Work, Hard-Working, and Growth
Work is an activity that utilizes energy, both physical as well as mental; to realize something. Human Work has multiple dimensions/features. Broadly speaking, work has four dimensions – natural, personal, social, & economical. First, natural work is based on natural demands of life. A few work habits are required to satisfy basic natural needs such as hunger, thrust, and nakedness. We may call these basic work habits – eating, drinking, and dressing – a natural work. Generally, parents/teachers educate on natural works during early phase of life. The aim of natural work is to make our life compatible with nature or to accommodate natural demands. Second, personal work is outcome of personal needs and desires, every individual has some unique needs and desires, whenever a person satisfies his/her exclusive needs or desires such as specific dressing, definite food items, and distinct hobbies we may call it personal work.
The timely satisfaction of personal needs/desires is vital for normal personal life. It is worth mentioning that a clash between natural needs and personal desires may lead towards ailments, for example, junk food items may be the reason of a disease. Third, social work is result of social interactions. Man is social being, he/she interacts with fellow human beings. A social contact fulfils various life requirements and increases social strength of involved persons; whenever a person enhances social strength through social contacts we may call it social work. Sometime, an interaction is social in appearance but anti-social in outcome, it is social intelligence that guides towards fruitful social contacts. Fourth, a vast range of goods such as tasty foods, trendy dresses, vehicles, and magnificent residences are economic goods because they can be attained only through money. The work to attain wealth or money is known as economic work. Economic work gives monetary independence to individuals. Financial Intelligence/Business Intelligence is essential to accomplish economic work. These aforementioned dimensions of work are interlinked with one another and reinforce each other. The abovementioned work division is to clarify the concept of work; it is not scientific demarcation of human activities. The division is based on dominant aspect of work features. For example, natural work for hunger satisfaction is economic work, too, because food items are not freely available in modern society. Similarly, an activity may have two or more dimensions of work in her folder for example possession of trendy dress satisfies natural needs, personal desires, economic wants, and social aspirations.
Human Work has two absolute bases – life survival & self actualization. The survival of life and actualization of self are divinely ingrained features of human nature. The road to survival/actualization demands continuous effort. The continuity of effort is disturbed due to some permanent instinctual pressures. The well-known instinctual pressures of life are desire for lengthy sleep, tendency of gossips, craving towards aggressive sexual contact, and strong appetite towards imbalance diet. These instinctual pressures disturb work patterns, now and again. It is purpose of life, sense of responsibility towards work, reward or punishment on work, and joy of accomplishment that controls instinctual pressures and accommodates absolute work bases.
Hard-Working
A work that leads towards exhaustion, both physical as well as mental, is hard-work. Hard-working demands consistent-persistent approach towards task completion. Every new task must face obstacles or a routine task may encounter some new challenges. Whatever may be the situation, the upcoming obstacles can be overcome through hard working. Disciplined behaviour is essential ingredient of hard-working; it gives continuous strength to routine work. Hardworking or challenging tasks often create condition of exhaustion; sometime the situation may convert into burnout. It is hobbies / renewal activities that avoid burnout and prepare us for next round of life, both social as well as economic. The renewal activities are multiple, for example, reading, writing, jogging, travelling, praying, and sleeping. The renewal activities replenish/strengthen physical, psychological, and spiritual weaknesses and maintain one’s interest towards work.
Growth
Life has two levels – individual and collective. Survival of life is basic urge of human beings. Survival of life is only prerogative of dynamic individuals/groups.Dynamic persons/nations are relentless towards improvement. They want to increase their area of effect continuously,so that, dynamism leads inevitably towards growth & development. Dynamic life is possible through evolving approach towards multiple chores of life. At individual level, continuous development of some personality attributes, interactive linkages, and increase in personal assets indicates growth. At collective level, the existence of stable institutions, continuous improvement of macro-variables of economy, and evolving micro-macro framework indicates growth. Life is growing if new level of something is better than previously achieved level. Growth is thus negation of stagnancy or decline.It is worth mentioning that work-life balance is essential for steady, stable, and continuous growth. An imbalance approach towards work-life framework may lead towards ailments, failures, and hostilities.
