Reading notes: Principles

读书笔记:原则

Posted by Di Chen on April 26, 2021

目录

TOC generated by https://magnetikonline.github.io/markdown-toc-generate/


前言

这本书记录了桥水基金的创始人 Ray Dalio 在工作、生活中处理事情应用的原则。Ray 认为在处理事情的时候,如果每一件事都仔细分析利弊,就需要消耗太多精力。更好的办法应该是使用一些通用的原则来进行判断,同时在工作和生活中不断复盘优化这些原则。

这份读书笔记主要摘录了我觉得比较有意义和启发性的原则,同时记录下我的想法。

这本书是我在上班的路上用 Audible 听的,有意思的部分会用 audible 的 clip 功能标注下来,在写读书笔记的时候再用 Azure 的 Speech to text 转成文字,我的打字和听力还是没有好到可以同声传译。


作者生平

在第一部分的书中,作者主要讲了他生平的事迹,也给后续原则是怎样产出的做了铺垫。

以史为镜

My failure to anticipate this, I realized, was due to my being surprised by something that hadn’t happened in my lifetime, though it happened many times before. The message that reality was conveying to me was: you better make sense of what happened to other people in other times and other places, because if you don’t, you won’t know if these things are going to happen to you. And if they do, you won’t know how to deal with them.

Ray 曾经做出过若干次错误的投资决策,包括公开发布美国 FED 的经济刺激很可能会无效,但事实是美国迎来了经济最繁荣的时期。他认为他之所以会决策失误,很大程度是因为他在他的人生中没有见过这样的情形,但其实同样的事情在以前已经发生过很多次了。

这个道理在中国古语中也有:以史为镜,可以知兴替。以前我不喜欢看历史书,因为觉得历史的事情已经发生过了,和我现在的生活也没什么关系。但现在又喜欢看了,在有了一些生活经历之后,会发现太阳底下真的没有新鲜事,例如比特币的疯狂之于郁金香泡沫,中国金融行业的变化跟早期美国金融行业的相似,中国房产对财富的锚定和美国股票对财富的锚定。读书的其中一个目的也在于此,自身的时间精力有限,不可能体验无穷的世界,但是书籍的压缩和提取精华的能力,可以让人在很短的时间内走完尽可能多的旅程。

白马股的崛起

Meanwhile, thanks to the wave of money printing that had followed the demise of the gold standard, the economy and the stock market were soaring. Stocks were in again in 1972 and the fashion at the time was the Nifty 50. This group of stocks had fast and steady earnings growth and were widely believed to be a sure thing.

在美国历史上,也曾有过流行炒小盘股的时刻,当时把这些股票叫做 Penny Stock,通常指股价在5美元以下的股票,华尔街之狼中股票经纪人推销的主要也是这类股票,这和中国热衷于炒题材股是类似的。但在美国大放水之后,共同基金的发展逐步发展,美国的漂亮50 Nifty 50 备受追捧,大幅暴涨。这与 2020 年白马股暴涨的场景非常相似,相信中国在金融市场的不断成熟过程中,市场的审美和走势的变化,是可以参照很多美国市场的变化趋势的。

为什么钱只要够用就好

It’s smarter to start with what you really want. Which are your real goals and then work back to what you need to obtain them. Money will be one of those things you need, but it’s not the only one. And it’s certainly not the most important one, once you get past having the amount you need to get what you really want. When thinking about what you really want, it pays to think about what their relative values are and weight them properly.

Ray 当然赚了很多钱,但是在他的生命中,他并不是把赚钱放在第一位的。那为什么说钱不是最重要的呢?

首先要先想清楚你最终想要的是什么。对于 Ray 来说,他想要的是做有意义的事情,并且保持有意义的人际关系。从你想要的东西往回看,找到你需要什么来获得你想要的东西,比如有意义的人际关系意味着良好的友谊、亲情、爱情。为了实现这些,钱是其中一个需要的因素,我们需要钱来购买生活用品、旅行、教育等等。但是除了钱,我们还需要其他的东西来实现这些,例如我们需要时间来陪伴,需要精力来思考经营,需要真诚、热情,而这些是钱不能获得的。

钱不会从天而降,他一定是用你的时间或者资源来换取的,所以当钱的数量达到一定程度,他带来的边际效用就降低了。所以我们应该 weight them properly,给予钱、时间、精力等等因素不同的权重,来使得他们能帮助实现我们最终想要的东西。

麦乐鸡的小故事

The most volatile cost that the chicken producer needed to worry about was feed prices. I showed them how to use a mix of corn and soymeal futures to lock in its cost so that it could quote a fixed price to McDonald’s. Having greatly reduced its price risk, McDonald’s introduced the Mcnugget in 1983.

