Great at Work: The Hidden Habits of Top Performers

by Morten T. Hansen

Key Points • Our statistical analysis of 5,000 managers and employees demonstrates that those who redesigned their work performed significantly better than those who didn’t. • According to our statistical analysis, if you work up to 50 hours, performance improves as you add more hours. Beyond 50 hours, the benefit of adding more hours starts to wane. Beyond 65 hours, adding more hours causes performance to decline. Outworking others is not a clever strategy. • Good redesigns create more value—the benefits work activities bring to others. That outside-in view is very different from traditional, inside-out ways of setting goals, tasks, and metrics. People can achieve their goals and be very productive, yet produce zero value. • The value equation emphasizes three distinct components. To produce great value at work is to create output that benefits others tremendously and that is done efficiently and with high quality. • Explore five ways to redesign work to create value: • Less fluff: eliminate existing activities of little value • More right stuff: increase existing activities of high value • More “Gee, whiz”: Create new activities of high value • Five star rating: improve quality of existing stuff • Faster, cheaper: do existing activities more efficiently. • Where to start redesigning your work? You can hunt for and cure pain points, and you can dare to ask stupid questions.