I was recently mentioned in LinkedIn post asking for opinions on Ray Dalio’s concept of “radical transparency,” as laid out in Principles: Life and Work. So naturally I responded. I wrote a thoughtful and lengthy post regarding my thoughts on the book.

And, in the process, I completely neglected to answer the questions in the original post. What a twit.

Luckily I can circle back around and address those great questions. So here we go.

Do you want to have an idea meritocracy, where the best ideas win out?

Can you even imagine a world where the absolutely best idea always won out in a decision scenario? What would that even be like? I know I have no idea and I am wagering that neither do any of you. It just isn’t something that is encountered in the normal course of life.

What I do know is this: I know what it wouldn’t be like. I know that it wouldn’t be what you want. At least not every time. I mean, how could it be? Just think about the numbers. The notion that you are going to have the empirically best idea in every single situation is statistically nonexistent. The point? It means that every member of an idea meritocracy has to learn to live with not getting their way. In fact, they have to learn how to live with that reality in an overwhelming majority of situations.

So where does that leave you? Either you get to live in a world where the best idea goes ignored sometimes or you live in a world where you have to console yourself that the best idea wins. Every. Single. Time.

Do you want to know what people are really like (you and others)? And at what degree?

Do we really know what anyone is like? Social norms relegate a large portion of who we are to private recesses. We have our “work” self that we show at the office. We have our “quiet” self that we may show in unfamiliar surroundings. We even have our “this is the side I show my partner” self that we use at home. All of these are different parts of who we are. And none of them are all of us.

So would radical transparency change that? Yes and no. Dalio’s methodology of employing personality inventories such as the Myers Briggs Type Indicator and Team Dimensions Profile certainly shed an immense amount of light on fundamental aspects of who we are. Add to that civil conflicts to hash out what the best idea is and you develop some interesting results.

The findings certainly unveil more aspects of our personality than we would normally share. They could even reveal aspects of your personality that you were not aware of yet. And in terms of building teams to achieve specific goals this sort of information would be invaluable. Yes, it might reveal some less “pristine” aspects, but there is no reason that should be a negative.

No, this aspect of radical transparency is not going to be for everyone. The “Instagram” members of your staff will balk and flee. But really, isn’t that what is best for both you and them? There is no reason that these sorts of tools and the information they yield cannot be handled ethically and positively by grown ass people.

This Is Too Long

Alright, this is too long already. When I first started to write this entry I didn’t realize I had such strong convictions regarding this idealized form of transparency. Still, it seems that I do.

Would I like to live in a world like this? I can’t really say. It is just such far removed from the scenarios my career has taken. It is even foreign to anything I have ever witnessed or heard of outside of Dalio’s Principles. But yeah, I think I would like to live in this world. At least for bit.

Let’s see if I still feel that way when I finish Part 2 of these reflections on radical transparency …