在麦当劳开发麦乐鸡鸡块的时候,他们不敢推出这个产品,因为他们担心如果鸡肉供应商涨价的话,麦乐鸡这个产品就会亏本。而鸡肉供应商也不敢给麦当劳一个固定的报价,因为鸡肉供应商担心饲料成本上升导致亏本。这时候 Ray 就作为中间人加入,由于饲料成本主要由玉米、豆粕组成的,可以通过过去价格的走势拟合找到一个组合比例,使得组合后的玉米、豆粕期货的价格和饲料价格成正比。在麦当劳需要签订鸡肉供应合同的时候,鸡肉供应商可以买入一定的玉米、豆粕的期货,根据期货价格给出饲料价格,从而给出一个有固定利润空间的鸡肉价格。如果玉米、豆粕的价格上涨了,由于买入了期货,期货的获利可以对冲掉饲料成本的上涨。如果饲料价格下跌了,饲料成本的节约也可以对冲掉期货的亏损。从而保证整体利润空间可控。由于大宗商品期货的引入,使得麦当劳可以从鸡肉供应商可以获得一个鸡肉的报价,从而可以推出麦乐鸡这款产品。

Ray 的这个案例是很好的金融市场辅助实体经济的例子,金融市场应该给实体经济提供稳定生产资料的作用,而不只是投机的场所。而这个案例放在现在是一个很基础的案例,但在 Ray 的时代,还是一个很超前的例子的。

我怎么知道我是对的?

I shifted my mindset from thinking I’m right to asking myself, how do I know I’m right? And I saw clearly that the best way to answer this question is by finding other independent thinkers who are on the same mission as me and who see things differently from me. By engaging them in thoughtful disagreement, I’d be able to understand their reasoning and have them stress test mine.

作者经历了一次投资失败之后,思维模式从“我是对的”转变为了“我怎么知道我是对的呢”。这个和微软提倡的 Growth mindset 是如出一辙的。作者认为,最好的办法就是找到一些独立思考,并且和自己有同样目的,并且和自己持有不同看法的人,进行经过思考的辩证,从而理解他们的思考逻辑,并且用他们的思考逻辑来对自己的逻辑进行压力测试。

这个方法有几个关键点:

  1. 独立思考。如果他人并没有独立思考,只是搬运他人的观点,这时候就无法得到这个结论背后的原因和逻辑,也没有办法通过逻辑来辩证自己是否是正确的。
  2. 和自己有同样的目的。如果我们的目的是找到真相,而他人的目的是掩盖真相,这时候他人的思考逻辑也没有意义。
  3. 和自己持有不同看法。如果只和自己持有相同看法的人沟通,只会自我强化信息茧房,不能得到更多有意义的观点。
  4. 经过思考的辩证。这个是指两人之间的辩证应该要基于事实和逻辑,而不是感情或者沉没成本,同时双方能有耐心和开放的心胸进行聆听,否则就会变成没有产出的争论。

我认为这个思维模式的转变对 Ray 和我们来说是很重要的,甚至是全书最重要的一点。从“我是对的”转变为了“我怎么知道我是对的”,让我们不会被我们的自尊和面子所困扰,可以敞开心胸接纳不同的声音,不会嫉妒他人的才华,不会为了维护自己的形象而错过真相。

这对投资来说也是很重要的,在投资的时候,如果不认输,不复盘,市场会用真金白银告诉你,你是错的。

拥抱弱点

Embrace weaknesses. Over the years that followed, I found that most of the extraordinarily successful people I met had similar big painful failures that taught them the lessons that ultimately helped them to succeed. Looking back on getting fired from Apple in 1985, Steve Jobs said it was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.

Push your limits, you will crash and it will hurt a lot. You will think you have failed, but that won’t be true unless you give up. Believe it or not your pain will fade and you will have many other opportunities ahead of you though you might not see them at the time. The most important thing you can do is gather the lessons these failures provide and gain humility and radical open mindedness in order to increase your chances of success. Then you press on.

