2 cultivate meaningful workand meaningful relationships
培养有意义的工作和关系
Meaningful relationships areinvaluable for building and sustaining a culture of excellence, because theycreate the trust and support that people need to push each other to do greatthings. If the overwhelming majority of people care about having an excellentcommunity, they will take care of it, which will yield both better work andbetter relationships. Relationships have to be genuine, not forced; at the sametime, the culture of the community will have a big influence on how peoplevalue relationships and how they behave with each other. To me, a meaningfulrelationship is one in which people care enough about each other to be therewhenever someone needs support and they enjoy each other’s company so much thatthey can have great times together both inside and outside of work. I literallylove many of the people I work with, and I respect them deeply.
I have often been asked whetherrelationships at Bridgewater are more like those of a family or those of ateam, the implication being that in a family there is unconditional love and apermanent relationship, while in a team the attachment is only as strong as theperson’s contribution. Before answering this question, I want to emphasize thateither is good by me, because both families and teams provide meaningfulrelationships and that neither is anything like a typical job at a typicalcompany, where the relationships are primarily utilitarian. But to answer thequestion directly, I wanted Bridgewater to be like a family business in whichfamily members have to perform excellently or be cut. If I had a familybusiness and a family member wasn’t performing well, I would want to let themgo because I believe that it isn’t good for either the family member (becausestaying in a job they’re not suited to stands in the way of their personalevolution) or the company (because it holds back the whole community). That’stough love.
To give you an idea of how Bridgewater’sculture developed and how it’s different from what you’d find at mostcompanies, I will tell you about how we handled benefits in our early days.When the company was just me and a small group of people, I didn’t provideemployees with health insurance; I assumed that they would buy it on their own.But I did want to help the people I shared my life with during their times ofneed. If someone I worked with
got seriously sick and couldn’t affordproper care, what was I going to do, stand by and not help them? Of course I’dhelp them financially, to whatever extent I could. So when I did beginproviding health insurance to my employees, I felt that I was insuring myselfagainst the money I knew I’d give them if they were injured or fell ill as muchas I was insuring them.
Because I wanted to make certain thatthey received the best care possible, the policies I provided allowed them togo to any doctor they chose and spend whatever amount was required. On theother hand, I didn’t protect them against the little things. For example, Ididn’t provide dental insurance any more than I provided car insurance, becauseI felt that it was their own responsibility to protect their teeth, just as itwas their own responsibility to take care of their car. If they needed dentalinsurance, they could pay for it out of their own pocket. My main point is thatI didn’t approach benefits in the impersonal, transactional way most companiesdo, but more like something I provided for my family. I was more than generouswith some things and expected people to take personal responsibility forothers.
When I treated my employees like extendedfamily, I found that they typically behaved the same way with each other andour community as a whole, which was much more special than having a strictlyquid pro quo relationship. I can’t tell you how many people would do anythingin their power to help our community/company and wouldn’t want to work anywhereelse. This is invaluable.
As Bridgewater grew, my ability to havequality personal contact with everyone faded, but this wasn’t a problem becausethe broader community embraced this way of being with each other. This didn’tjust happen; we did a lot to help it along. For example, we put into place apolicy that we would pay for half of practically any activities that peoplewant to do together up to a set cap (we now support more than a hundred clubsand athletic and common-interest groups); we paid for food and drink for thosewho hosted potluck dinners at their houses; and we bought a house thatemployees can use for events and celebrations. We have Christmas, Halloween,Fourth of July, and other parties that often include family members.Eventually, others who valued this kind of relationship took responsibility forit and it spread to become a cultural norm so that I could just sit back andwatch beauty happen.
What about the person who doesn’t give adamn about all of this meaningful relationship stuff, who just wants to go intowork, do a good job, and receive fair compensation? Is that okay? Sure it is,and it’s common for a significant percentage of employees. Not everyone feelsthe same or is expected to feel the same about the community. It’s totally okayto opt out. We have all sorts of people and respect whatever they want to do ontheir own time, as long as they abide by the law and are considerate. But theseare not the folks who will provide the community with the skeletal strength ofcommitment that is essential for it to be extraordinary over very long periodsof time.
No matter how much one tries to create aculture of meaningful relationships, the organization is bound to have some bad(intentionally harmful) people in it. Being there isn’t good for them or thecompany so it’s best to find out who they are and remove them. We have foundthat the higher the percentage of people who really care about theorganization, the fewer the number of bad people there are, because the peoplewho really care protect the community against them. We have also found that ourradical transparency helps make it clearer which are which.
