Catarina Fake on why working hard, while a popular business dogma, is misguided:
Much more important than working hard is knowing how to find the right thing to work on. Paying attention to what is going on in the world. Seeing patterns. Seeing things as they are rather than how you want them to be. Being able to read what people want. Putting yourself in the right place where information is flowing freely and interesting new juxtapositions can be seen. But you can save yourself a lot of time by working on the right thing. Working hard, even, if that’s what you like to do.
It’s easily to paraphrase this insight as another way of saying “work smart.” But nonetheless, pay attention to the nuances: working hard, for a lot of people, often means freaking out. It means reacting, fearing a negative outcome, or rushing to do things because you suddenly realize you’re behind. Working smart simply means you’re approaching a task with some degree of premeditation and productive design.
The point Fake is trying to make is that you can work hard on something — expend a great deal of energy — and you can work smart — approach a problem intelligently — but neither of these two B-school dictums guarantee you’re working on the correct thing or parsing business reality correctly. I could be working until 3 AM using my best GTD tricks on figuring out the best banner for our blog, but it doesn’t mean that’s the problem I should be concentrating on when I have an entire marketing organization to run.
So yeah, good advice. A hair worth splitting, in my experience.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Really good blog post i must take note of this and start working a little smarter its always being mentioned to work smart, Some many others like myself always preferred to work hard but it gets me no more or less money as time goes by.
Time to put the thinking cap on and get a little smarter.
Thanks Sabrina. Glad you enjoyed it!
Wow. Great post Jeff!
As I spent countless hours this past week – and so far this morning (Saturday – yuck) – running ragged trying to figure out some things that were blowing up. I wasted so much time trying to figure out what was wrong, that I never really accomplished anything. During “normal” work days, I find myself actively fighting the American dogma of “if I work more hours than the next guy, I get ahead”. My spin on this is the whole work/life balance. Your family, your friends and yes, yourself, are all more important (in most cases) than working more hours. Accomplishing what you personally value in life is where your time should be spent. For some, that is “work”, for me, I’m still searching for that happy place where I can give it my all and make a difference for the company, the solution, my family, myself…all at the same time, with the same effort.
I felt that way for the first time in a long time, when I took a couple hours out of my crazy day to get on a conference call and help a complete stranger get a project back on track. The kind words of appreciation in the room were payment enough.