Ray 在多年的观察里发现,许多杰出的成功人士都有一些相似的痛苦的失败经历,这些经历给他们上了关键的一课,帮助他们最终成功。像 1985 年乔布斯被 Apple 开除的时候,他说这是一个极苦的药,但是他作为一个患者正需要这个药。把自己推向自己的极限,你就会遭遇这样的失败。你可能认为你失败了,但只要你不放弃,这就不是真正的失败。失败的痛苦会随着时间流逝慢慢淡去,而在你前方还有很多其他的机会。最重要的是从失败中学习,并用开放的心胸接纳自己的弱点并克服它,再重新启航。

只有承认并且认清自己的弱点,才有可能克服并改变它,否则即使重新经历一边,结果也不会有任何改变。

适应市场而不是预测市场

What was most important wasn’t knowing the future. It was knowing how to react appropriately to the information available at each point in time. In order to do that, I would have to have a vast store of economic and market data to draw on an. As it happened, I did. From very early on, whenever I took a position in the markets, I wrote down the criteria I used to make my decision.

We’re much better than the forecasting systems that I’ve been using before, mostly because they incorporated our ongoing reactions to developments, allowing us to deal with a wider range of possibilities. They could also include timing rules. In a jounal piece called making money versus making forecasts, I explained that: The truth to be known, forecasts aren’t worth very much. And most people who make them don’t make money in the markets. That’s because nothing is certain even one overlays the probabilities of all the various things that affect the future. In order to make a forecast, one gets a wide array of possibilities with varying probabilities, not one highly probable outcome. We believe that market movements reflect economic movements. Economic movements are reflected in economic statistics. By studying the relationships between economic statistics and market movements, we’ve developed precise rules for identifying important shifts in economic market environments. And in turn, our positions. In other words, rather than forecasting changes in the economic environment, and shifting positions in anticipation of them. We pick up these changes as they are occurring and move our money around to keep in those markets which perform best in that environment.

我从这段话里提取最重要的部分是,不去尝试预测未来会发生什么,而是当趋势已经发生时,知道要怎么做。最近看的书以及经历都揭示的两点:

  1. 市场的变化是不可预测的。我们没法预测会不会有黑天鹅的出现,没法准确预测价格的变化,尝试预测市场而做出投资决策的,往往不能跑赢掷骰子的随机决策。这是因为当我们做出预测时,即便考虑了所有的因素,我们也只能给出多种会发生的情形和对应的概率,而不是一种一定会发生的情形。
  2. 当趋势发生时,跟随趋势。我们没法预测未来会发生什么,但是我们可以观测到已经发生的事情。例如美国增发美金,降息是已经确认的事件,由此导致的流动性增加和通货膨胀也就是确定的趋势,在趋势确定后,我们应当跟随趋势。自作聪明的人会认为这是短期的事件,未来会有通货紧缩发生,从而与当前市场反向操作,这反而在长期来看是错误的。

Ray 的做法是在每次投资开仓的时候记录下自己决策的原因,在平仓时复盘自己决策逻辑的正确与否。从复盘中判断自己对趋势的判断是否正确。同时把决策的方式用公式的方式表示出来,也便用回测的方式验证自己的判断是否正确。同时他认为市场反映了经济形势,经济形势又反映在经济的统计数据中,通过学习这些之间的关联,我们就可以识别出趋势的变化,同时对自己的仓位做出调整。

自动化交易在黑天鹅事件的不足

Of course, we always had the freedom to override the system, which we did less than 2% of the time. Mostly to take money off the table during extraordinary events that weren’t programmed like the World Trade Center. Going down on 9/11. While the computer was much better than our brains in many ways, it didn’t have the imagination understanding and logic that we did.

桥水基金在使用电脑进行自动化决策时,也有用人工干预的时候,主要是在黑天鹅事件时,例如 911 世贸大厦被撞击时。计算机在很多方面比人类有优势,例如速度、纪律、容量,但是它缺少人类的想象力和逻辑发散能力。Make sense.

懂得放弃机会

I’m sure that if I had devoted all my time to it, we would have had great success, but then Bridgewater would not have been what it is today. Despite passing up this opportunity, I don’t regret my choice. I learned that if you work hard and creatively, you can have just about anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want. Maturity is the ability to reject good alternatives in order to pursue even better ones.

