Why Top Performers Stop Faking It and Start Doing the Work Only They Can Do

The illusion of professionalism can be a costly distraction. In many workplaces, the most visible acts of 'business'—think endless meetings, polished PowerPoints, or stiff dress codes—are actually defenses against deeper uncertainty. Real productivity rarely looks impressive from the outside. A founder once spent days coding in nothing but a towel, while the office was a mess; yet nobody on the team doubted his focus. When outside visitors arrived, they’d scramble to tidy up, desperate to appear official, and for a moment everyone felt like impostors. Meanwhile, the breakthroughs—the real leaps forward—happened off-script, in the odd hours and the rough drafts.

There’s a kind of energy drain in worrying about image before substance. Trying to “seem” productive siphons energy that could be spent on real improvements. This isn’t just a startup problem: corporations also get trapped, mistaking the trappings of innovation for the real thing. But the people and teams who create real change are relentlessly focused on the underlying problems. They're the ones who test, tinker, and embrace messy progress. When they need to impress, they do it by delivering results, not by looking the part.

Behavioral science calls this “impression management” and warns that it can sap intrinsic motivation. When you structure your work-life to optimize for external approval, innovation naturally dies. The secret of the fastest teams? They stop faking and start shipping. Only by letting go of surface-level measures of success can you get to the deep, rewarding work that actually moves the needle.

Here’s how you make real progress: Start by noticing the little ways you try to look good rather than be good—the extra hour formatting slides, the meeting about the meeting, or the reluctance to show unpolished ideas. Consciously carve out time for real, meaningful work: jump into testing, building, writing, or exploring messy concepts, even if it means things aren’t neat or finished yet. Instead of hiding your rough drafts, bring them to the group and watch the quality of discussion, creativity, and honest feedback soar. You’ll discover that when you stop trying to perform and focus on substance, the results—and your satisfaction—go way up. Give it a shot this week.