Hard Work Or Smart Work

When I was in school I did a course in Business Management – On the first day, our lecturer asked us a question, a question which had a lasting impact on me. I actually did not understand the intensity or the impact it would have on me at that time. The question was:

In your business, should you work hard or work smart ?

Majority of the class, including me, said ‘Work Hard’.

Hard word is revered by all, isn’t it ? So we should be working hard to get ahead in life. Hard Work has to be the solution for all our business problems. And so we thought….

There were a few students who chose not to answer and there was only one student who said ‘Smart Work’ was the answer. And today, this student is doing very well in his own business (no wonder !!!!).

Our lecturer corrected us and said ‘Smart Work’ was the key to success and not the other way round. I nodded my head and accepted ‘Smart Work’ as the answer but obviously the answer did not register – because if it did, I would not have made the mistakes I have made.

In my first business, I worked very hard. Financially I did reasonably well but definitely not an adequate compensation for the amount of hours I was putting in. I was so deep into getting things done, moving from one project to another, I did not even have time for reflection. It was only when I took break from that business, I realized how very wrong I was to the question our lecturer posed to us almost 17 years ago. I realized that for business growth the key element is ‘Smart Work’ – had I worked smartly and put proper systems in place, I could have grown faster.

I don’t have any regrets though – My first business supported me at that time and today I have the pleasure of learning from the mistakes I made then and avoid them in my second business.

One other thing I have also learned that Smart Work alone is not enough – especially in today’s day and age. Most business owners have access to wide variety of information, most of them are very motivated – and so Smart Work alone will not get us to the finishing line (whatever that might be). We need to Work Hard too. Whoever implements and converts all the available information into business revenue sources, will grow their business faster than those that don’t – And this is where hard work comes into play.

We need to take that extra step, walk that extra mile and climb that extra step.

A combination of Hard Work and Smart Work is the key. We should all have a plan, a vision and a mission for our business. And then we need to sit down and draw up a strategic path for getting there. Once that is done, we need to put in the hard yards to get to our vision. Along the way, we might have to tweak our path here and there to best suit the circumstances.

It is important to not just work work work – we need to, at regular intervals monitor where we are, how we are going and how far we are from the end result. The goal is to get to the end result, in the quickest amount of time – and this is where the Smart Work comes into play.

Smart Work for me is basically ways in which I can improve my processes, increase my revenue, grow my business – all with lesser work than what it would take if i were doing just hard work without any smart work. If there is a smarter way of doing something than pick that method rather than the harder way.

Work, Improve, Work is my slogan – you work hard, you analyze how you are doing and make changes to improve and then work some more.

Do you agree that we need both smart and hard work or do you have a different opinion ? Share with us what you think ?

Best,