April 2, 2001 Working Hard vs. Hard Work

Everybody sure seems to be working hard these days. With the economy downshifting a gear or two, the expected 20% plus growth rates to which we have become accustomed are not occurring so easily. Therefore, everyone is being forced to work a little harder. Work an extra hour today to contact a couple more customers, take care of a couple of more billing issues, get one more product out the door or whatever - that seems to be the trend. Funny thing is, most people seemed to think they were working pretty hard before!

In our ongoing work with managers and teams, we have begun to observe an interesting dilemma. It is obvious they are working hard, but when we ask them to probe whether or not they are doing the "hard work," a different picture emerges. In fact, many times they tell us, they are actually not doing the hard stuff; they are taking the easy way out. So what exactly is the hard work, that many seem to be avoiding.

It is things like:

• directly confronting another about an important issue when there is a disagreement
   
• providing honest and candid feedback about another's performance (direct reports and peers), especially when it is not up to standards
   
• pushing against the conventional wisdom of an organization
   
• pursuing an action that you believe is right, but your boss may not support
   
• tabling important issues in the meeting - not in the hallway after the meeting
   
• speaking up, opposed to conspiring in silence
   
• trying again after a set-back
   

You may want to reflect on and discuss with your people, how frequently you really do the hard work instead of avoiding or working around it. You will always have to work harder to produce desired results, if you are not working on the right things. Be sure you aren't seducing yourself into thinking that you are doing the hard work, when in fact, you are not.