BOOK 1

Title: GREAT at WORK, how top performers do less, work better and achieve more by Morten
T. Hansen

Great At Work examines what it takes to be a top performer and gives practical advice to
achieve significant results at work while maintaining an excellent work-life balance.

In Great At Work: How Top Performers Work Less and Achieve More, Hansen explains these
seven principles, with examples from the lives of the 5,000 people that he and his team analyzed.

This is a Three-part book. And each part you’ll learn how you will achieve it.
 I. DO LESS, THEN OBSESS (Page 15):

Work Harder Convention: Those people who work harder and take on more
responsibilities accomplished more and perform better

Work Smarter Perspective: Top performers apply the “do less, then obsess” principle.
They are very selective about goals, ideas, and collaborations. Once they have chosen
to undertake a specific project, they commit to producing high-quality work.

Key points:
- The life and experience of people that was mentioned who chose a few key
priorities and then made a huge effort to do terrific works in those areas scores on
average 25% points higher in their performance that those who pursued many
priorities.
- Doing more create more traps. It’s like creating more tasks but can’t focus in any
of those tasks

Do Less, then Obsess principles:

1. Wield the razor – shave away unnecessary tasks, priorities, commitments, steps metrics
and procedures
2. Tie yourself to a mast – Set clear rules ahead of time to fend off temptations and
distractions
3. Say “NO” to your boss – Explain to your boss that adding more to your to do lists will
hurt your performance.

As the author says:

“to work smart means to maximize the value of your work by selecting a few activities and
applying intense targeted effort.”
 II. REDESIGN YOUR WORK (Page39):

Do what you love with purpose, even if it means redesigning your work, and never
stop learning.

Work Harder Convention: The more hour people works, the better they perform.
Great performance is about delivering on existing goals, tasks, and metrics as defined
in one’s job description.

Work Smarter Perspective: . A popular assumption is that you can achieve greatness
only by doing what you love. The author even confirms that people passionate about
their jobs are more likely to perform better.

We need to feel useful. We can do our best only if we find a role that provides value
to other people, thus experiencing satisfaction and well-being at work. The very best
performers in the study rethought their work to create the most value. Some designed
new roles for themselves, while others launched a new business inside their current
company.

Key points:
- Good redesigns create more value- the benefits work activities brings to others.
- The value equation emphasized three distinct components. To produce great value
of work is to create an output that benefits others tremendously and that is done
efficiently and with high quality

5 ways to redesign work to create value:

1. Less fluff – eliminate existing activities of little value

2. More right stuffs – increase activities of higher value
3. More Gee, whiz – Create new activities of higher value
4. Five-star rating – improve quality of existing stuffs
5. Faster, cheaper – do existing activities more efficiently.
III. DON’T JUST LEARN, LOOP (Page 64)

Morten Hansen has also questioned the popular idea that you need to practice for
10,000 hours to master a skill. He says that’s not what top performers do. The best
way to become smarter while working is to apply the “learning loop.” Regularly ask
for feedback about what you do and use it to fine-tune your processes.

Work Harder Convention: We need 10,000 hours of practice to master a job skill.
Practice-repetition-makes perfect.

Work Smarter Perspective: It’s not how many hours you practice; it’s how you learn.
The best performers at work implement the learning loop, in which the quality- and
not the quantity- of each iterations matters most

Key points: To learn well at work, we must overcome important challenges that
people don’t face when trying to master skills in anything.

- The Learning loop is an approach to learning while you perform your daily work:
you try out a new approach in a small way, and then measure the outcome, then
get quickly feedback, then tweak your approach based on that feedback.

IV. P-SQUARED (Passion and Purpose) (Page 88)

But fascination alone doesn’t suffice. Only people who adopt the “P-squared
approach” and match passion with purpose do perform great.

Work Harder Convention: Follow your passion at all cost and no matter how hard you
work. If you do what you love, success will come. Conversely, if you ignore passion,
your setting yourself up for a career that is unsatisfying and filled with drudgery.

Work Smarter Perspective: Passion is key, but doing only what you love is a bad
advice. The best course is to strive to match passion with a strong sense of purpose-
to aim for P-squared.

Key points: People with more sense of both passion and purpose are more energized,
getting more done in each hour of work (and they don’t work many hours)
 Three Ways to Expand your Passions and sense of purpose

1. Discover a new role.

2. Expand the circle of passion.
3. Climb the purpose pyramid.

Never give up learning while working! Even if you need to accomplish the same activities every
day, explore new ways of doing them. This is the “Quality learning” principle: avoid mindless
repetitions to keep improving your skills.

