Bill Belichick & Ray Dalio on Having Great Relationships: Part 1

Now let's talk about partnership. Now when you're dealing in an organization, you have the owner, you have the players. Okay, now there's interpersonal relations. How do you deal with those interpersonal relations? Like probably, you know the question exactly: who's in control? And somebody thinks you should do it one way, somebody thinks you should do it the other way. How does that work in?

Right, well I think the most important thing in all that is to clearly define what everybody's job and role is. That's number one. Is whatever it is, this is what the expectations are. Not how to do it necessarily, but what you're responsible for and what the next person is responsible for. So there's no misunderstanding about who's responsible for what, who works for who, you know what the chain of command is and so forth. And so then they're accountable for that, whatever that area is.

And if there's a problem there, then it's not one of those where it's, you know, try to avoid that at all costs.

So, but in the relationships I was going to... I want to ask you about this because you had a quote. You know, you put out your kind of daily quotes there the other day about relationships, about the importance of generosity. And if you don't have generosity and then reciprocal generosity, you'll never have the true depth of the relationship. I thought that was a brilliant quote and that was, um, and I thought a lot about that as I do a lot of your principles. And, uh, you just articulated so well that if you really think about it, I think about the strongest relationships and the generosity that comes with those. Really, it's generosity, it's trust, but its generosity really is, is maybe a little above the trust factor that defines the relationship.

And, uh, I don't know, maybe you can talk about how that came to you, ‘cause I've never heard that before. But the more I thought about it, the more I embraced it.

Mhm, yeah, it's like you be on the far side of affair. You, you, you know you can, what an investment it is in me taking care of your well-being and then reciprocating it. And what happens is, um, you know, through all religions around the world, whether they call it karma or whether they call it, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, when you have that element of going beyond, it's um, it's joyous and it's practical.

You know, you were saying on the way out how you, somebody's make doesn't make the cut, treat them on the way out the way you treated them on the way in, is what you're saying. And if you keep operating that way, you'll get more than you give. It's just a reality. It's, yeah, if, if, and in that relationship, if you're generous on the outside and then they reciprocate that generosity like that really defines the strength of the relationship. That you're really unselfishly trying to provide more for the other person and they're trying to provide more for you.

Well, you, you, you must know that. So I can turn to you, and because when the players know you care about them and that you're doing it that way, that they judge what you're like, and, and you're going beyond. And it may be the holding them on the shoulder at that moment or whatever it is. When you know I'm sure that that's a powerful, um, practical influence of getting the more out of them, but also it's a joyous relationship, right? Aren't the relationships important to you?

Oh, they're everything! Yeah, they're everything. And I can't even tell you how many players I text regularly that I, 10, 20, 30 years ago, you know, played for me, coached with me. Those they just, you know, we've all moved on to different spots. And the relationship still goes back to, you know, what we went through together and that I would say the sacrifices I made for them, sacrifices they made for me. Um, you know, they're just, they're lifelong. They lifelong.