My boss came to a realization last night. He was taking a class—some sort of class that requires you to think about your life and your philosophy when it comes to business. He seems to take a lot of these classes, but for the first tim, I think this one class is telling him something the others aren’t:
You don’t have to overwork yourself to death to be successful.
At our meeting this morning, he shared his discovery with us. He said that he realized that when he was young, he created the idea that he was stupid, or less intelligent that other people doing the same thing, so he worked harder. At least he had that—he could work harder than anyone in his classes when he was younger. This carried on into later in his life, and for a long time it paid off. He saved more than one organization from complete failure and turned them into something excellent. But this model of behavior isn’t working for him anymore. He works harder and harder, takes on more and more responsibility, more programs, and nothing gets done. He’s upset at his body for having to sleep because there’s more things he could be doing.
We talked about how it’s easy to get frustrated with our jobs, because the way we work causes it to be a major part of our lives, affecting everything we do. When personal responsibilities are neglected, we resent our jobs.
It was an interesting discussion, and I never thought I’d hear him say some of those things.
Wow…that’s great. With any luck, it’ll have a real effect on the way you guys work. I’ve always felt that overworking oneself really doesn’t help, because while you may produce more, the quality is half as good, and therefore it’s not worthwhile. I’m glad to hear that he’s come to this realization.
so, does this mean he’s going to stop making you work a billion hours without appropriate compensation? Or does this new philosophy apply only to himself?
yikes! Need some space in there….