Workmanship – Significant Work Optimizers
Individuals perceive work differently. Broadly speaking, some people enjoy work while other takes it a burden. Workmanship indicates the level of skill/motivation with which someone accomplishes something. Workmanship is outcome of hardworking during some work. It is established through experience/personal interest. The high standard of workmanship creates excellent outcomes during some activity. The level of excellent workmanship is based on multiple attitudes and attributes. The prominent work optimizers for excellent workmanship are:
Activeness- An active attitude towards work produces better results. Activeness indicates enthusiastic state of mind towards tasks. An active person takes work wholeheartedly and produces better results on account of agility, both physical and mental. However, in real life situation an ideal agility is seldom phenomenon. Generally, people are active physically and slow mentally or vice versa. Moreover, people are active in some tasks but lazy on some other tasks. A strategic approach towards persons/tasks is required to maintain activeness during life struggle.
Self-Motivation and Self-Regulation – Self-motivation and self-regulation during some work have matchless power to propel any life effort into successful effort. At workplace, self-motivated and self-regulated employees work harder. They come with new and innovative ideas to improve the product or service. They are efficient and effective. However, enthusiasm in the workplace is a rare phenomenon due to multiple reasons such as limited opportunities for healthy social interaction among workforce, blame oriented management system, authoritative leadership, and low incentive on good performance. Consequently, employees work without interest and produce low quality product or service at their workplace, obviously, a low-performing institution is shaped. It is noteworthy that a self-motivated/self-regulated individual is self-directed and highly suitable for challenging tasks/institutional growth.
Time Consciousness- Time efficiency is decisive factor during work. It is extremely vital for deadline-driven tasks; it is noteworthy that deadline-driven tasks are dominant portion of economic work. Appropriate time utilization hinges on temporal intelligence. It is ability to understand the temporal significance of something and to utilize time efficiently.Temporal intelligence has two aspects, inner and outer. The inner-aspect motivates/impels towards time efficiency during work process through motivational vigor while the outer-aspect regulates/leads towards time efficiency during work process through disciplinary behaviour. The optimal utilization of time is thus possible through self-motivated/self-regulated attitude of individuals towards work.
Pro-activeness- A responsible enthusiasm towards work is pro-activeness. It differentiates work from mere activity or hobby. A proactive person starts work actively, manages it prudently, and completes it responsibly. A proactive approach restricts reactive moods during some activity. A reactionary approach of work may produce some positive results occasionally but it is generally damaging due to presence of moods/whims. In addition, the pro-active approach is negation of over-activeness. The over-activeness makes someone workaholic, an imbalance attitude towards work. A pro-active person is neither reactive nor over-active rather he/she is self-motivated and self-regulated.
Teamwork Approach- Some tasks cannot be done individually, e.g., creation of a family setup, establishment of an economic firm, and launching of a marketing campaign. A group of persons is required to accomplish such heavy tasks. A cooperative work approach of individuals shapes teamwork approach. A team work produces better results due to synergy. An act of synergy creates extra total energy through reinforcing individual strengths and undermining personal weaknesses. It is worth mentioning that the Divine Scheme of Creation supports positive reinforcement among individuals while negative reinforcement among individuals is failed ultimately. Moreover, a well-established team or positive associations are panacea against reactionary / over-active work-patterns. Generally, an effective team is outcome of Trust among Team Members, Effective Interpersonal Communication, Association Based on Synergy, and Motivation towards Shared Vision/Work (TEAM). In nutshell, teamwork work approach is natural, win-win, and synergic.
Work Environment – Some Strategic Steps
A specific work approach of leader shapes a definite work environment for workforce. The created work environ plays an important role during multiple tasks. A conducive/hostile environ may enhance/reduce productivity of an individual many times. A person can change work environ for himself up to some extent through positive mindset/behaviour towards work/others. But, dominantly, it is responsibility of leadership to shape conducive work environ for all and sundry. The efficient-effective work environ is based on multiple strategic steps. The prominent steps are:
Align Work With Purpose- life is purpose driven phenomenon. Purpose gives vision to one’s life, directs one’s efforts, and shapes one’s personality profile. It is extremely productive to align work with life purposes. A strict attachment with purpose is permanent source of energy for individuals and groups. However, overtime, a person may loose attachment with purpose and may think himself/herself a cog in the wheel. A deterministic mindset is unable to comprehend possible opportunities of work, hard working, and growth. The situation can be settled through planting some new purposes or rejuvenating the dead purposes. Purpose plantation/rejuvenation is topmost reasonability of leadership. At personal level, we may internalize purposes of near and dear ones. It is positive association of likeminded persons. The associated people become consequentially supporter of our tottering purposes and we become stanch supporter of their budding objectives. It is invisible association of strengths. At institutional level, leader can create synergic environment for individuals through reinforcing strengths and undermining weaknesses for maximum performance.
Align Work With Talent- Naturally, person are endowed differently and distinctively. A specific talent, both natural and acquired, is suitable for some specific tasks. An alignment between talent and work enhances productivity of individuals and institutions. It is dominantly responsibility of leadership to align work with talent. Non alignment of work with talent means workers’ resentment. An extreme level of resentment may lead towards turnout or poor institutional framework.
Align Work with Feedback- Effectiveness of an individual, both social as well as economic, depends on compatibility of one’s work by others. Compatibility is developed through accommodating feedbacks. Generally people are reluctant towards new realities/contributions. They retaliate or inhibit new contribution; it is hardworking, persistence, and interpersonal communication among individuals that prepares and change mindsets of concerned persons towards contribution. The process of acceptance is actualized through accommodating feedback of concerned individuals; the feedback activity gives ultimately an efficient-effective look to our work. Overtime, people become promoter of our work, both habitual and innovative. It is responsibility of leadership to create environment of feedback for each and every activity, consequently individuals would provide rational-factual feedback on work.
Align Work with Learning- Learning is an enjoyable activity of life. We learn from books, peoples, and situations. Generally, a new learning motivates towards some new or novel activity. A learning driven activity / work optimize our productivity manifold. Learning improves our routine work efficiency and enhances new work efficacy. Learning opens new vistas of life and shapes better work-patterns. The process of alignment between work and learning shapes learning organization. A learning organization is extremely supportive step towards challenging tasks and innovative works.
Align Work & Reward Scheme- Individuals takes work differently. Broadly speaking, some people enjoy work while other takes it a burden. A work becomes enjoyable through personal interest. At institutional level, personal interest can be developed through effective reward scheme. The very basis of rewards is performance, while the performance of an individual or group is assessed generally on three abilities – Learning, Innovation, and Teamwork. A hostile work environment is generally upshot of wrongly defined reward structure.
Wasted Efforts
Activity and work are essentially distinct realities although they look similar during some struggle. Work is purpose driven while activity is compulsion driven. A wasted effort is purposeless or halfhearted or irresponsible and does not produce positive results. At individual level, a clear understanding between underlying bases of work and activity and adoption of significant work optimizers can reduce wasted efforts. At institutional level, the alignment of work with purpose, talent, feedback, learning, and rewards controls the phenomenon of wasted efforts. The negligence towards the phenomenon of wasted efforts may lead toward Vicious Work Environ. An established Vicious Work Environ devours precious resources, both human as well as non-human, and produces meager results. The ultimate outcome of Vicious Work Environ is failure. Generally, the Vicious Work Environ or wasted efforts are outcome of dirtiness, lazy workmanship of co-worker, lethargic leadership, inactive/reactive/overactive self, and monotony.
Hardworking and Effective Entrepreneurship
An essential feature of effective entrepreneurship is to set example for workers. An exemplary approach shapes better institutional environment. For example, any minor procrastination / laziness by manager will cause comparatively major delay in his works by his workers; the concerned worker will show more lethargic and careless attitude towards his tasks. Moreover, institutions are designed to actualize certain goals & objectives. The process of goal actualization demands clean path, it is responsibility of entrepreneur to clean path hurdles. Whenever path hurdles are cleaned through supportive leadership, synergic work environ is shaped for workers. The synergic work environment forms a well-performing institution. Cleaning path hurdles demand inevitably hardworking entrepreneurship.
The phenomenon of effective leadership is erected on efficient followership. The presence of all characteristic of excellent workmanship is inevitable for effective entrepreneurship. Hardworking is essential aspect of workmanship consequently hardworking is inevitable for entrepreneurship. Practically, the areas of hardworking are different for entrepreneur and followers. The area of hard work for follower is to observe strictly discipline or to maintain smooth working while the strength of leader is to break comfort zones, now and then. The braking of rules or habitual work-pattern is inevitable for innovations or growth. Naturally, growth is evolutionary process and encounters countless hurdles. It is achieved through step by step procedure by overcoming hurdles. A stepwise and resilient growth process must demand some out-of-box mental effort and change, temporary or permanent, from comfort zones of life. A leader living within comfort zone gets normal results or gives normal performance. Change in comfort zone demands hardworking, both physical as well as mental. The comfort zone is outcome of possible fears, limiting beliefs, dormant work habits. A repetitive challenge to comfort zones/routine work-pattern is essential for continuous growth.
