Listen for their rules

One CEO I worked with started out selling t-shirts in school. He is now extraordinarily successful and a truly wonderful human being. He is also remarkably easy to understand, because he says his rules out loud.

And his rules aren't unique to him. While very successful CEOs don't all have the exact same rules, I have worked with a number of very successful CEOs who operate from a similar internal playbook: "I'm just a salesman," said with pride. "I love making money." "I go where the money is." "I do what's easy." And, without contradiction: "I treat others the way I would want to be treated."

When a person says a rule out loud, understanding that person becomes more straightforward. That part of their internal operating system is visible to anyone who listens to understand.

The rules beneath the behavior

Most of us spend a lot of time trying to decode other people. We study communication styles, parse feedback, we may even read assessments. Those tools help. But one of the fastest ways to understand what makes someone tick is to listen for the rules they live by: the often unexamined beliefs that shape their decisions, reactions, and priorities.

Some people say their rules out loud, like the CEO above. Others wouldn't be able to name a single rule if you asked them directly. But the rules are still there, embedded in how they spend their time, what they praise, what they avoid, and what they do when they are under pressure.

A leader who believes "if I'm not involved, it won't be done right" will centralize decisions, no matter how many times they say they want to delegate. A leader who believes "conflict means something is wrong" will smooth over disagreements that the enterprise actually needs to work through. A leader who believes "the hardest worker wins" will reward effort over judgment and wonder why the team burns out.

Coaching someone effectively is easier when you understand the rules they are following and how these play out. Leading effectively is easier when you understand your own and how they drive results.

Hearing my own rules

Listening to that CEO's rules caused me to take a closer look at my own. One of mine was particularly loud: "If it's not challenging, it's not worth doing."

That rule had served me. It had pushed me to take on hard things, to keep learning, to avoid complacency. But it had also cost me. It made me suspicious of ease. It made me believe that value had to arrive through struggle. It made the straightforward path feel somehow less legitimate than the difficult one.

At this stage, I have modified that rule. It now reads: "It doesn't have to be hard to be worth it."

And I added another: "Whenever possible, I do what, for me, is easy, fun, and most rewarding."

The shift isn't about avoiding difficulty. It is about no longer requiring difficulty as proof of value. Some of the most important work I do now isn't hard in the way my old rule demanded. It is clear, it is natural, and it is the work I am built to do.

The question worth sitting with

If you want to know what motivates someone, don't just watch what they do. Listen for what they believe they must do. For you personally, the rules most worth listening for and examining are the ones written early, for a different enterprise, by a younger version of yourself.

The question worth sitting with: What is a rule you are living by that may not be serving you well, and what will you change it to?