Great at Work: The Hidden Habits of Top Performers

by Morten T. Hansen

How can you boost your performance if you don’t redesign? The obvious alternative is to put in longer hours, working harder in the same way. Chances are you’re already doing that. In a 2009 survey by Harvard Business School professor Leslie Perlow and research associate Jessica Porter, 94 percent of the 1,000 professionals surveyed reported working 50 hours or more a week, and a staggering 50 percent of them said they worked more than 65 hours a week.3 The latter figure translates into 13 hours per day, five days a week. Ouch! In a study of high earners, management writers Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce found that a full 35 percent worked more than 60 hours a week, and 10 percent worked more than 80 hours a week.4 A job with the traditional 40-hour workweek seems like a part-time gig.