Purpose-Driven Work
A mere three years ago, the buzzword among most employees was “work-life balance.” Typically this meant walking that tightrope between being dubbed a workaholic on one extreme and a slacker on the other. The Great Recession sure tempered that talk. Today, with 9 percent of the U.S. population unemployed, and millions more under-employed, no longer eligible for unemployment benefits, or no longer seeking jobs, there’s a significant percentage of our adult population who find it hard to listen to someone with a job complaining about work-life balance.
Why is it that some people find their work invigorating and fulfilling while others in the same work place find it exhausting and a chore? Is it because superior performers work harder, longer hours and, therefore, are exhausted at the end of the week? The answer might surprise you. My 29-years experience in attracting, developing, motivating and leading high-performing professionals plus a file cabinet full of research into employee satisfaction points to one thing: the most-satisfied employees happen to be the highest performers despite the fact they assume greater responsibility for the success of the organization and work longer hours. Employees who openly complain about work-life balance actually work fewer hours, shoulder less responsibility and are slower to advance within their organizations.
So the question comes down to this: Are high-achieving employees harder workers or does harder work lead to higher achievement? The proverbial chicken and the egg dilemma. The answer is…“yes!” High achievers work harder and hard workers are high achievers. For many American workers, hard work is defined by the number of hours someone puts into their job. For anyone working an hourly wage, overtime is the typical line of demarcating “long hours.” For high achievers, a 50-hour+ week may qualify for overtime pay, but it is typically seen as “just another day at the office.”
However, working longer hours is only part of the definition of hard work. Another part is how much value you pack into your day. Value is the sum of the quality and quantity of one’s contribution to achieving the organization’s goals. Very simply, those who work the hardest achieve the most-est. When asked the secret to their success, well-known high-achievers in business, entertainment, politics and other walks of life boiled it down to one very simple answer: They don’t work hard; they work really…really…really hard.
During our grade school years, we all knew friends and classmates who were considered gifted and talented. Today, school districts offer advanced-placement classes and special recognition to challenge and reward those gifted and talented kids who would otherwise be academically unchallenged and bored sitting in a class that is beneath their learning abilities. Business offers the same for high-performing employees. Achievement addicts are challenged with increased responsibilities and rewarded with promotions that include greater authority, premium compensation and highly desired job titles. That’s a meritocracy. Despite working harder than others, which includes both longer hours and higher-value contributions, superior achievers combine the professional challenge, increased responsibility, team accomplishment and personal recognition to achieve – in their opinion – a healthy work-life balance and, ultimately, a highly satisfying life.
Despite a slow-recovering economy and a sour job market, professionals who dread getting out of bed to go to work, who can’t wait for the weekend to arrive even though it’s only Tuesday, and who can’t find peace with their work-life balance, need to do themselves and others a big favor: Get out and get on with finding your passion in life. As the age-old saying goes, “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.”
I love this essay on the importance of effort. Harold Geneen, of ITT fame, was aked if a forty-hour work week should be enough for a company to expect of an employee. He responded by explaining if he were given a choice between two equally gifted candidates for a job he would choose the one who had worked sixty-hour weeks vs. the one spending only forty per week on the job. The former would have fifteen year’s of experience whereas the later on ten.
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Great post Doug. As a full-time “worker,” mom of three grade-school kids, and participant in several “outside work” activities that I’m also passionate about, I have to say the whole concept of work-life balance needs a makeover. It’s really work-life integration, which you start to allude to here. The lines between all aspects of life are so blurry that they really don’t exist. Once more employers and employees embrace this definition, I think we’ll see a lot more satisfaction, fulfillment and productivity across the board.
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Amen, brother. WORK is not a four-letter word if you love what you’re doing.
People will always work to their level of motivation; whether it comes from within or without. The more that motivation is within, the happier that person will be to work very, very, very hard. Work-life balance is determined by one’s goals. If the goal is for everyone to win, win, win, work and life will balance. If the goal is to achieve the top of your profession…..life will suffer.
To me, work-life balance is something very different than finding middle ground between being a workaholic or a slacker. It’s about finding fulfillment in all areas of life – both work and personal. The result of that is a high achiever’s dream: contributing to an organization AND meeting personal commitments.
It’s not about working harder or longer. It’s about working smarter, staying focused and motivated, and, yes, even loving what you do. Work cultures that understand this and provide a healthy work-life balance attract – and keep – top talent. And that’s good for clients and the bottom line.