If You're Always Working, You're Never Working Well 135
An anonymous reader writes: Hard work is almost an axiom in the U.S. — office culture continually rewards people who are at their desks early and stay late, regardless of actual performance. Over the past decade, it's encroached even further into workers' private lives with the advent of smartphones. An article at the Harvard Business Review takes issue with the idea that more work is always better: "When we accept this new and permanent ambient workload — checking business news in bed or responding to coworkers' emails during breakfast — we may believe that we are dedicated, tireless workers. But, actually, we're mostly just getting the small, easy things done. Being busy does not equate to being effective. ... And let's not forget about ambient play, which often distracts us from accomplishing our most important tasks. Facebook and Twitter report that their sites are most active during office hours. After all, the employee who's required to respond to her boss on Sunday morning will think nothing of responding to friends on Wednesday afternoon. And research shows (PDF) that these digital derailments are costly: it's not only the minutes lost responding to a tweet but also the time and energy required to 'reenter' the original task." How do we shift business culture to reward effective work more than the appearance of work?
If you *lourve* your job ... (Score:4, Insightful)
All TFA talks about is the hours of working, but there are more aspect of work than mere number of hours
If one really enjoys the work one will not treat the work as _work_, but rather something that is FUN - - EXCITING - - REJUVENATING
I have been in the tech field for decades and I keep seeing people who take the task they are assigned with as challenges that they want to overcome getting the job done faster, with more zeal, and produce much better code than those who take whatever they are being tasked with as "burden"
It's not the hour that you put in, it's the fun-quotient that will ultimately determine whether you will excel in the job you are in, or otherwise
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and the long hours lead to more errors.
names are removed
I have proof I know this one programer who says at times he needs to put in long days at X that makes X. And I have been finding lot's of small bugs / things that are not working right / don't work they way they should in mode Y.
The thing is I'm not in QA or even work at X but this what you get with long hours more errors.
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But it's not. An exhausting activity doesn't become any less exhausting just because you enjoy it. You need downtime for maintenance, no matter how much you might not want it.
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But how to design an organization that can coordinate itself without hierarchy, especially given that it's made of humans used to playing games of master and servant rather than cooperating for common goals? Now that is the trillion-dollar question.
shotguns and anal sodomy. not necessarily in that order.
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Hierarchy has been the primary source of inefficiency everywhere I've ever worked. But how to design an organization that can coordinate itself without hierarchy, especially given that it's made of humans used to playing games of master and servant rather than cooperating for common goals?
Create a common goal, for starters. The rest will fall into place.
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One day per week? My company gives us two days.
partly as a result, work culture is also haphazard (Score:5, Informative)
One of the bigger cultural differences I've found working in both the U.S. and Scandinavia is that American meetings are long, unpredictably scheduled, and really disorganized. A 10am meeting might really get down to business by 10:15 if you're lucky, maybe 10:30, and probably won't end on time at 11:00am. Nobody will have distributed any material to consult ahead of time, or even a proper meeting agenda for that matter, and as a result people don't come particularly prepared, and a ton of time is wasted. Since there is no real agenda, who needs to be at the meeting also hasn't been very carefully decided, so a bunch of people are just in case, and they spend half the time on Facebook or email while irrelevant parts of the meeting happen. The assumption seems to just be that just half-assing the whole thing is the best way to go...
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>The assumption seems to just be that just half-assing the whole thing is the best way to go...
But that is the American way! It is the spirit of America!
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One of the bigger cultural differences I've found working in both the U.S. and Scandinavia is that American meetings are long, unpredictably scheduled, and really disorganized.
They're also intentionally made that way. Therefore, nobody is really accountable and nobody really has to do anything about whatever problem is discussed, and they can all blame it on the "didn't quite get what was supposed to be done" thing.
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partly as a result, work culture is also haphazard (Score:5, Interesting)
As it happens, Americans are too nice about their own time. If a meeting is more than 5 minutes overdue Scandinavians (and Germans) will brusquely get up and leave. Americans sit around and chew the fat waiting for somebody else to make the move.
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Re:partly as a result, work culture is also haphaz (Score:5, Insightful)
One quite pathetic situation/problem in large organisations is that people can be seen to be more effective the more "face time" you have with them. Thus some long meetings exist for the sole purpose of spending time with the people with the power to promote. Apparently it then snowballs into the "company culture".
Since I'm now in a small enough place that everyone has no choice other than spending time with everyone else I can avoid that stupidity but I still see it on occasion when the company I work for takes jobs from some large multi-nationals - I get to see a little window into full-on Dilbert territory. Things like meetings where eight people from the other company turn up but only two speak, who get left floundering with no backup when out of their depth despite all the others there.
Re:partly as a result, work culture is also haphaz (Score:4, Interesting)
You forgot to mention that no one takes meeting minutes or notes. Thus any decisions made are lost two steps out the door. Which in turn requires future follow up meetings to re-decide/debate the same issues. I've seen heated discussions over issues that were already resolved in a prior meeting.
Re:partly as a result, work culture is also haphaz (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people use this to advantage to deliberately re-fight the same debate that they lost last time.
That's one reason minutes, with clearly marked decisions and actions are so important.
Re:partly as a result, work culture is also haphaz (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people use this to advantage to deliberately re-fight the same debate that they lost last time.
Pro-tip: The best way to win, is to hold another meeting to rehash the issues, and don't invite the people that disagreed with you last time.
Re:partly as a result, work culture is also haphaz (Score:5, Interesting)
That's because here in Sweden at least, we learned from childhood to work in groups, including presentations etc, though that has changed a lot now that we've adopted more international methods. Aka, downgraded our education...
For example, when I was a kid, we had student councils in school, from age 10, where each class has 1 or 2 representatives, who then report to the rest of the class at the weekly class meetings etc. It was also a good way to teach students about democracy.
As for the difference between US and nordic culture in regards to meetings, time keeping etc, I do notice that a lot in my freelancing. US clients are more likely to call at completely idiotic times(like calling at 19:00 their local time, meaning it's middle of the night/really early morning for me), and as you say, less coordinated with materials at meetings etc.
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Working like that only leads to health problems(both bodily and mentally), and only helps to foster a retarded culture.
It also leads to more errors and lower quality. And the quality of your work matters more.
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Heh, slave to the rythm.... (Score:2)
I work with clients in /several/ countries besides the USA (e.g. Japan, The Netherlands, UK). Call? They can email me. And if it's urgent, they should've emailed me earlier. Of course there are exceptions, but those are extremely rare, because I make clear that the preferred way to reach me is email, and that I don't want to use Skype (or similar). And it really works. I can't be standby 24/7 because that would affect my work, and so far there hasn't been any need for this.
With one project they hired a new
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Yeah, I have clients worldwide too, comes with being a specialist. And yes, I do prefer email. However, sometimes calls are preferable, such as conference calls. But I make a point of having everyone be on time, if someone is late, I start the meeting without them. I also keep a detailed plan for the meeting, and strict minutes of it.
The worst thing is when you work with other software developers who don't keep track of such things, or even deliberately try to sabotage such things. There's an idiotic macho
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really? You suggested a noob edit a file in vi? At least point the poor shmuck to nano or something else a mortal can use.
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For example, when I was a kid, we had student councils in school, from age 10, where each class has 1 or 2 representatives, who then report to the rest of the class at the weekly class meetings etc. It was also a good way to teach students about democracy.
I recall this from my elementary school (in America) -- it was structured precisely the same way. We had lots of group work and campus clubs, student senate in middle school and high school, things like mock trial, model UN, and speech and debate where you would learn Robert's Rules of Order, things like boyscouts and Boys and Girls of America to teach leadership skills, etc. And any kind of camp for sports or band would focus on teambuilding. Americans are actually very well-trained on how to work tog
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That's because here in Sweden at least, we learned from childhood to work in groups, including presentations etc, though that has changed a lot now that we've adopted more international methods. Aka, downgraded our education...