V. FORCEFUL CHAMPIONS (Page115)

This is the best advocates to effectively pursued goals at work by mastering two skills
to gain the support of other people.

Work Harder Convention: We often think that all we have to do is explain time and
again the wonderful merits of our case, and bosses, peers, and employees will rise on
support.

Work Smarter Perspective: The best performers don’t just agree rationally for their
ideas. They compel others to support them by deploying a two-punch maneuver. First
they inspire by evoking emotions in individual whose support they need. Second, they
apply the smart grit, tailoring and adjusting their tactics in the face of opposition.

Key points: Forceful Champions use varieties of behaviors to aroused emotions and
inspires coworkers to support their efforts.
1. They make people angry about today and excited for tomorrow
2. They show and don’t just tell, using striking photos and demos to evoked intense
emotions
3. They make people feel purpose, connecting daily tedious work to grander
purpose.
 VI. FIGHT AND UNITE (Page 140)

Collaborate only when useful and hold effective meetings using the “Fight and unite”
method. We consider collaboration to be efficient, and we often think the more, the
better. Experts advise organizations to eliminate silos, build networks, and use lots of
high-tech communication tools.

Work Harder Convention: To maximize a team’s performance (and by implication,

your own), solicit the participation of the best and brightest. Then maximize team
efforts by scheduling plenty of meetings. If the meeting fails to work, schedule
another and so on.

Work Smarter Perspective: To maximize performance, maximize team debate and

team unity. To have a “good fight” in a team, prioritize diversity over individual
talent. When you fight and unite well, you don’t need to follow up meetings because
your team discussed it well the first time. You meet smart

Key points:

To have a productive fight in a meeting, pursue the following strategies,

1. Maximize diversity, not talent
2. Make it safe to speak up
3. Prod the quiet to speak
4. Show up as an advocate, not a salesperson
5. Ask non leading questions

To improve team unity, try the following:

1. Ensure everyone has a voice
2. Commit, especially when you utterly disagree
3. Confront the prima donna
4. Sharpen the team goal
5. Stop playing office politics and get behind decisions

What about when you need to utilize a team? How can you manage meetings to get the most
from them? Top performers suggest that you carefully analyze if a meeting is really necessary
before organizing one. If it is, be sure that time together provides the highest value using the
“fight and unite” approach.
To be effective, you need to get your team to debate. People must feel allowed to speak their
mind. Confrontation is essential for the most innovative ideas to emerge and for sound decision
making. Debating requires different points of view, so you’ll have the best results if you bring
together people with more diverse backgrounds and mindsets.

You also need to ask specific questions to get your teammates to express themselves freely.
Rather than “Do we have any new ideas?” ask: “What can we do to improve this service?”
Despite contrary opinions, the team must unite. Make sure each member commits to
implementing the decision-making process and to respecting whatever choices the team leader
will make.

VII. THE TWO SINS OF COLLABORATION (Page 166)

This is connecting with people in other groups, obtaining and providing information and
participating in Projects. The two sins are:

- Under collaboration
- Over collaboration

Work Harder Convention: The more collaboration, the better

Work Smarter Perspective: Over collaboration is as bad as under collaboration. Busting

silos is not the answer. A different tack – disciplines collaboration- helps you collaborate
effectively and perform.

Key points: Organizations and employees struggle with twin sins : under collaboration
and over collaboration. Some people talk too little across teams and departments and
some people talk too much.

Rules of Disciplined Collaboration

1. Establish a compelling “why-do-it” case for every proposed collaboration. If it’s not
compelling, don’t do it and say no.
2. Craft unifying goal that excites people so much that they subordinate their own
selfish agendas
3. Reward people for collaboration results, not activities
4. Devote full resources (time. Skills, money) to a collaboration. If you can’t, scale it
back or scrap it.
 5. If you lack confidence in your partners, tailor trust boosters to solve specific trust
problems, quickly.

GREAT AT WORK… AND A LIFE TOO (Page 193)

Here are 3 lessons that he is trying to implement in work:

1. You can be successful and still experience work-life balance.

2. To perform well, you must combine your passion with purpose and constant learning.
3. If you want to master working with others, be selective about collaborations and manage
meetings with the “fight and unite” approach.