The Difference Between Working Hard and Workaholism
From Jim Collins’ Beyond Entrepreneurship: Turning Your Business into an Enduring Great Company:
There’s no getting around the need for hard work. It’s a given. It comes with the territory.
However, there is a big difference between hard work and workaholism. You work hard to get something done. A workaholic, on the other hand, works out of compulsion — fear of some sort. Workaholism is unhealthy and destructive. Hard work is healthy, invigorating, and can be practiced up until the day you die, whereas workaholism leads to burn-out.
We know some effective leaders who work only 40-50 hours per week, but who nonetheless classify as very hard workers — their level of intensity and concentration when at work is incredibly high. Conversely, we know some workaholics who work 90 hours per week and are basically ineffective. More is not necessarily better.
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About Matt Perman
Follower of Christ. Husband of one, father of three. Former director of strategy at Desiring God. This blog exists to help equip Christians in good works, because that's what productivity is really about.
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[...] Perman has some good quotes from Jim Collins: “The Difference Between Working Hard and Workaholism” and “The 5 Basic Conditions People Need in Order to Execute [...]
How do we approach this issue when teaching the difference between a workaholic and a person who has a job and they have no choice because that job requires 50 or 60 hours a week? An answer that says get a different job will not be acceptable.
JT