每日原则：你的政策应当是你的原则的自然延伸

原则是分层的——有一些至关重要，有一些则不太重要，但都是决定你的政策的，而你个人决策受政策影响。要对政策进行梳理反思，确保彼此之间一致，也要梳理政策所依据的原则，这样做很有帮助。

如果出现无政策可循的问题（例如，某员工的职责是出差，却因出差导致了潜在的健康风险），就不应在不诉诸更高层次原则的情况下随随便便做出回答。对政策制定者而言，制定政策必须像司法体系形成判例法那样——在应对具体案例和解释法律适用过程中，反复酝酿、循序渐进。

这就是我的行事方式。当一个案例发生，我要为自己的应对方法设定原则，并与他人达成共识，看大家是否都认同这些原则，否则就进行修改完善。桥水的原则和政策基本上就是这样产生的。

Principles are hierarchical--some are overarching and some are less important--but they all should inform the policies that guide your individual decisions. It pays to think those policies through to ensure that they are consistent with each other and the principles they are derived from.

When faced with a case that doesn't have a clear policy to follow (for example, what to do about an employee whose job is to travel but who faces potential health risks because of his travel), one can't just snatch an answer out of the blue without regard for higher-level principles. Policymakers must make policy in the same way that the judicial system creates case law--iteratively and incrementally, by dealing with specific cases and interpreting the law as it applies to them.

That is how I have tried to operate. When a case arises, I lay out the principles behind how I am handling it and get in sync with others to see if we agree on those principles or must modify them to make them better. By and large, that's how all Bridgewater's principles and policies were developed.