Ray 在早期创立中国区公司时,曾因为中国混乱的财务制度和审计环境而每天3点还在工作。这样的状况持续了一年,Ray 认识到这是不可持续的,所以他就放弃了。在他这样聪明有能力的人回顾看来,没有什么事是他通过努力做不到的,但他还是学会了放弃。成熟,是懂得放弃好的机会,从而给更好的机会留出空间。

不光理解他人的观点,还理解他人产生这个观点的原因和逻辑

I urge you to be curious enough to want to understand how the people who see things differently from you came to see them that way. You will find that interesting and invaluable. And the rich perspective you gain will help you decide what you should do.

当我们在做决策的时候,如果和别人讨论时发现其他人和你有不同的观点,不光要理解他人的观点,还要理解这个观点的由来。去探索为什么别人会和你有不同的观点。是你们过往的经历不同?还是你们思考的逻辑不同?还是你们获取到的信息不同?你会发现这种区别很有趣也很有价值。而这种视野的多样性也会帮助你更好地做决策。过往的经历导致了一个人当前思考的逻辑,而一个人获取到的信息决定了这个思考逻辑产出的观点是什么。

从结论反推,我们往往可以回溯到最本源的区别,例如有许多证据表明 Past performance does not indicate future results, 过去的表现并不能代表未来的结果,那我们是否应该根据过去的经历而下结论呢?如果不根据过往业绩,那用什么来选择好的基金和股票呢?

喜欢直来直往

And to me a meaningful relationship is one that’s open and honest in a way that let people be straight with each other. I never valued more traditional anticeptic relationships where people put on a facade of politeness and don’t say what they really think.

在中美都有一种文化,为了让双方的关系更加友好融洽,大家不会说一些让对方不舒服的话,比如批评、或者暴露他人缺点的交谈。这样看起来更礼貌,但是作者还是更喜欢直来直往的交往,并且在他的眼中,直来直往的开放和直接才是他所想要的。这对交往的双方都有明确的要求,就是双方都要有开放的心态,否则有一方玻璃心了,就可能不会有后续的交往了。

杀手系统-分散投资

Because we traded a number of different asset classes and within each one we had programmed and tested a lot of fundamental trading rules. We had many more high quality ones to choose from than a typical manager who was tracking a smaller number of assets and was probably not trading systematically. This new approach improved our returns by a factor of three to five times per unit of risk, and we could calibrate the amount of return we wanted based on the amount of risk we could tolerate. In other words, we could make a ton more money than the other guys with lower risk of being knocked out of the game

The success of this approach taught me a principle that I applied to all parts of my life, making a handful of good, uncorrelated bets that are balanced and leveraged well is the surest way of having a lot of upside without being exposed unacceptable downside.

由于桥水基金参与交易的资产类型很多,并且在每个资产类型中都有大量基础交易策略,而这些交易策略的风险相关度有高有低。通过组合不同的交易策略,可以把在每一个风险单位获得比原先高3-5倍的回报。

在开发了对冲投资策略后,Ray 意识到:要能获得巨大利润又不会有不可接收的回撤,最好的方法就是做出一系列高质量低关联度,平衡且精心调整杠杆的方向性的赌注。

管理公司员工犯的错

Mistakes happen in the early 1990s when Ross, who was in charge of trading at the time, forgot to put in a trade for a client and the money just sat there in cash. By the time the mistake was discovered, the damage was several hundreds thousands dollars. It was a terribly costly error an I could have done something dramatic, like fire Ross to set a tone that mistakes would not be tolerated. But since mistakes happen all the time, that would have only encouraged people to hide theirs, which would have led to even bigger and more costly errors. I believe strongly that we should bring problems and disagreements to the surface to learn what should be done to make things better. So Ross and I built out an error log in the trading department.