译文：
有意义的关系是对于建立和维持优秀的文化氛围是无价的，因为这种关系创造了信任和支持-那种人们需要彼此支持，推动去做伟大的事情。具有压倒性优势的人们都对拥有优秀的社群非常在意。他们会很在乎这个，尤其这个对工作和关系都能受益。而这种社群文化对人们评价社群价值和他们是如何彼此影响的都有着巨大影响。对我来说，一份有价值的关系就是人们在需要时能彼此充分支持，人们彼此欣赏并能一起在内部和工作之外协作。我非常敬重与我一起工作的人，我深深的尊敬他们。
经常有人问我在桥水里的关系是不是如同一个家庭或者一个团队。一个家庭的意义在于无条件的爱和永恒的亲情，而一个团队的粘性在于个人的贡献度。在回答这个问题前，我想强调的那也不错，因为家庭和团队都提供了有意义的关系而没有什么事情能像在一家典型的公司的的一个典型的工作，那种关系主要还是功利的。但要直接回答问题，我期望桥水像一个家族事业而家族的成员必须表现出最后的一面或者被辞退。如果我有一份家庭事业而家庭成员表现的不好，我可能会让他们离开因为我相信对家庭其他成员或者对公司都是不好的。很艰难的爱对吧。
为了让您了解桥水的文化是如何发展起来的,以及它与大多数公司的不同,我将告诉你我们在早期是如何处理福利的。当公司只是我和一小群人的时候,我没有为员工提供医疗保险;我以为他们会自己买。但我确实想帮助和我一起生活的人,在他们需要的时候。如果和我一起工作的人病重,无力负担适当的护理,我该怎么办,袖手旁观,不帮助他们？当然,无论我能在多大程度上,我都会在经济上帮助他们。所以,当我真的开始为员工提供医疗保险时,我觉得我是在用我知道的钱来为自己投保,如果他们受伤或生病了,我就会给他们,就像我给他们保险一样。
因此我想确认他们收到了可能的最好的照料，我提供的政策能保证他们可以去找任何他们能选择的医生以及任何花费。另一方面，我并不能在一些事情上保护他们。举例，我除了汽车保险外不再提供牙科保险，因为我觉得人们有义务保护自己的牙齿，就像他们有义务保护自己车一样。如果他们需要牙科保险，他们需要自己掏腰包。我主要观点是我并没有从非个人化中得到好处，就像大多数公司的传统做法，但更像我为家庭提供的服务。我在一些事情上非常慷慨, 期望人们为别人承担个人责任。
而我对待雇员像是家庭的衍生成员，我发现他们也像我一样对待彼此，我们就像一个大家庭，远远超过严格的交换关系。我没法分辨人们在帮助组织/公司的事情是付出多少，而他们可能不会再为其他人工作了，而这是无价的。
随着桥水公司的不断成长，我与他人高质量的链接褪色了，但这在现在社会更广泛的链接不是问题。这一切都不是简单地发生；事实上我们为之努力了很多，举例，我们实施了一项政策：我们将为那些一起为挑战工作上限的活动支付一半的费用（现在我们支持超过一百家俱乐部和运动，普通利益集体）；我们为那些在自家主持活动的人提供食物和饮料；还买了一栋房子以便于雇员能用于活动或庆祝。我们还有圣诞节，万圣节，独立日，其他一些经常邀请家庭成员的聚会活动。而最终，认同这种链接并承担责任，慢慢传播并形成一种正常的文化-我只需要坐下来看着这一切发生。
那些根本不在乎这种关系的家伙只是想去工作，一份好的职业，收到公平的补偿吗？那样就好吗？当然，是的，这是通常情况下的大多数雇员的想法。不是所有人都对此有一致的或者期盼有一致的想法。实际上有其他选择也是完全可以理解的。存在有各种类型的人，应该尊重他们的自由时间的决定，只要他们遵守法律和经过考虑的。但显然这样的人不是能为了坚实的承诺而提供链接的那些家伙，而这样的人才是能历久非凡的关键。
不论人们对于尝试建立有意义的联系的文化付出多少，组织中总是有一些不好的（故意破坏）人在里面。而对组织或公司没有任何好处，所以最好找出他们并去除掉。我们发现如果真正关心组织的人的比例越高，不好的人的比例就越小，因为真正关心组织的人会为维护这种良好的链接而反对破坏的人。还发现桥水的极致透明的制度帮助我们发现好人和坏人。