed a culture of “radical truth” and “radical transparency,” codified in his 2010 guide “Principles,” which all employees must read. In this environment, the majority of meetings are recorded, via an opt-in audio recorder or camera, and any time employees mention a colleague not present, they are supposed to send the recording to that person. Some of these recordings become MPTs, if they contain a “teachable moment.” Others are sent to share an important, informative meeting with the entire company.

It’s a unique process all job candidates know they’ll be getting themselves into, since Bridgewater shows a couple of examples during its application process. To learn how they worked and have been received, Business Insider talked to several former junior- and senior-level employees. We are refraining from sharing any identifying details of these former employees so as not to jeopardize their standing with the company.

Getting to know Ray
The lessons are intended to take an average of 15 minutes each workday, but one source remembers spending anywhere from two to four hours each week on the lessons. This person said that if you ever pitched spending a few hours each week on office culture and management strategy to executives at a traditional financial firm, where this source also worked, they would “laugh you out of the room,” but that Wall Street could actually benefit from more time spent on the topics.

MPTs typically consist of audio, video, or text from a meeting and/or relevant document followed by a survey, and can be completed in as little time as five minutes or as long as more than an hour. They are released in batches with deadlines, and some are released outside of batches under special circumstances. There may not be a “correct” response to the survey questions, but employees see the aggregate results after they submit their answers.

Any employee is subject to be featured in an MPT, though the majority feature the senior management team and a notable amount star Dalio. Dalio appears in so many, in fact, that one former employee told us that even though their job didn’t put them in regular contact with Dalio, they felt as though they got to know him personally through the lessons.

Here are a few examples of actual MPTs, based on descriptions from sources:

1. Question your superiors
A junior-level employee meets with his manager regarding a problem he submitted in the company’s issue log. He explains to his boss that he’s concerned about working with third-party consultants to Bridgewater because they are not immersed in the Bridgewater way of doing things and he feels there is a culture clash. The boss explains that he and members of senior management already discussed this issue and reached a decision, and that it’s not this employee’s concern, anyway. They move on.

In a followup, the boss’ own supervisor chastises him for the way he handled the previous situation. An employee with a problem should not be shut down, the supervisor explains. The first reaction should be to find out, “Is there truth here?” and work with the employee to get at the root of his position. Then, it’s your duty to explain your decision-making to that employee. The supervisor explains that it’s a manager’s responsibility to encourage employee feedback, since a manager can lose track of how their actions are affecting their team.

The source who shared this story with us said that the initial interaction between the manager and his employee, where a boss tells his underling to respect his decision and roll with it, would have been normal at any other company where the person had worked.

2. Admit your weaknesses
A senior-level employee meets with Dalio. There has been some tension between them, but the employee begins explaining the ways that they have failed recently, and how this is tied to bigger-picture personal weaknesses.

This employee’s self-assessment is shown as a positive example of one of the harder aspects of “Principles” in action. As Dalio writes in his guide:

“I call the pain that comes from looking at yourself and others objectively ‘growing pains,’ because it is the pain that accompanies personal growth … Remember that: Pain + Reflection = Progress.

“Much as you might wish this were not so, this is a reality that you should just accept and deal with. There is no getting around the fact that achieving success requires getting at the root causes of all important problems, and people’s mistakes and weaknesses are sometimes the root causes. So to be successful, you must be willing to look at your own behavior and the behavior of others as possible causes of problems.”

3. Don’t hide from criticism
An employee was recently fired, and this person did not leave quietly. They wrote a scathing review of their time at Bridgewater, calling out specific people and policies for perceived failings.

This text portion of the exit interview listing all of these complaints is shared with the employees taking the MPT.

The employee in question may have been fired for poor performance, but are any of their points valid?

What you sign up for
All former employees we spoke with said they found the MPTs objectively unusual, but that at their best, they and their colleagues found them enjoyable, since, as one source put it, they’re company-sanctioned opportunities to learn, and that’s what attracts many people to Bridgewater.

A source explained that there’s a casual approach to MPTs at the firm, and that employees can complete them at their own pace. This person enjoyed getting them done in the dead hours of mid-afternoon.

Another source said that upon joining the firm, they and their colleagues would joke about how the MPTs felt like reality television, in the sense that you’re engaged when you’re watching others’ lives unfold before a camera but couldn’t imagine it happening to you. This person was featured in an MPT at one point, however, and said that they were “flattered” to be included in a teaching moment for their colleagues.

That said, this same person explained that a caveat about “radical truth” and “radical transparency” in general is that when employees follow these principles the way Dalio envisioned them, then an otherwise tense situation like being featured in an MPT is a point of pride. In practice, though, there are plenty of situations where Dalio’s principles are misinterpreted and a “teaching moment” instead becomes “being burned at the stake.”

As one former employee put it, “If you’re buying into the Bridgewater way of being, you’re basically saying, ‘Yeah, sometimes it’s going to be embarrassing but that’s not the most important thing to me.'” There may be a sting of embarrassment if you’re featured in an MPT, this source said, but it will dissipate if you recognize the lesson in the exchange.

“Ultimately, if you’re signing up for Bridgewater, you’re saying I’m signing up to be proven wrong sometimes and I’m willing to work to look at that,” this former employee said.

IMAGES:

An employee watches a recording of a meeting on her computer. The company sends weekly batches of recorded meetings with supplementary surveys, with the intention of illustrating Ray Dalio’s “Principles.”Bridgewater Associates

Bridgewater co-CIO Greg Jensen gives a management presentation.Bridgewater Associates

Bridgewater founder and co-CIO Ray Dalio appears in an MPT video sent to employees.Bridgewater Associates

Bridgewater co-CEO Eileen Murray speaks at an executive meeting.Bridgewater Associates

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