在 1990 年的时候,交易室忘记做一笔交易,导致了几十万美金的损失。但是 Ray 没有开除对应的交易员,而是和他一起开发了一个交易错误日志的工具。Ray 认为应该把错误拿到台面上解决,如果当时开除了对应的交易员,可能大家会认为失误是不可接受的,从此把这些问题隐藏起来,从而造成更大的问题。

我认为在这里有必要区分两件事情,一个是非主观意愿的失误,一个是有意识的错误。只要是人进行的操作,都有可能出现失误,例如程序员写了bug,运维在根据操作手册操作时输错指令,交易员下错单等等,这些是可以不对人进行惩罚,而应该从公司或者整体运作流程上进行优化,例如通过系统限制来避免异常交易指令,通过单元测试避免基础的 bug。但如果是有意识的错误,例如绕过系统限制下单,或者绕过单元测试的要求提交代码,这时候就应该对人进行调查和处理了。

工作的难度不随着公司的大小而改变,只是难点不同而已

Most people assume that the challenges that go along with growing the large business are greater than those of growing the smaller one. That’s not true. Going from a five person organization to a 60 person organization was just as challenging as growing from a 60 person organization to a 700 person organization and from a 700 person organization to a 1500 person one. Looking back, I can’t say that the challenges were easier or harder at any of the various phases we went through. They were just different. For example, when I had no one to manage, I had the challenge of having to do almost everything myself. When I learned and earned enough to pay others, I had the challenge of managing them.

Ray 创立桥水基金并且壮大的过程也算是一个成功的创业经历。他认为把一个组织从5个人发展到60个人,再到700个人,1500个人的过程中,没有哪个阶段是难度低的,只是难点不同而已。例如人少的时候,难点在于自己要做几乎所有事,但是人多的时候,难点又在于管理。其实这也从侧面说明了,从大公司出来的人,未必能把创业初期的事情做好,而创业初期成功的创业者,也未必适合在发展后的大公司内做管理

公司文化是从每一个决策中产生的

At first I sent these tapes of management meetings unedited to the entire company, but that was a huge burden on people’s time. So I built a small team to edit the tapes, focusing on the most important moments. And overtime we added these questions to create virtual reality case studies that could be used for training. Overtime these tapes became part of a boot camp for new employees as well as a window into an ongoing stream of situations connected to the principles for handling them. All this openness led to some very frank discussions about who did what and why, and as a result we were able to deepen our understanding of our different ways of thinking.

As with all organizations, whether Bridgewater would succeed would come down to the people and the culture. People who run companies are faced with important choices every day. How they make those choices determines the character of the company, the quality of its relationships, and the outcomes it produces.

Ray 在桥水基金早期会把所有管理层会议的录音无剪辑地发送给全公司,后期为了节约时间,把这些录音剪辑省下精华之后发给全公司。这个开放和透明程度是我听说唯一一家公司有这么做的。要能做到这点,至少需要管理层和所有员工的基本利益是一致的,同时管理层的三观是正的。

在后期,这些剪辑后的录音被做成了新人的虚拟场景培训,告诉大家在什么情况下应该做什么样的决定,以及这些决定背后的原则。这在我看来是一个很高明的落实企业文化的手段,企业文化并不是口头上喊的口号,而是在每一天的工作中,每个人做的决策凝聚起来的。就比如有的企业说“结果导向”是其中一个企业文化,那么是不是能做到只检查结果,而不用996来监控员工的上班时间呢?如果有的企业说“客户至上”是企业文化,那么在客户利益和公司利益受到冲突的时候,能否以客户成功作为第一决策标准,牺牲公司的利润垫呢?桥水基金的培训可以在很短的时间内,用事实告诉所有人,这家公司的文化究竟是什么。

领导人的成功标准

I clearly hadn’t done a good enough job of finding and training others, to whom I could delegate my responsibilities. To me, the greatest success you can have is to orchestrate others to do things well without you. A step below that is doing things well yourself, and worst of all, is doing things poorly yourself.

In May 2008, I wrote an email to five members of the management committee copying the entire company, telling them that I am escalating to let you know that I have reached my limits, and that the quality of my work and my work life balance are both suffering unacceptably.

Ray 作为桥水基金的首席投资官和首席执行官,也没办法同时做好公司管理和投资两件事情。让我敬佩的是他能把自己缺乏精力,工作质量下降,生活工作不平衡的情况跟所有人坦诚地沟通出来。在他看来,最成功的事情是让别人在你不在的时候把事情做好,次一级的是亲力亲为把事情做好,最次的一级是自己也不能把事情做好。

其实对于很多新晋的 leader 来说,特别是技术 leader,最难的就是把思维从 “我要做好这件事” 变成 “我要让团队里的成员都把事情做好”。反而一些从非技术岗出来的 leader,更会调动其他人的力量来完成一件事。我不认为这是一件优点或者缺点,只是在不同阶段不同岗位需要有不同的技能和思维方式。认清,并朝这个方向努力即可。

不要把鸡蛋放在一个篮子里

We would have done even better had we not feared being wrong, which led us to balance our bets instead of arrogantly and foolishly putting more chips at stake. But I had no regrets because I had learned that it wasn’t smart to bet that way. While in this case we would have made more money if we were less balanced. We certainly wouldn’t have survived and succeeded long enough to be in such a position if we’d approached our investments that way.

