Lesson Four: Why is Hard Work Alone Not Sufficient?

We all have grown up with the philosophy of hard working as the main real reason for success, etc. This obviously still have lot of weightage in the overall success formula. But I think weightage has reduced a lot in the era we are living. Let me quickly explain.

Let’s say there are two people – Mr A and Mr B.  A is hard working but less self-marketing skills. B is less hard working but with good self-marketing skill (probably called as “smart working”). Whom do people think as more hard working/contributing? Unfortunately, the winner will be B. There will always be some “super smart” people who just try to manage with visibility management skills.

Do you think all these are “unfair” or “not correct”, etc?. May be. But the real real reason behind this is – “low attention span”. In the digital era, people have hardly any time to really analyze and understand who is really contributing.  People are battling with many distractions and low attention spans. Basically, in the shortest span people form “quick perceptions”. As the saying goes we live in times where “Perception is the Reality”.

Of course, not all interested to do self-marketing or have good skills at it. Whether we like it or not the truth is you will be judged based on the perceptions. We get burnt severely if don’t learn this skill. I am sure you have your own wounds on this. This happens everywhere not just in offices.

Hard work was best suited for industrial age but not for smart digital age. We need “smart working” mind set for “smart era”.