For example, when I was a kid, we had student councils in school, from age 10, where each class has 1 or 2 representatives, who then report to the rest of the class at the weekly class meetings etc. It was also a good way to teach students about democracy.
As for the difference between US and nordic culture in regards to meetings, time keeping etc, I do notice that a lot in my freelancing. US clients are more likely to call at completely idiotic times(like calling at 19:00 their local time, meaning it's middle of the night/really early morning for me), and as you say, less coordinated with materials at meetings etc.
The US has 30 times the population of Sweden, so please don't assume that all Americans are the same in terms of education or courtesy.
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That is why it's called "management" and not "solving", "empowering" or "understanding".
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Not "partly as a result". The things you mention are cultural issues, and problems, but not related to electronic enablement of 24x7 work.
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He didn't say that, but either way you'd have to scale any accomplishments by population at least if you really want to compare.
Bizarro world? (Score:2)
How did you get here from Bizarro US?
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Re:Bizarro world? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Australians are generally lazy but get a reputation for being hard workers overseas due to the way we deal with it. The idea is to get into the work as quickly as possibly so we can get it done and bugger off home early :)
I prefer to arrive late and leave early to make up for it.
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The common perception may be that US workers are lazy, and get too much vacation
Are you certain you're not thinking of pretty much any EU country? I believe six weeks' vacation is the standard over there. US, it's two weeks if you're lucky, and its not entirely uncommon to get no vacation at all (aside from major holidays) the first year of employment.
It's a generally accepted fact that the U.S. has the most stringent hours, fewest vacations, and highest stress of any first world country. (except for perhaps, China)
But if you start rewarding efficient work... (Score:4, Insightful)
... what will happen to those incapable of efficient work? :)
At least this way they can do unpaid overtime and convince their boss - who's also incapable of efficient work - that they're useful...
No thought required (Score:5, Interesting)
I find in most business cultures I've had contact with that actually spending time to think about a problem is actively discouraged. Problems get bounced from one person to the next, and the actual work performed by any one person on something is so limited that often no-one understands the full problem. The always connected culture described in the article is part of the problem, but more fundamentally it is that there is such the constant stream of email with so little thought put into it
Re:No thought required (Score:5, Insightful)
It's apparently far cheaper to just muddle along with a problem for years and years and years. Or at least until the company tanks.
In turn, this culture is a motivation killer, as initially ambitious employees will have their proposals shot down again and again, and so they either leave or just shrug their shoulders resignedly and Facebook all day, just keeping the illusion of productivity alive.
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Or the people who constantly point out the problem leave the company in frustration. No more complaints... no more problem. It'll be a while before the replacement hires (if there actually are any) re-discover the problem and begin complaining about it.
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This thread describes perfectly my day to day life.
Im the one that solves the problems that bounce from person to person.
My way of working (solving the general problem) is frowned upon.
They keep me because I fix things they don't understand.
My motivation has been killed by years of proposals being carefully written and filed, then completely Ignored.
I'm on year 6 of this hell.
Right now I hold a -$18 bank account balance.
Please help me escape this, its killing me, and its killing my soul.
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I've seen this a lot with venture-capital startups -- apparently the idea is not to accomplish the goal, but rather to spend all the venture capital, make a few headlines, then sell the "growing" company to the highest bidder. Competence or actually getting work done doesn't seem to be part of the equation.
Effective vs. Efficient (Score:2, Interesting)
The appearance of being busy (Score:5, Insightful)
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That works, and works very well in general, but like anything it can be pushed too far. Where I work there's a growing realization that the people putting in ridiculous overtime are doing so because they are in fact hopelessly ineffective at their jobs, so their 70 or 80 hours a week is really the equivalent of 10 or 15 hours work from someone actually qualified. Now everyone working late is under scrutiny.
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That works, and works very well in general, but like anything it can be pushed too far. Where I work there's a growing realization that the people putting in ridiculous overtime are doing so because they are in fact hopelessly ineffective at their jobs, so their 70 or 80 hours a week is really the equivalent of 10 or 15 hours work from someone actually qualified. Now everyone working late is under scrutiny.