在次贷危机时,桥水基金预测到了信用危机,并且重新平衡了持仓,并获得了超额收益。在那个时候如果桥水基金更加激进地堵上更多仓位,可以获得更多的回报。但是如果以这个风格进行资产配置的话,桥水基金也不会生存到现在,因为只要有一两次没有预料到的黑天鹅事件,就能让整个基金垮台。

就像每次 all in 的堵法,即使你的胜率有 99%,只要有一次输了,就从此离场,再也没有入场的机会了。所以桥水基金也许在信用危机事件里错过了一些利润,但是也正是稳健的资产管理风格让他们穿越了牛熊。这并不意味着无脑地平均分配所有标的仓位,也需要根据自己的判断增配或者减配标的资产。

做老好人容易,保持高标准难

No matter how much we put into screening new hires and training them to work in our idea meritocracy, it was inevitable that many of them would fall short. My approach was to hire,train, test and then fire or promote quickly so that we could rapidly identify the excellent hires and get rid of the ordinary ones, repeating the process again and again until the percentage of those who are truly great was high enough to meet our needs. But for this to work, we needed people with high standards who wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate people who couldn’t cut it. Many new employees and some older ones still were reluctant to probe hard at what people were like, which made things worse. It’s tough to be tough on people.

桥水基金希望打造理想的精英组织,其中最难的就是招聘到足够多的精英,并且保持精英的高密度,这也是大部分创业公司面临的难题。桥水基金的做法是快速地招聘、培训、测试然后开除或者提拔新人。要实现这一点就要求所有人都要有高标准,要敢于对其他人进行检验,但至今很多人仍然做不到这一点。毕竟做一个老好人,大家都喜欢,其乐融融,可以获得很多正反馈。但只有敢于做坏人,保持高标准,才有可能打造出精英化的组织。

我在之前的工作中也不敢直接地测试新人,担心会给人不信任的感觉。但现在回想起来,这应该是信任的基础,没有经过检验的信任就像飘在河流上的浮桥,当大浪来临时就翻了,但经过检验的信任就像水泥桥一样,见过卡车开过,也就不会担心人走的时候会掉下来了。

如果从头开始打造这样一个团队,我认为有 2 点是关键的:

  1. 在招聘上的高投入。这个投入不光是指钱,钱当然需要是市场上最高一档的,最优秀的人会不希望自己被贱卖了。这个投入也包括时间、制度、人员等等,需要有人去找优秀的人,去吸引他们加入,去培训、测试新人,需要有完善的资料和流程可以在最短时间内完成培训和测试。
  2. 敢于淘汰的领导者。对于无法达到标准的人,能敢于做出淘汰的决策,哪怕我们私下是很好的朋友,一起旅行,一起喝酒,但工作上如果不能达到标准,就应该果断淘汰。

当然除了这2点,还有很多其他需要做到的,但是反思之前团队搭建的流程,这两点也是我主要没做好的地方。

改变世界的人的特征

While not perfect, these personality assessments have been invaluable. In fact, I’ve been adapting and refining them to help us in our recruiting and management. The answers these shapers provided to the standardized questions would give me objective and statistically measurable evidence about their similarities and their differences. It turns out that they have a lot in common. They are all independent thinkers who do not let anything or anyone stand in the way of achieving their audacious goals. They have very strong mental maps of how things should be done and at the same time a willingness to test those mental maps in the world of reality and change the way they do things to make them work better. They are extremely resilient because their need to achieve what they envision is stronger than the pain they experience as they struggle to achieve it. Perhaps most interesting, they have a wider range of vision that most people, either because they have that vision themselves or because they know how to get it from others who can see what they can’t. All are able to see both big pictures and granular details and synthesize the perspectives they gained at those different levels. Whereas most people just see it from one level or the other. They are simultaneously creative and systematic and practical. They are assertive and open minded. Above all, they are passionate about what they’re doing, intolerant of people who work for them who aren’t excellent at what they do and want to have a big beneficial impact on the world.

