Hard Work Wins!
By: Rod Lacey, Sunstone HR
I have always
been convinced that hard work wins.
I believe that each of us falls short of perfection, even in our areas of
specialty, but generally speaking, he who works the hardest tends to come out
ahead. It's the will, not the skill.
Having had
accountabilities for large employee bases throughout my career, I’ve had countless
discussions with company leaders about talent. Without exception, effort and
energy (aka ‘hard work’) is a critical point of differentiation between ‘champs’
and ‘chumps’. Even if there’s a gap in an employee’s current performance,
having a reputation as a hard worker seems to magically fill that void.
WHAT ABOUT THOSE THAT ARE GIFTED?
Given the
choice to be regarded as ‘gifted’ or a ‘hard worker’, my preference would be
known as the latter. That may be because I’m not a natural, or gifted at much
and have had to work hard for everything I’ve achieved. It may also be because
that’s the example my father set for me. Whatever it is, I’ve always pushed to
be regarded as a hard worker.
Stephen King
once said “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented
individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
Irish MMA
fighter Conner McGregor offered “There’s no talent here, this is hard work.
This is an obsession. Talent does not exist, we are all equals as human beings.
You could be anyone if you put in the time. You will reach the top, and that’s
that. I am not talented, I am obsessed.”
Angela
Duckworth recently published “Grit. The
Power of Passion and Perseverance” and reported on what it took to succeed
in extremely demanding environments, such as West Point Military Academy’s “Beast”.
With all of the gifted and talented individuals making it through multiple
hurdles to be admitted to West Point, one-in-five were not graduating from West
Point, and a high percentage of those were not making it through the initial
Beast training. She concluded “the highly successful had a kind of
ferocious determination that played out in two ways. First, these exemplars
were unusually resilient and hardworking. Second, they knew in a very, very
deep way what it was they wanted. The not only had determination, they had
direction.”
WHAT ABOUT INTELLIGENCE?
I knew a CEO
that was (and still is) convinced that intellect was the number one predictor
of success. This company implemented the use of the Wonderlic test, a short IQ
test, as a screening tool for all hires. (The NFL uses this same assessment on
its incoming players.)
I have always
felt that intellect was important, but that it could not be directly correlated
to an individual’s success. There is no guarantee, for example, that your high
school valedictorian will be the single most successful classmate of yours. In
fact, at times, it is quite the opposite. High intelligence can, in some
circumstances, limit an individual’s opportunities for success.
On intellect, Charles
Darwin once said “For I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men did not differ
much in intellect, only zeal and hard work; and I still think that is an eminently
important difference.”
LEADERSHIP AND HARD WORK
As a leader, you can only
expect your team to work as hard as you do. The pace you set is the pace by
which your team will operate. It is also important to understand that your team
will act on not just your real work effort, but also their perceptions of your
work.
Perceptions can be formed by
arrival and departure times or even the frequency of work from home. For
example, your team may see you leave the office promptly at 5:30 daily, not
recognizing that you work for 2+ hours on your laptop nightly. The ‘hard work’
credit you will receive as a leader will be equal to what is observed by the
team.
Don’t play games with
perceptions, though, as they will backfire. I once knew a manager who wrote
emails and then programmed them to send at all hours of the night, while he was
comfortably sleeping. The original impression was “Wow! This guy is committed!”
but that quickly changed to “What a joke!” The ‘what a joke’ perception had far
more lasting effect that the initial impression of the all-night-work-a-holic.
In fact, the email game ultimately became his brand.
Robin S. Sharma shared “Hard
work opens doors and shows the world that you are serious about being one of
those rare - and special - human beings who use the fullness of their talents
to do their very best.”
There are great opportunities
to inspire your team to work hard. Take the least favorite assignment, on
occasion. Bring-in dinner and work beside the team during a late-night project.
Let your team see you sweat, smile, and ask how you can help them.
DON’T
HOLD BACK. WORK HARD TODAY
In the holiday classic Christmas Vacation, we learn that Cousin
Eddie has been unemployed for many years because “He’s holding out for management.”
Whatever role we find ourselves in, the best way to earn the next opportunity
is hard work today.
I once had a
strong management trainee program that had a consistent record of moving these
new college graduates into next-level positions within an average of 18 months.
As we recruited these new hires, we often shared that average promotion timeline
as part of our pitch. There were unfortunately a few occasions where these new
hires didn’t perform to expectations in their ‘trainee role.’ Each of them
ended up leaving the company, either by their choice or ours.
In exit
interviews with many of them they reported that they had held back some of
their effort, waiting to give full effort for their ‘next’ position. They
failed to realize that the 18-month average promotion rate had been earned by
those applying themselves to that role, working hard and ultimately succeeding.
Your efforts in today’s tasks dictates where your tomorrow begins. The
best way to ensure tomorrow’s successes is the work you perform today.
Martin Luther
King Jr. once said “If a man is called a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as
Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and Earth will
pause to say, Here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.”
TEACHING CHILDREN TO WORK
Now I hesitate
to venture here because I am not a perfect parent, but I am convinced that a
child must learn to work. In today’s society, many children are handed
everything, which will create challenges when they must be independent and
support themselves.
My children
played various sports growing up and we encouraged them to participate in
whatever activities they chose, but did not push them into any particular
sport. My children knew me as a supportive, sometimes loud, sideline parent.
The only time that I expressed frustration to my children was when I could tell
they weren’t giving the game everything that they had to offer. I didn’t care
if they won or lost, just that they did their best. That was fully within their
control, each and every practice, each and every game.
Since we’re on sports, Derek Jeter once said “There
may be people that have more talent than you, there’s no excuse for anyone to
work harder than you.”
CONCLUSION
I was raised
learning the value of hard work. For most of my growing-up years my family had
farm land, horses and cows. Although my father did most of the work, we had
cores and learned to get our hands dirty, dig holes, wake up early and do work.
To this day I build my own fences, finish my own basements and keep an
immaculate yard and garden. There is something absolutely fulfilling about
breaking a sweat, completing a project and seeing the fruits of your labors.
Thomas
Jefferson once said “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the
harder I work, the more I have of it.”
Remember, when choosing how to approach your day - Hard Work Wins!
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