W.O.R.K? Busy or Productive?
Some say we work too much...
Some say we don’t work enough...
Many work for money...
Others work because they love it...while the people who hate their jobs don’t believe them.
What is work?
Try this, ask each member of your team “What is the definition of work?
You’ll get all kinds of answers:
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“What I do to make money.”
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“Sitting in this office for eight hours a day.”
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"The boring stuff I have to do so I can pay my bills.” (thinking this)
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“Hanging out, having fun, and maybe getting something done.”
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“Doing things for our customers.”
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Etc.
I’ve done this in all sorts of businesses, you get all sorts of answers.
This is the first problem: People don’t have a clear definition of work.
If you want to solve a problem, you must define the problem.
The definition of work: Mental or physical effort done to produce a result.
So we want results. But you may have noticed people produce results of varying desirability:
Some results are valuable: e.g. A closed deal, a well serviced customer.
Some results are wasteful and create extra work:
E.g. A proposal which has lots of errors and the wrong price.
Going home without finishing a key task, so you get a call late at night.
Holding a meeting which achieves nothing.
Some results are destructive: E.g. Turning away customers by being rude. Stealing your clients when they leave.
Valuable Work = Valuable Results
To learn more about these 3 types of work, read this article.
What qualities comprise valuable work?
1. Willingness
To produce work, you have to be willing to work.
Definition: “Ready, eager, or prepared to do something. Given or done readily, cheerfully”.
It derives from an Old German work which meant "to wish, desire, to choose"
You can see that it is a choice, a decision. No amount of micromanagement, office perks, casual dress codes, or other useless tricks can replace this. Each person has to decide to work. If someone on your team doesn’t want to work, they need to fix it—or move on.
In your team, it means:
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Ready to help
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Prepared to collaborate
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A desire to solve problems and generate solutions
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Most of all, an intention to get things done!
When staff become unwilling, work becomes complicated. Projects stall, solutions vanish, problems multiply. The best people get overloaded while others pretend to work.
You may have noticed some people make your life easy while others don’t. A large factor of this is their willingness to work.
Willingness is the first ingredient of quality work. It includes the intention to complete tasks which are valuable to others.
2. Ownership (Accountability)
Ownership means responsibility. And responsibility is to control and care for something.
A job exists to handle a function. When no one takes ownership of that function, it spills over into the rest of the organization, causing problems and extra work for many. If a position, or business unit, is not in a good condition—that zone is not being “cared for”.
Some view responsibility as a dirty word. It has connotations of obligation, duty, and other serious concepts. The best way to view it is:
Response-Ability
It’s your ability to respond to the situations of business and life.
Think of it this way: Would you take your hands off the wheel while driving—just because the road got bumpy? Of course not! Yet people do this at work all the time. Leaders let companies run at a loss. Employees let tasks pile up and customers unhandled. It’s the wrong response.
A simple way to increase your ownership is so ask yourself these questions:
“Is my response to this situation making it better or worse?”
“Is the situation more under control? or less?” Ownership is simple:
The ability to correctly respond to situations. Care enough to fix it or make it right.
3. Results
There are 3 categories of results: Valuable, wasteful and destructive.
Definition of a result: The outcome of an action or process.
Results can be good or bad. A “good” result is valuable to the team and the customer. A "bad" result is not.
A result is finished. It doesn’t need to be redone.
It’s not “almost done", or "I'll do it tomorrow".
The best workers specialise in finished results. They may look calm or not, but get more accomplished than the ones who are always “busy.” Busy ≠ finished results.
The difference? One produces outcomes. The other does things.
Ask yourself: What is the result I am supposed to achieve?
If that’s unclear, clarify before you start.
4. Knowledge
Willingness to work isn’t enough. You need to know how to do the job.
Knowledge comes in many forms: Theory, procedure, policy, how-to guides, experience and others.
You don’t have to know everything—but you need to learn how to produce the results required in your role.
The good news is knowledge is easier to obtain than ever before. It used to be just books, university and on-the-job training. Now you have Google, ChatGPT, YouTube, etc. etc. No excuses.
But beware:
● Experience ≠ Results. Some people have years of experience doing nothing. Or years of experience avoiding work while looking busy.
● Certificates ≠ Knowledge. A degree doesn’t mean someone actually learned anything or can do anything effective with the knowledge.
If you are willing to work and are taking ownership, you will find the knowledge you need to produce valuable results.
What's the best way to measure knowledge in a person?
Look at the results of their actions.
What is a KPI?
KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator.
It’s a measurable value that shows how effectively a person, team, or business is achieving a specific result.
KPIs help you track progress, spot issues early, and hold people accountable to results—not just efforts. It’s not about being busy.
In my travels I’ve seen KPI used to represent all manner of strange and wonderful things. Quite often it’s not a metric and doesn’t connect with meaningful value.
KPIs should measure the valuable results of a role, a department or company.
Final Thoughts
If you want to improve the work done, or its value, go through each of these points and identify where the problem is.
Many techniques exist to elevate the willingness, ownership, results and knowledge of your team.
The first is to ensure everyone understands the definition of work.
Second is to have a defined KPI which represents that valuable work.
It takes some effort but it’s valuable work in itself.
If you’d like help increasing the value of your team and business. Contact us.
Be Valuable,
Oisín Grogan is the $200 Million Business Coach.
Founder of the Vwork Hiring & Team Productivity System.