Brutal Honesty: The Best Policy?

The blunt truth is the right approach both in business and at home.

“Never say anything about a person you wouldn’t say to him directly. If you do, you are a slimy weasel.” This is Principal Number 11 in an 83-page document that Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates – one of the world’s most successful hedge funds – has distributed to his 1,000 employees. If you break the rule three times, you can be fired.

Dalio calls his philosophy “hyper-realism.” He believes that brutal honesty, no matter how uncomfortable, yields the best results.

For new employees joining the company, the adjustment can be difficult. The Wall Street Journal quotes one employee who says that he felt “defeated” after a day of being openly critiqued by his colleagues, who “drilled into his weaknesses.” But eventually, he found that his relationships began to improve, both at work and at home.

While this degree of openness is not the norm in the corporate world, Bridgewater’s results speak for themselves and have attracted investors from around the world.

Creating a culture of complete honesty requires a real transformation. Over time, it becomes difficult – if not impossible – for people to do all the things that they usually do that undermine an organization: point fingers, adopt a victim mentality, indulge in destructive politics, and “CYA” (cover-your-ass) behaviour that distracts from the goals of the organization.

Even if this behaviour is very subtle, it drains energy and wastes everyone’s time. Eventually, people begin to feel that they cannot make a difference, and the organization loses focus and cannot achieve the results it seeks. In today’s environment of growing challenges and limited resources, what company can afford this?

Breaking these patterns and reversing the damage begins with a courageous leader who will blow the whistle and call his or her people on this behaviour. To do so effectively, effort, risk, and courage are required. Working with a new code of rigorous honesty inside an organization means refusing to settle for less than the truth in an environment where people are used to voicing what they think their leaders want to hear. This process can be messy and painful, in part because many people do not realize how far they have drifted from honesty.

It also means getting people to act in the interests of the broader organization rather than favouring their own goals, and to do so with genuine enthusiasm and commitment. It is essential that employees operate knowing that their individual efforts do make an important difference to the whole. Let’s not forget that honesty also requires acknowledging the contributions of others to your own successes.

Time and again, I have seen such efforts lead to significant transformations inside organizations and in people’s lives. Clients have repeatedly told me that this process has made them a better person, changing the way they relate to their children and their spouses. One CEO even told me, “It saved my marriage.”

I am not a marriage counselor, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But one thing I do know is that when organizations have the courage to face the truth every day, a powerful platform of authentic ownership, commitment, accountability, and team partnership emerges. The team is then equipped and energized to focus on any challenge that lies ahead, no matter how unfamiliar, complex, or difficult it may be. In short, the team has become unstoppable.