Have you ever heard someone say, “Let’s thank the committee for all of the hard work they put into this proposal!”, but you didn’t think that the proposal was very good? Or, “We have to move forward on this because we have been working hard on it for the past year.”?
All work is not equal. Just because you’ve worked hard doesn’t mean you worked smart. Just because you worked smart doesn’t mean you are doing work that’s any different from other universities. If every university is working smart in exactly the same way, is it really that smart? All successful organizations do three kinds of work – hard work, smart work and different work.
Hard Work
When I was young, my father made it a point to teach me the value of hard work. I worked on neighbors farms, chopped wood, and did local volunteer service to teach me the lessons that only hard work can teach – persistence, grit, and the value of time and money, to name a few.
Later, both as a university student and faculty member, I learned many students have the habit of hard work, but that does not necessarily mean their hard work gets them to the goals they set for themselves. A student worked very hard, but still received a C- on the Calculus exam. A university spent hours upon hours revitalizing their general education program, but it didn’t result in one new student. This is the sad reality: Hard work does not always get you to your goals.
Does this mean the ability to work hard has no value? Not at all! Our universities need to value hard work as a requirement for entry, but sadly we have fooled ourselves into thinking hard work itself has value, when the actual value comes from accomplishment. Maybe certain divisions of your institution aren’t currently working hard enough. If so, getting them to work hard should be a goal, but will not necessarily lead to a breakthrough. This is especially true if a division is not working hard on the right things. If your people are already hard workers, working them harder is not the answer.
“Never mistake activity for achievement.” – John Wooden
Smart Work
We’ve all heard the adage, “Work smarter not harder.” But what does it mean to work smarter? I describe smart work as practices and habits that cut down the work time needed to get you to your goal. Instead of studying everything equally, a student might focus their attention on studying the material that the professor said would be on the exam. Instead of carrying a load of wood across a large yard on foot I might choose to use a pick-up truck to load the wood and drive it all across the yard at once. Instead of an admissions team spending time recruiting all students equally, they might spend all of their time recruiting students who statistically have a higher probability to yield. Sometimes smart work is simply making sure the right people are in a room when a big decision is being made. Much time and work is wasted every year in higher education on meetings that don’t have the right people, or too many of the wrong people, in the room.
Smart work is an invaluable tool for institutions with limited human and financial capital. But, it still has limitations. What if your competition is working smart as well? What if your competition is working smart and is better resourced than you are? Is all lost? No. You must do different work.
“Measure progress — not the time that you’re working.”– Frank Sonnenberg
Different Work
Different work is the antithesis of “best practices”. Different work is not what everyone else is doing. One of the first questions most universities ask when they want to move in a new direction is, “How are other institutions doing it?” This may (at times) lead to smart work, but it is most definitely not different work. Different work sets you apart from the crowd by blazing a new trail no one thought could exist.
If you want to differentiate yourself in the marketplace, you must work differently than your competition. Many colleges and universities think they can work in the same way as all of their competitors and end up being very different. Sadly, this is not the case. Yes, you should look at what others are doing, but then use that insight to move in a different direction! Leaders understand this is the most difficult form of work because it leads to change, and change is painful. But, this is the painful work we must do if we want to succeed. This is the work that will help us prepare for the future. We must move our institutions toward different work.
“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” – Rob Siltanen
Doing Work Well
As leaders in higher education we should look to move those under our leadership from hard work to smart work to different work. For a desired future state we need to ask ourselves what type of work is required to get us to our goal. Do we just need to get in there and get our hands dirty? Do we need to optimize the time and money we are spending getting to our goal? Do we need to think in ways that we have never thought of before?
Let’s stop doing (and praising) hard work and start doing (and rewarding) the right kind of work!
Need help with your strategy?
Reach out to Nick Willis. TG Three helps colleges get from where they are to where they want to be by developing strategies that create clarity, focus and alignment.
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