What are your actions? And what is the narrative you are telling LPs around your actions and processes? Why that story, and no other story? What are implicit assumptions that have to be true so that this story is true? What ethos are you implying, or even requiring, that is reflected in that action a priori, but not explained?
In How You Do Anything is How You Do IR I touched on how LPs gain insights through your process and actions. Ben Horowitz in “What you you do is who you are” (Harper Business, 2019) wrote that “culture is how a company makes decisions” (good YouTube interview with Ben here).
I agree with Ben. But what are our “actions” really when they are perceived by others? What do you make of the rope burn of Brad Pitt’s character in Quentin Tarantino’s movie “Inglorious Bastards” (2009), and what was in the briefcase in Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” (1994)? Why is it, that the same action observed by two different people might be described completely differently? Kant would like us to focus on the inherent rightness or wrongness of all actions based on moral rules or duties, rather than their consequences. But what are our morals and duties, what is our ethos?
David Hume expanded on those ideas. He argued that the self isn’t a single, unified entity but a collection of perceptions. Since these perceptions are fleeting and ever-changing, there isn’t a static inner “workings” to tap into. This mirrors the notion that we’re left to rely on our actions—and the continuity we perceive therein—to construct the idea of who we are. Freud wrote about how we aren’t fully aware of our inner mental life. William James explored consciousness, emotions, and habit formation, arguing that these are dynamic processes that help us adapt to the environment. That, again, would leave us adrift — now our processes are dynamic and shifting.
In the 1970s, Nisbett and Wilson’s research challenged the idea that we don’t have direct access to our mental processes. Their work demonstrated that people often construct explanations for their behavior without insight into the underlying causes. This idea is at the heart of self-perception theory—the concept that we look at our own actions to deduce our internal states … and create a narrative around it to explain it.
Jordan Peterson emphasizes the power of storytelling in shaping individual and collective identities, arguing that stories provide a framework for understanding the world and our place within it.
In absence of certainty (or in the face of radical uncertainty): What’s the story you’re telling? Because actions alone are not enough.