Speak up, own it or get out

In Ray Dalio’s Principles (my review) you can find an interesting point stating Speak up, own it or get out. Getting 100% radical on it, is not the option in real life, but still, it’s an interesting approach for managing one’s thoughts and feelings.

Maybe you were in this situation. Being told about something a month or a year after it happened. Not to mention being it against rules of good feedback for the receiver, it does not work for the giver as well.

Imagine what should have been going in the head of a person providing feedback! There must h ave been something nerve wracking, something drilling them inside for 6 long months. Now, when the eruption happens it’s probably all distorted and twisted. The context, the notion of the past behavior is altered by their associative memory. It simply does not work.

Having a rule, a principle, that keeps you out of this, by disallowing to keep it under cover is so simple and powerful. Speak up, own it or get out. Of course I’m far from perceiving it as black-or-white (this kind of perception is a separate fallacy on its own), but trying to be aware and not putting oneself in this kind of position is a really good principle to follow.