Discussion does not mean rule by referendum.We operate not only by open debate but also by clearly assigning personal responsibility to specific people.Everyone does not report to everyone here.I want the most capable individuals assigned to each job.It is perfectly okay for a responsible party to carry through a decision he thinks is best even when others who are knowledgeable disagree, although this disagreement should be considered and weighed seriously.In any conversation there is a responsibility to transmit and a responsibility to receive.Misinterpretations are going to take place.Learn lessons from your problems in communications to improve.If you can’t understand or reconcile points of view with someone else, agree on a third party to provide guidance.This mechanism is a key element of our culture and crucial for maintaining a meritocracy of ideas.I cannot emphasize strongly enough how important the selection, training, testing, evaluation, and sorting out of people is.If you put the goals and the tasks in the hands of people who can do them well, and if you make crystal clear that they are personally responsible for achieving the goals and doing the tasks, they should produce excellent results.Understand what attributes matter most for a job, and then ascertain whether an individual has them.I only want people at Bridgewater who are joining us on an important, shared mission to do great things.They are also the qualities that have the biggest influence on whether or not I respect someone.They are essential for success.There is no escaping that.If you’re sick, you might choose to delegate the responsibility of figuring out what do to about it to a doctor.However, it is your responsibility to pick the right doctor because you will bear the consequences of that decision.While it is, of course, also the doctor’s responsibility to handle the responsibilities that you delegate to him, you still need to make sure that his incentives are aligned with his responsibilities and that he is doing his job well.So you can’t escape hiring and managing properly.The results that you end up with will reflect how you and your people learn to handle things.People who wish for a great result but are unwilling to do what it takes to get there will fail.Therefore, they are the most important people to choose and manage well.Otherwise you will have to do their jobs for them.The ability to see and value goals is largely innate, though it improves with experience.It can be tested for, though no tests are perfect.Abilities are ways of thinking and behaving.Skills are learned tools, such as being able to speak a foreign language or write computer code.It is important for you to know what mix of qualities is important to fit each role and, more broadly, with whom you can have successful relationships.How People’s Thinking Abilities DifferIn my many years of running Bridgewater I have learned that people’s thinking abilities differ and that it is important to understand these differences so that they are appropriately considered when assigning people to roles.I have tried to find experts who understood these differences to help me better understand and test for them.I have found a few truly insightful people amid a mass of mediocrity.[56] I have also found that there are all sorts of theories from all sorts of people about how people think and why, so very little should be treated as fact.It seems that political correctness and the reluctance to objectively discuss differences in innate abilities have stood in the way of forthright and thoughtful research on this important subject.While the search for good advice and tests has been challenging, it has also been invaluable.What follows is a mix of my theories based on my personal observations and a collection of valuable things I have learned from others.[57] I know I have only scratched the surface of learning about how people think, why they think differently, and how to test for these different thinking abilities, so I am excited about the potential of learning more.They are also called linear thinkers.When they excel at this type of thinking they are called bright.[59]o The right hemisphere reasons holistically, recognizes themes, and synthesizes the big picture.People who think this way are also called lateral thinkers.Those who excel at this kind of thinking are called smart.[60]Long before I knew that there was a Professor Sperry I saw these differences.I bet you’ve seen them too.Others connect the dots to pictures.You can detect which type people are by observing what they focus on.Detailed thinkers can lose sight of the big picture and are more likely to focus in on a part than to go to the higher level and see the relationship between parts.That is because their attention is focused on the context first and the details second.When describing the same meeting, these two different types will frequently focus on completely different things and disagree on their interpretations.In discussions, they can frustrate each other and discount what the other is saying.Similarly, a person of one type interviewing another type will usually yield an unsatisfactory result.They draw on their memory banks and follow the instructions stored there.Those who rely on more on reasoning won’t care much about convention and will assess ideas on their merits.They are more likely to be innovative, while those who rely on learning are likelier to be cautious.The most able learners are easily found, since they are, or were, the best students from the best schools.They have a strong capacity to visualize and will be more likely to make meaningful changes and anticipate future events.By contrast, those who are focused on the daily tasks are better at managing things that don’t change much or require repetitive processes done reliably, and are typically best at doing clearly specified tasks.They see things much more literally and tend to make incremental changes that reference what already exists.They are slower to depart from the status quo and more likely to be blindsided by sudden events.In contrast, planners work from the inside out, figuring out first what they want to achieve and then how things should unfold.Planners and perceivers have trouble appreciating each other.While a perceiver likes to see new things and change directions often, this is discomforting to planners, who prefer to stick to a plan.We all have emotions and intellect.When they conflict, some people will give in to their emotions, while others maintain control of their emotions and are driven by their intellect.