Ray Dalio (the man in the pic), manager and founder of Bridgewater, THE most lucrative hedge fund company in the world, teach us an important concept: Meritocracy of ideas. Dalio points out how to extract principles and to improve in the face of mistakes made.
In a TED TALK lecture, the founder explains how he developed this metodology of meritocracy of ideas after he committed a big mistake. This metodology is based in a concept that is based on discussion - without hierarchical distinction. Afterwards you can make the best ideas prevail. As said before, this metodology was created after one of the biggest investments mistakes he ever made.
In the lates 70's, Dalio predicted that US banks had lent tons of money to emergin countries such as Brazil, Mexico and others, who would not be able to afford these debt with lots of interests. So Ray thought that it was very likely that USA would have the biggest debt crisis since the Great depresion in 29. Then he presumably believed that would be huge losses in the stock market.
This so called "prediction" was very controversial at the time (most investors disagreed with that idea back then). However, back in 82 Mexico didn't pay his debt, proving Rays predictions; afterwards severals countries followed this "trend". Then, the globe entered a huge debt crisis, making Ray very cocky with his thesis and market position. Although, the crisis did happen, it did not happen to the stock market, americans stocks kept on rising, so since Dalio bet on the opposing situation his hedge fund suffered huge losses.
Those losses made several customers to drop out his hedge fund, which caused him to cease operations of Bridgewater. For him this event was the rock bottom point of his career. At the same time, it was one of the best due to make his vision on decision making change. Instead of thinking "i am right" he began to wonder "how can i know if i'm right?". So he gained the humility he needed to balance with his audacity as said.
By creating his Meritocracy of Ideas and start to implement the concept within Bridgewater, he creates several dynamics in which from an intern to a CEO have the opportunity to present ideas and everyone will judge those ideas and concepts.
To conclude, Ray Dalio teaches us the power to listen to everyone and how important it is to discuss in order to form an opinion, and maybe one of the most important thing is to evolve through our mistakes and how to overcome and improve from our own experiences.