WIESBADEN, Germany — The 2d Theater Signal Brigade hosted a Leadership Professional Development event December 1, 2022, featuring keynote speaker Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates founder.
Dalio, author of the two New York Bestselling books, "Principles" and "The Changing World Order," is credited with developing the first algorithmic decision and trading platform in finance. Bridgewater Associates is currently ranked as the world’s largest hedge fund, managing more than $126 billion in assets.
The 2d Theater Signal Brigade’s mission is to deliver integrated and interoperable theater communications and cyber capabilities to enable decision dominance across all levels and phases of war in support of combat forces and mission partners in Europe and Africa. Being the Army’s leader in European Theater communications integration, interoperability, and innovation means researching and adapting revolutionizing strategies to maintain decision dominance.
“The 2d Theater Signal Brigade is adapting the algorithmic decision-rule strategy from the world leader in finance to inform we use data and event correlation in support of future AI/ML-enabled predictive analysis across mission sets,” said Col. Ronald Iammartino, Jr, Commander, 2d Theater Signal Bde.
During the event, Dalio answered questions and provided his unique perspective on forecasting macro & geopolitical events, and how to build data-based decision rules to enable organizational decision making, and team building.
“More and more, the functionality of the individual is important to put together an optimal performing team; and how to overcome some of the emotional barriers to be able to not let failure or their weaknesses inhibit the performance of the team,” he said. “On the team you have to be very clear and objective about what the strengths and weaknesses are, and you have to know them, and you have to get past them so that you could put together a good team anyway.”
Dalio also shared his philosophy on decision rules and algorithmic based thinking.
“Two dimensions I think are somewhat unique is knowing people — their strengths and weaknesses down to the detail level — and being radically truthful, radically transparent. I want ‘idea meritocracy,’ which means the best ideas win out. I want an ‘idea meritocracy’ in which meaningful work and meaningful relationships are the goal.”
His second dimension concerned the ability to convert an individual’s thinking into algorithms to make decisions that determine how those decisions would have worked over a set timeframe, and then use computers to supplement human decision-making.
“What I would ask people to do, and what I did myself, was to write down my criteria for making decisions, or principles as I’d call them. What decision would I make? What criteria would I use and then we, as a company, could take those criteria, see how they would have worked over a period of time, debate them to determine what the best criteria were, and then have systemized decision-making that would be able to take in data and process a lot of information very quickly, and to do that on unemotionally.”
Dalio added that knowing the track records of the decision criteria, and having them programmed and processed in a systemized way, will aid in developing a game plan, and executing it in a way that would be more successful.
Leadership Professional Development events such as these are part of the Army’s deliberate, continuous, and progressive process to continuously grow Soldiers and Army Civilians into competent, committed professional leaders of character. The events provide Soldiers, Civilians and Host Nation Employees with opportunities to participate and gain valuable tools for professional growth and advancement, while also providing an opportunity to gain a better understanding of their career fields. LPDs are designed to ultimately helped individuals become better team members and leaders by improving the individual’s confidence, knowledge, and abilities to become a successful leader of a dynamic team.
“LPDs allow for us to get a much larger understanding of the impact that our leadership can have on the people around us,” said Nathan Slack, Chief Data Officer, 2d Theater Signal Bde. “The individuals that come and speak to us have a vast amount of experience in leadership, and are willing to share their knowledge with us. This enables us to take lessons learned from their experiences and apply it to ours so that we can better serve those around us. I’m looking forward to learning more.”
In addition to developing personal and professional knowledge, LPDs provide opportunities to build esprit de corps among all members of the bridge, including host nation employees.
“I welcome the opportunity to attend Leader Professional Development sessions,” said Christine Straus, International Relations Advisor, 2d Theater Signal Bde. “Naturally, some of the topics resonate more with me than others, but, in general, these events have broadened my horizon, and some of the LPDs I’ve attended gave me new insights or even a new perspective. Personally, I think the LPDs that involve group interaction among the attendees are great for team building.”
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