On one of the personality assessments, there is a category that they almost all ranked low on called concern for others. But that doesn’t mean what it sounds like. Gates care deeply about other people. Yet the personality tests they took rated them low. Why was that? In speaking with them and reviewing the exact questions that led to these ratings, it became clear. When faced with a choice between achieving their goal or pleasing or not disappointing others, they would clearly choose achieving their goal every time.

Ray 利用心理测试,请许多世界上的名人,比如比尔盖茨,Elon Musk 做了心理测试,看这些改变世界的人有什么共同特征。有几个有趣的点:

  1. 他们的韧性很强。因为他们想要做成某一件事的欲望,超过了他们承受的痛苦。
  2. 他们的视野更宽广。可能由于他们自身的高瞻远瞩,也可能是因为他们善于从他人身上听取意见。
  3. 他们对为他们工作的人要求一样很高。
  4. 他们在“为他人着想”这一点上的分数很低。因为他们如果需要在完成目标和让别人开心之间选择,他们一定会选择达成目标,不做老好人。

从他人的行为得到结论

About a year into my transition, I saw that many new managers and some older ones still couldn’t see the patterns of people’s behaviors through time. In other words, they couldn’t connect the dots between what people are like and the outcomes they produce. There.

很显然,每个人的行为轨迹,过去做过的事情,是可以反映出一个人的特性,以及他未来会怎样表现的。他是有大局观的人,还是更关注细节的人。但是许多管理者并不能从人的行为上得到这点结论。有几种可能:

  1. 缺乏观察。没有关注一个人完成目标的情况,那应该加强任务轨迹的留存。
  2. 观察到了,但是不敢下结论。由于观察的不够多,不愿意用一两次行为的结果来给一个人下定论。这样的情况也许是因为工具或者时间不足,无法捕捉到更多的情况,也可能是因为心底相信每个人都可以改变,但这个思维不应该影响短期的结论。

弱点反省

在书中作者建议的一件事是列出自己的弱点,并按照影响自己的顺序排列下来,从而各个击破。于此我列出的弱点是在过去的工作生活中总结出来的,作为样板,希望可以在未来的生活中有所改变:

在整理我的弱点之后发现,我的弱点大部分都来自于Ignore second order effect,就是只看到了短期的效果,而忽略了长远的影响。例如今晚的时间用来看电视,那么今晚是一个开心的夜晚,但如果长期这样下去,就浪费了许多时间,失去了提升的机会。

  • 害怕伤害别人,不敢指出他人没做好的地方。
    • 在短期内,不指出他人没做好的地方是在一个舒适区内,双方都其乐融融,关系融洽,但是长期来看,对自己和对他人有很多负面影响。我可能会由于他人没做好而累积怨气,他人也会因此失去提升的机会,或者在其他方面导致失败。这是典型的 ignore second order effect 的例子。
  • 害怕破坏与他人的关系,不敢争取自己的利益。
    • 同样的,与第一点类似,我对人际关系的看重,使得我担心争取自己的利益会让自己看起来欲望太强,难以满足。但是不提出自己的需求,不争取,也会累积自己的怨气。最终双方的关系也会由于利益不满足而导致关系破裂。这其实也是一个 ignore second order effect 的例子。
  • 不愿意承认失败,于是从各种不同角度看问题来安慰自己,也不愿意止损。
    • 这个应该是一个通用的人性的弱点,在分析问题的时候把沉没成本也考虑进去了。但其实本质上也是 ignore second order effect,因为在短期看好像没有失败,但长期来看会让损失扩大化。
  • 不愿意向他人求助,让自己看起来能力不行。
    • 这也是一个 ignore second order effect 的例子,短期可能让自己看起来不“蠢”,但是长期来看错过能力提升的机会,损失是更大的。
  • 追求短期目标的动力大过长远目标,为了短期的愉悦牺牲了长期的进步。
  • 喜欢做感动自己的事情。即便有一些事情是低效且无用的,例如在一个会议上浪费时间但是没有讨论能推进的事项,或者默默做出一些不为人知的贡献,让自己有幕后英雄的壮烈感。

其他材料

TODO

在整理读书笔记时,会想到一些需要后续学习的部分,在这里给自己一个记录。

  1. 阅读美国金融史,理解美国漂亮50 Nifty 50 走势变化的原因,与茅20和沪深300的走势做印证。