You and I live in a society that celebrates chaotic people.
Sam won an award of “Employee of Month” because he had chronic overtime for the last quarter of 2023. He spent nights in office meeting deadlines. Oh did I tell you that Sam works in a department of forty nine people who go home on time everyday?
He has no social life. His life revolves around work and that it. “Sudesh are you discrediting hard work?” Of course not! I work harder than most people I know but I also know that if you had a big workforce and yet certain individuals chronically work overtime, something is broken.
I have been part of so many start ups and started some myself. Here is something I know.
Startups are inherently chaos. As a founder, you need to prepare yourself to think creatively and independently, because more often than not, conditions on the ground will change so rapidly that the original well-thought-out business plan becomes irrelevant.
If you can’t manage chaos and uncertainty . . . and if you wait around for someone else to tell you what to do, then . . . you will run out of money and your company will die.
Entrepreneurs like me can easily become accustomed to stressful and unknown environments that they become downright addicted to chaos. This is not different to an employee like Sam who is rewarded for being chaotic( read chronically working overtime while 49 people in the department are home sleeping)
Chaos can feel so normal that calm can actually feel strange. Spending your Saturdays at office every week is not a badge of honor and great work ethic. If you’re an employer reading this or a human resource person if you reward such behavior,its time to re-examine the definition of hard work.
In the past, Entrepreneurs were trained in dealing with stress, like making difficult decisions based on incomplete information and last-minute changes, that they were always looking for the next problem, even if it didn’t exist. Without a fire to put out, they could grow inwardly anxious.
Today employees are suffering from the same. The workplace is by and large void of effective productivity systems. Employees work unnecessarily long hours. And for such they breakdown mentally and physically. Unlike the entrepreneurs, employees are not designed to deal with high levels of stress so they have become advocates for mental health.
In the first place no one should be dealing with mental health if all staff are trained in personal productivity. If the employers spend more time designing productivity systems instead of Team building as a quick fix.
I have a friend who sabotaged a beautiful promising career just because it was going so well, and he started freaking out. He worked normal hours, got promotions while he attended School but left because he needed a “challenge”
He wasn’t even aware he was doing it. He got in a chaotic environment and to this day it’s been many years – he has never finished his ACCA.
It’s okay for you to work overtime for a few days in case of breakdowns or surge of work but it’s not okay to be a chronic overtimer.
You can be successful working in organized productivity environments. You don’t have to feel guilty having “me” time.
If you’re an entrepreneur remember, Richard Branson owns four hundred companies, seventy thousand employees, and billions in revenue and he loves life. He spends 90 days on holiday every year.
Activity is not necessarily productivity. Get a life!
