Why do some people do better at work than others? How do top performers do less, work better and achieve more?

According to Morten T. Hansen, they do it through a profound understanding of  “what a person should work on (job design); how the person should improve over time (learning); why a person should exert effort (motivation); and with whom a person should interact at work (relation).”

In this book, “Great At Work”, you’ll find strategies and a proven set of practices that have worked for individual performers. The strategies are simple:

• Master your own work.
  We know intuitively that mediocrity is directly opposed to “greatness” at work. We must be masters of our own work and he lays out a few strategies for that.
  • • Do Less, Then Obsess – focus on a few things, and get really, really good at them.

    • Redesign your work – Which part of your work is value-adding? What are the pain points? How can you improve that part?

    • Don’t just learn, loop – This chapter had really concrete practices that tie in with some of the other career development practices I’ve recommended like “journaling”. For this chapter alone, I’d recommend buying the book. He advocates practices like getting nimble feedback and breaking down the skills we want to develop into smaller chunks.

    • P-Squared: Passion & Purpose – It’s not enough to “follow your passion”. Real happiness (and success) comes from marrying your passion with a sense of purpose. Plus, you can find your passion in your daily work! You don’t have  to cure world hunger.

  • Master working with others.
    
    
    • Champion forcefully – inspire others to see things from your point of view by using empathy and compromise.

    • Fight & Then Unite – learn to advocate strongly for what you think is right but when a decision has been taken, commit 100% to seeing it through.

    • Watch out for the two sins of collaboration – under collaboration & over collaboration – his study found that women benefited more than men from disciplined collaboration. Carefully choose which collaborations to embark on.

READ ALSO: 4 Ways Moms Make The Best Team Players

• Master your work-life balance
  The best way to have work-life balance? Be a top performer. Interestingly, this was what led me to this book. At the beginning of the year, one of my goals was to achieve a work-life balance I was happy with. And what is work-life balance? It’s typically described as being able to “set your own hours, work from home when you want to, take a last-minute vacation etc. with minimum resistance from your boss.”

  According to this study, top performers are likely to have control over their schedules. The more your mindset and skills improve, the better your work results. The faster you work. The more you’re able to achieve. You see things that others miss, and come up with better solutions. Your boss appreciates you. Your confidence grows. Over time, you build a great work reputation which gives you leverage to have the ideal work life balance. Which makes you more relaxed, productive and successful!I realised work-life balance wasn’t a nice-to-have for me, it was a necessity. I had to become a top performer. And so I bought this book. ?

READ ALSO: Vacations Are Great For Your Career. Here’s How.

What Did I Like About the Book?

He really hacks that “work smart, not hard” axiom that everyone advocates when giving career advice. I’d heard that advice over and over again but I had no idea how to implement it. This book tells you exactly how with concrete practices and habits.

What Didn’t I Like About the Book?

• It was too long! I got the general gist early in each chapter.

• Some of the research had me like ?? Many of the arguments were made using anecdotes. XYZ did this, you should do it too. Many of the XYZs were managers and leaders with some autonomy over their work and methods. As an individual performer, trying to implement their methods would’ve been impossible.

• He hated on Malcolm Gladwell and the 10,000 hour rule. I love Gladwell. He can do no wrong, as far as I’m concerned. So I didn’t appreciate Morten’s sneering. Lol.

All in all, it was a worthy read. It gets my 4⭐⭐⭐⭐