Hard work is a good thing. My mistake was making it the most important thing. Often, instead of solving important problems and creating value for customers, I delivered very long and lifeless lists of completed tasks.
Early in my career at Microsoft, I did some silly stuff in the name of hard work:
- Competed with my boss to be the first (out of hundreds) car into the parking lot each day
- Frequently worked past 1:00 AM, got up by 5:30 AM to do it again, and boasted to co-workers about how little sleep I needed (Full disclosure: I still pull these nights when I need to for clients, but it's the exception vs. the rule)
Don't think hard work can be a mistake? Here are two other business leaders' takes:
1. In his new book Linchpin, Seth Godin describes what used to matter at work vs. what matters now:
- The old American Dream: Keep your head down, Follow instructions, Show up on time, Work hard, Suck it up
- The new American Dream: Be remarkable, Be generous, Create art, Make judgment calls, Connect people and ideas
2. David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails and partner at 37signals, shared the following (and much more) about start-up business success for Stanford's Entrepreneurial Thought Leadership series:
- It's a myth that you have to work long hours to start a business. Hansson and a couple of designers developed Basecamp (37signals flagship app) by spending 10 hours a week for 6 months while in school. "None of this 80 hours a week bullshit."
- If you boast about getting 4 hours of sleep, you might as well boast about how bad your work is going to suck the next day.
Hard work is a good thing, but not the best thing. I've become happier and more effective since realizing this.
Great point. The quality of our work the next day usually always suffers when we try to be the late night hero. Loving Linchpin, too. A bit redundant, but great content.
Posted by: Jeremy Carter | 02/01/2010 at 08:24 PM
Thanks Jeremy! We'll have to compare notes when we're both done with Linchpin. I'm half-way through, and so far it seems to read more like a collection of blog posts than a book, which makes it harder for me to retain everything.
Posted by: Kevin Mackey | 02/01/2010 at 09:38 PM