The way to do is to be

There’s plenty of advice on the internet on how to do things. This is what productive people do in the morning, you should do it too. This is what successful investors do. This is what successful founders do. This is what you should do in your 1:1s so that your staff find them useful. This is what you should do during interviews. This is what you should do when letting someone go.

The irony is that our actions are driven not by what we read online yesterday but by our deeply held beliefs and assumptions about ourselves and others. Our values and beliefs don’t change easily — it’s a slow work of introspection, radical self-inquiry and being genuinely open to different viewpoints that makes a difference.

However, this internal work is the only thing that can drive a meaningful, long-lasting, authentic change in how we do things on the outside. It’s no use to try to do what seems like the right thing without going through the internal work that makes this action feel natural.

Take 1:1s with your colleagues, for example. There are lots of articles on how to do it. How often. What questions to ask. Listen more and talk less, etc. Yet, these conversations only become productive when two people are genuinely interested in helping each other. When both really believe that successes can be celebrated together and problems discussed openly. This isn’t achieved by asking the “right” questions or meeting at the “right” frequency. This is only possible when people trust and care about each other. Then listening becomes more natural than talking. Then the helpful questions come naturally without a script. Then there’s a chance of a real human connection.

When I observe other people doing things differently, I try to ask myself, what would make it natural for me to behave in the same way? What part of their experience led them to behaving this way? What values and beliefs about myself and the world make me act differently? Our actions are driven more by our subconscious than by our conscious mind, although we really want to believe (and usually do) that it’s the other way round.

The way to do is to be.