“Gadberry’s Workisms”

A few years ago, I was preparing to teach a staff on focus and purpose regarding our work. Somehow, with new technological advancements, we must remind ourselves that there is no replacement for good ‘ol hard work. If you are going to succeed in life, you will only do it if you work hard. This means we are engaged and absorbed with our work daily instead of just going through the motions and biding time. So, as I thought on this subject, this Idea emerged. So here is what I taught. Gadberry’s “Workisms.”

1. While at work, work.

“Many will complain about their work day at the office when, in fact, they didn’t lift a finger or think a thought.  That’s not work.  I had something else in mind, the kind of work in which you are fully engaged, totally focused, and completely absorbed.”

                                                                                                                                          – John Wooden

              It’s incredible how many things we can find to do at work that have nothing to do with our work. I see this as one of the significant problems in work/life balance. So many people are doing nothing while working at a job and then have to take their work home and work after hours, which causes problems with their families and overpowers their lives. Just imagine how much work you could get done if you were focused on work at work. Always remember, as someone once said, “Procrastination is the assassination of motivation.”

2. While at work, work on work related to work.

While this is similar to the first, it deals with what we do at work. While side projects, social opportunities, alternative ideas, and nonessential or unnecessary busy work may all be okay, they should not overtake your schedule at work while leaving the necessary, pertinent things undone. At the same time, you’re at work, or “on the clock,” on work related to your work.

3. Leave work at work when you go home from work

Now, I realize, as a leader and entrepreneur, there are times that you are at home and have to work late, etc. However, there has to be a time when you turn it off. I truly believe if we perform how we should at work or during work times, we will not be caught in the trap of constantly working. For your work to be genuinely productive, there have to be times of rest. Times where you can let your mind think about more important things than work. So when you return to it, you will have more clarity and energy to engage it at your highest level of potential.

4. Don’t interrupt another’s work with your work

This is a problem in a lot of work environments. There is a time and a need to collaborate, but every minute is not the time. We should have times programmed in our day for that. It seems there is always that person who thinks what they are working on takes precedence over whatever anyone else is working on.

If they get stumped, instead of problem-solving, thinking it through, or moving on to something else and coming back to it, they insert themselves and their work into someone else’s focus. They break that person’s focus and cause them to stop what they are doing, however time-sensitive. It forces them to think about what the stumped person is working on.

This is probably one of the hardest things to break. When you are in this place, make sure, before you interrupt someone else, that you exhaust every effort and then schedule the right time to get help if you still need it. When you interrupt, you tell everyone that they and their work revolve around you, and that’s not true of anyone, not even the executive leader. If you continue this, you will ultimately interrupt people on another job.

5. Think through your work, then work out your thoughts

It seems to me that the pace of work today is like lightning. I think it’s important to remember that activity does not equal achievement. We are doing things so fast that we do them in passing. We lose excellence because of careless, over-eager implementation without first thinking it through.

I find myself regularly training people to think. Our current work style views thinking and processing thoughts as a waste of time. However, it is precisely what we need to be more effective and efficient. If you think things through and then work them out, you are less likely to waste time doing them over or repairing them. So, think through your work and work out your thoughts.

6. When you work, consider how your work affects the work of the workers around you.

What I have found to be accurate, a lot of the time, is that we are excellent at focusing on our work. We can get deep into what we are trying to accomplish. However, because we are so focused on our responsibility, we aren’t very wide.

We are deep but not comprehensive. In other words, we are honed in on our efforts, department, and objectives but fail to see how our role and responsibilities affect the entire organization and those working there.

To be effective in an organization, we must see and own its interconnectedness. Understand our department and how our department interrelates with other departments to produce the goal of the whole organization—no territorial thinking allowed. No possessiveness allowed. Know the Sum of the parts, not just your part.

7. Work in a way that releases those working over you, empowers the workers under you, and enhances the work of the workers next to you.

In other words, be a 360-degree leader.

A. To those who are leading you…It is easy to show. Listen, contribute, cooperate, and be solution-oriented.

B. Empower those whom you are leading. Be a practical communicator/connector. Provide clear and clearly stated objectives and expectations; if you hire them to do a job, let them do it. Delegate follow-up effectively, but don’t hover, and don’t be muddled. You made a bad hire if it takes you to stand over them.

C. To the people who are peers to you…Treat them like collaborators and comrades, not like your competition. Stand shoulder to shoulder to take the goal.

8. Work with a workable attitude where all workers can expect you to work with them.

Attitude is so important. Nothing is worse than having a person on the team that no one wants to see coming. You know what I mean, the “no” guy. The person who feels like they must disagree with everything. Or, the Lazy Bones. The whole team can be working on a project, and you look around, and this person is always disconnected, doing very little but trying to act like they are heavily involved. We should have such a great attitude of cooperation that everyone on the team knows we can be counted on to help every time.

9. Discipline your work, and work your discipline, so the worker over you does not have to work you over.

Consistency is critical to successful work. It is one of the most essential elements of true success. People who know where we are, the goal, and what it will take to reach the goal then do the things necessary daily to achieve it. That is consistency, and that only comes through discipline. As I always told my kids growing up, “If you discipline yourself, I won’t have to discipline you.” Please don’t make it someone else’s responsibility to get you going.

10. When you work with excellence, then excellence will be visible in your work.

Excellence is vital to success and significance. Excellence is not perfection but doing all you can to reach your top potential. People throw this term around a lot these days. However, it is not something you say. It’s something you do. You can say that you and your organization are excellent, but it doesn’t make it accurate. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say. When you work with excellence, then excellence will be visible in your work.

So there you have it. Gadberry’s “workism’s.” I hope that works for you!