When building a sandcastle, you can’t beat the ocean

by CUES Skybox

Make sure you’re doing enough great work.

by: Michael Hudson, Ph.D.

During his keynote presentation at CEO/Executive Team Network last month, Michael Bungay Stanier shared some very important and valuable ideas about work. Specifically, he challenged the audience to think about how much bad work, good work, and great work they were doing.

Senior partner of Box of Crayons and author of Do More Great Work, Stanier reminded attendees that 90 percent of what we do is subconscious and that 50 percent is routine, and offered these key definitions:

  • Bad Work — best depicted by the acronym WOMBAT—that is Waste Of Money, Bandwidth, And Time.
  • Good Work — work within your job description that there is typically more of than you can actually do and that is fueled by false urgency (as if you are trying to beat the ocean while building a sandcastle).
  • Great Work — working this category is about staying ahead of the curve. It is strategic, innovative and makes a difference.

Using these definitions, Stanier challenged the audience to complete this very simple exercise:

1. Draw a large circle on a blank piece of paper.

2. Divide the circle into sections representing the percentage of time you are spending doing bad work, good work, and great work.

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