Yup, a year or so back when my department had to lay a few people off the ones who went were those who had been always working longer hours yet repeatedly blowing deadlines. For some it wasn't clear if they were merely incompetent or if they were trying to milk the jobs and doing so incompetently.
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I take exception to your generality.
That's some people at one workplace, not a generality.
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Well, sometimes you just have slow periods, where there simply isn't that much work that needs to be done. Since you're still expected to show up and put in your hours (while also still expected to put in extra hours during busy times) you've got to find something to fill your time with. In most places obviously goofing off for extended periods of time is not acceptable, so you've got to find something to do that makes it look like you're working.
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American workers were much better post-WWII (Score:1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]
Would you hire Bob?
Academics (Score:2)
How do we shift business culture to reward effective work more than the appearance of work?
In the academic world, stop the "publish or perish" mentality.
up or out rules need to go (Score:2)
up or out rules need to go as they lead to that as well.
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Which is why my ringer is off (Score:2)
What's in your contract? (Score:1)
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Dealing with the work paperwork is billable time. I use this as leverage to discourage complex, Gant chart based approaches to micromanagement.
Very true (Score:1)
Business Culture (Score:2)
How do we shift business culture to reward effective work more than the appearance of work?
Promote managers who have a clue?
yep (Score:2)
its your fault, not the endless meetings to discuss what your not working on while in the meeting
Yeah, that's the problem ... (Score:2)
Counter-productive American work culture (Score:4, Interesting)
From working from Europe in a global organization a few years ago, it was interesting to see how American colleagues always seem to be projecting the importance of their work and their persona, with an always-on mindset. And it was interesting how emails got answered in the late evening US time zones, with replies that were clearly in the style of "I want you to know that I read your email and am working in the evening", but with no real effort behind the response. And with silly emails like "going away with family on vacation for two days, so I will be reading email less frequently" - dude, why are you checking your emails on a vacation.
Furthermore, US colleagues often seemed obsessed about strengthen their own work position, paranoid about any initiative which may reduce their importance, and generally working relations and politics to make themselves as hard-to-fire as possible. Some people clearly playing their own agenda not really caring about what is right for the company. And creating as little transparency as possible about information they own, making it hard to objectively assess their performance, or replace them with someone else. The kind of person who will do what they are asked, and little else.
In Scandinavia, my experience is we tend to focus on getting sh%# done, and nobody really cares when you do it. In most work environments people are not expected to be always-on, and we embrace the idea that it is good for people to be able to take some weeks vacation once in a while. Plus with public welfare systems - yes, the dreaded "socialism" - you don't have to be overly paranoid about the consequences of losing your job.
One of the most effective tools I have had in terms of time management, is that whenever someone has asked me something with a questionable or unreasonable timeline, I have questioned the time frame and discussed what are actual requirements - and usually there is no problem shifting the timeline to something reasonable. Just because someone asks, that does not mean you have to say yes. There is nothing worse than under-delivering. It is better both for yourself, and for whomever is asking, to push back and find something that works - and then deliver a quality end product. Or some times reducing the scope - someone asks for a big presentation, which you know they may end up changing everything - and you agree on instead making a rough draft and storyline. So you just saved yourself a ton of work, and all it took was 2 minutes of intelligent discussion.
As for changing the culture, I'd say just take a position regarding how and when you plan to work, and let your colleague and peers know. Or at least discuss what is the expectation in terms of work commitments. So they will not be expecting an always-on mindset. In the end, if you keep delivering your stuff, I would think that is what matters.
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Tthe answer to unemployment (Score:2)
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Re:What's Changed (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole nation of the former 'German Democratic Republic' (east Germany, wtf, don't even know how they are called in english, shame on me) was based on this principle.
When you worked you had to fulfill a plan. A pre planned amount of workpieces had to be crafted e.g.
If you could manage to craft so many, you where payed a normal wage, if you crafted more you where 'over plan' and got extra bonuses.
