This posting is the result of my presently ongoing utter lack of ideas and phlegmatic lethargy of what to write. Please dont read, its an article for my company magazine and is really boring.
The combination. What’s the point in always toiling hard day and night to rediscover things when you could have spent a little time to look for better available solutions and reused them? And what’s the point in always trying to work smart and evade the real implementation of the fertile resource you have been gifted with - called brains - and getting no self satisfaction at all? What the point actually is - like all things in life, there is a trade off here as well, and one needs to strike the right balance between hard and smart working – because ultimately we are working to live a certain standard of life we have chosen for ourselves, and to derive a sense of achievement and contentment from our work.
Let us consider Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to comprehend this further. According to this theory, human needs can be arranged in a pyramid as shown in the picture below.
The first four layers of the pyramid represent basic human needs and are called "deficiency needs" - an individual does not feel anything if they are met, but feels anxious if they are not. Needs beyond these four are "growth needs" - when fulfilled, they do not go away; rather, they motivate further. As and when a person keeps fulfilling the deficiency needs, starting with the physiological needs like food and shelter, (s)he keeps progressing to the upper tiers, ultimate goal being transcendence, at which people become aware of not only their own fullest potential, but the fullest potential of human beings at large.
The theory when applied to work indicates that smart working can help us achieve the deficiency needs speedily (to satisfy our anxiety). However, if one keeps working smart without putting much sweat and toil, his/her personal-professional growth would remain limited to the lower tiers. As far as the upper tiers of the growth needs are concerned, hard working is the only option (to understand and appreciate our true potential and caliber).
Hence, it is clearly evident that the optimal mix of these two working techniques can surely lead us to achieve success, and also help understand the meaning and significance of life. In media mogul Ted Tuner’s words, "Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise."
good piece of write up, Infact many a times i quote maslows, for that was an important piece of my learning in b school. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteshashidhar.