THE SMARTWORK MANIFESTO
Production does not equal value and value is king.
Working for work’s sake is a surefire way to create a whole lot of unhappiness. Hard work gets old. Hard work isn’t scalable. Hard work cannot be infinitely rewarded. Having an organization that only knows how to work hard and is only rewarded for working hard can never be as successful as the one that knows how to create value and is rewarded for it.
1
What you reward is what you end up with.
Every reward you give is a vote toward the organization you want to become. When you reward hard work and effort above creative value you’re going to have an organization of people who know how to grind. That means your organization will grind too – often, to a halt.
2
If you don’t see your strategy everywhere – you don’t have one.
You may think you’ve got a clear strategy, but chances are you haven’t even set a clear objective. Objectives lead to goals which lead to strategies which lead to metrics. How to develop strategies can be learned – but it takes courage AND encouragement.
3
If it doesn’t matter in a year from now, it doesn’t matter today.
Is this urgent? Is this important? Both? Neither? How can you tell? Expanding the time horizon of your organization's thought and work is the first step in creating true lasting value.
4
Redundancies are bad – unless they are not.
Every bit of effort that is duplicated is wasted – unless it’s purposeful. If you’re working on things which have been done or are being done and you don’t even know it, you’re spinning your wheels. This can pass for impactful work in vanity organizations – but not smart organizations. Get clear before you get going.
5
Involvement = Engagement.
No one – and I mean NO ONE – enjoys things happening to them at work. Involving people who will be impacted by your decisions allow you to make better, more informed decisions and ones that will have way more smooth adoption. Transparency will win you a lot of needed allies toward your goals.
6
Change cannot be the culture. Adaptation needs to be the culture.
Change too often and you’ll never get solid ground under your feet in which to run. Fail to adapt and you will be left to wither on the vine. Creating a culture that can flow with the go means you can respond to anything.
7
Hiding behind ambiguity is for cowards.
You have heard it praised before; the ability to thrive in ambiguity. Ambiguity is a shield for those who want to hide from making sense of what is going on. When things are ambiguous, grab your sword and take the hill of clarity.
8
Make friends with failure.
Failing is not a negative. Failing means you found out a way something didn’t work – which leaves you the freedom to find the thing that WILL work. The danger is when you can’t admit to the failure and hold on to it for too long. Then – failure is fatal.
9
Cut out the steps and scale already.
What kills scale is the inability to know what value is being created fast enough to adopt it. How many steps does a good idea need to take before someone who matters even knows about it? Don’t take steps – create channels.