Good Work - Creative, Efficient, Focused, In the Moment, Vison of Future

http://blogs.forbes.com/work-in-progress/2010/03/29/hard-work-isnt-the-only-virtue-for-a-small-business/
Work in Progress
Career talk for women
Hard Work’ isn’t the only Virtue for a Small Business
ar. 29 2010 - 11:06 am
Posted by Linda Smith

My parents came from a generation where the virtue in doing your job, whether as an employee or the owner of the business, was in hard work. It seemed that if you worked hard you would succeed. For my dad success was measured in:

* providing food, shelter and transportation for his family
* an annual vacation – when I was young, it was a family trip to Oregon to visit relatives and when my parents were “empty nest-ers” it meant they could travel


My dad worked for a sugar beet refining manufacturing plant in the Central Valley of California. He was a shift manager and was proud of his job and did indeed work very hard. My mom owned her business – she started a bookkeeping and payroll service. At first she worked from our dining room table; later her business grew profitable enough to lease office space downtown. She, too, believed that her success was due to the virtue of hard work.
Hard work is a good thing. But I wonder if there are other virtues worth even more? For the thousands…if not millions…of tiny solo-preneur businesses around the world I think it takes more than hard work to achieve success.
Here are other virtues:

* Working efficiently


Efficiency means that (a) little is wasted and (b) much is maximized. Organized use of all available resources is a means of working efficiently. Understanding what resources are needed and then allocating those resources according the tasks needing to be done is one way to achieve efficiency. There is also the idea of competency here. Know everything about the task at hand, organize and plan to achieve the task with the least waste in time and other resources is an efficient way to work. This can be as great a virtue as working hard.

* Working creatively


Change, in some past generations of workers, was seen as a non-virtue. Doing a task the way it has always been done was the accepted method of doing good work. Change, innovation, thinking creatively is a far greater virtue than hard work alone. Change is a fact of life and if a business doesn’t change it will stagnate and die.
There are two sides to Working Creatively. One side is that of planning and organizing. This comes in the form and practice of the business plan. A business plan is an organic, living document meant to be revisited monthly, quarterly and annually. Why? Because change happens and as a business owner you have to be able to adapt, correct your course and re-evaluate. The other side of Working Creatively is that the very process means you aren’t constantly looking within, you are instead looking out. Looking out means you are open to new ideas and able to recognize opportunities. In this way, you become the change agent to your business.
I think a better way to think about working hard is to:

* think of it as working purposefully
* be fully in the moment with a vision to the future
* accept that change is as necessary to your success as your business plan
* think of your business as something to be enjoyed…an adventure


Linda C Smith, http://www.intlnat.com