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How Hard You Should Work

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People are surprised when I tell them I put in 70 to 75 hours of work every week and get about five hours of sleep every day. The typical responses are “Your Company makes you do that much work?” Or, “Doesn’t your boss realize that is a lot of work?”

The New World of Work

We live in a world characterized by intense competition, globalization, greater volatility than before, and demands for higher personal effectiveness. To be successful in the new world of work, we cannot stipulate the specific number of hours we should put in every day. Our accomplishment in these hours, not the number of hours, is the yardstick of our performance assessment. In fact, a 65 to 70 hour workweek has become the norm for getting ahead in leadership roles.

What Works for You

My guideline for how long you should work is, “Work as many hours as you think you need to achieve your goals, realize your aspirations and be happy.”

Note the emphasis on individuality in the above statement. Not everybody faces the same kind of demands; not everybody is equally productive. Nor does everybody have the same kind of aspirations. The number of hours you should work should depend on the opportunities you face and what you intend to do with them. It is a choice you have to make—a choice between components of your personal and professional lives.

If you are an entrepreneur, you may need to work 80-90 hours a week developing your idea; this involves sacrificing out-of-work activities. If you have an eight-to-five job, wish to spend lots of time with family and attend all of your son’s football games, you may work as little as forty hours a week, the minimum expected at your workplace. However, this may involve slower job growth. If you are a stay-at-home mom, and would like to put your engineering skills to good use, you may find a job that will allow you to work out of home. Make the appropriate choices and chart your life course on what works best for you.

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The Legacy of Peter Drucker, the Original Management Guru

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Yesterday was the first anniversary of the death of Peter Ferdinand Drucker, “the father of modern management.”

Drucker is arguably the most influential management philosopher of the modern era. He is the author of about forty books and innumerable essays on managerial skills, management concepts and social analyses. As a consultant, author and speaker for over sixty years, Drucker influenced the thinking of many executives in businesses, not-for-profits and faith-based organizations. Read his detailed biographies here, here and here.

Drucker wrote about many concepts and practices decades before the trends were discernable: knowledge workers, empowering employees, decentralization, management by objectives, focus on results instead of actions, the responsibility of the corporation in society, knowledge-based society, rise of multinational businesses, etc.

Drucker’s writings are devoid of buzzwords and management jargon and easily resonate with his readers. Today, we accept Drucker’s thoughts as conventional wisdom. Consequently, scores of business school courses require reading of his books.

My first exposure to Drucker’s thoughts was when I read his manual “The Effective Executive” during my undergraduate studies. Over the last few years, I have read and re-read many of his books and essays. Drucker’s unique style of expression and simple, clear language have left a deep impression on my pursuits, thoughts and actions. Below is one of my favorite Peter Drucker instructions. See my separate blog post on his inspirational quotations.

Successful leaders don’t start out asking, “What do I want to do?” They ask, “What needs to be done?” Then they ask, “Of those things that would make a difference, which are right for me?” They don’t tackle things they aren’t good at.

On a question about his legacy, Drucker once said that he has “helped a few good people be effective in doing the right things.” Just a few? Drucker’s farsighted insights and timeless thoughts will influence management thought for generations to come.