Every year (or every 5) the heads of state responsible for the economy planned a new 5 years ahead plan, including the most mundane parts like simple screws: oh, and we will need 3million metal screws with diameter 3mm.
And every year inspectors would visit factories and 'measure' how quick the average factory worker could do his 'piece of work'.
All the workers looked really busy, but did not produce much. After a week of watching the inspector would write into his book what could be expected from this factory.
That was used to guide the planning committees in case new factories where needed.
Surprisingly the factory was 'over plan' nearly every year ... so the workers could farm in their bonuses.
Very strange feed back cycles, isn't it? The whole economy is planned on faked numbers of lazy workers, who work 'normally' when they work and farm in bonuses because they produce more than the planners actually had planned. ... or well, there is no 'market'! Hey we could use the screws you made! But there is no plan to have a truck ready to bring the screws to the factory ...
But nevertheless other parts of the economy (like car manufactories) can't produce more because the 'over plan' materials can not be transported
Astonishing how well the east german economy worked for nearly 50 years if you consider this, hm ... lying to yourself system?
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If the "whole economy is planned on faked numbers of lazy workers", why was there no slack in the transportation system to move more product than planned so that the transportation workers could farm in *their* bonuses?
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I guess there was slack as well, but a car factory does not only need the 'over plan' screws, but also metal sheets rubber, windows, etc.
Point is more: you hardly could order anything extra, thete was no agenency or free market where you could place that order. And a truck that has slack after it drove some stuff from Berlin to Dresden is in Dresden now and can not do the same tour immediately again.
On the other hand they had a striving black market, I guess the truck drivers had enough 'private contracts'
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Astonishing how well the east german economy worked for nearly 50 years if you consider this, hm ... lying to yourself system?
I don't know, I drove through portions of former East Germany not too many years after unification, and from what I saw, it worked *exactly* as well as you'd expect. The difference between west and east was stark and startling. In the west, there were occasional items in need of maintenance and modernization, just as you'll find anywhere, but by and large everything was well-built, well-maintained... and cheerful. The last bit is hard to explain, but it was more than just the use of bright colors on stores
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Communism is powerful, powerful stuff. So powerful it managed to spread laziness, poverty, and hideously poor engineering in a country populated entirely by Germans.
+1 Insightful.
Given the German peoples' repeatedly demonstrated ability to be an economic powerhouse even against severe odds, that's a really telling point.
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My father and my first boss taught to me complete my work first and then slack off because there was no more work to complete. Most people try to stretch things out during the day to look busy and get into a jam when something urgent crash lands on their desk. It's not my fault if my boss can't provide me with enough work to keep me busy all day.
Re:What's Changed (Score:5, Insightful)
We gave management an inch and they took a mile and won't give it back. Every time someone has their weekend interrupted or is told they are expected to monitor work emails at night, they make a mental note to take that time back by goofing off at work. When they aren't paid what they're worth, they slack a bit more until a rough balance is struck.
A few work harder but notice that it doesn't increase their pay or get them promoted so they slack off.
Tracking GDP/capita vs pay (accounting for inflation), really employers are on average only paying enough to get one productive day out of every 6 workdays. The ball is in their court. if they want better, they should identify the willing employees and pay them the other 5/6ths of their proper income.
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I've heard an argument similar to this one to abolish the minimum wage. Pay people based on what they produce, not how many hours they work. Which is precisely how some businesses have gotten around mandates like minimum wage and Obamacare, every "employee" is an independent contractor and they get paid on units produced or other similar metric.
This does not work well for all industries. Some kinds of work just does not translate well to anything other than an hourly wage. Just about everything can tran
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I'm not advocating anything like counting exact output or such. Many things aren't conducive to that or even to an hourly wage.
I am advocating merit raises for people who clearly have merit and at least decent pay for decent work.
As for the current minimum wage, if the employer is paying that, they're lucky if the employee actually stays awake for the whole shift and doesn't give all the customers swine flu.
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That is true enough for an incompetent boob. A proper manager knows quality and productivity when he/she sees it, even if it can only be roughly quantified.