Exploding the Long Work Hours Myth
In Q2 2019, we launched our first ever Contractor Business Boot Camp not knowing exactly what to expect. With two classes now under our belts, we are genuinely overwhelmed and flattered with the positive feedback and testimonials the members have shared with us. Today, we are thrilled to announce the next two cohorts of The Contractor Business Boot Camp – Charlie and Delta. These cohorts will commence in February and April, 2020, respectively. This could be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for to help develop your high potential NextGen construction leaders – and mitigate the risks of your long term business succession. Please contact Charlotte Kopp at [email protected] for more information about the program and how to enroll.
In today’s blog, we discuss how, in the current ultra-competitive business environment, the good old nine-to-five job seems like an ancient relic. But, the bigger question we need to ask ourselves is: "Does hard work really work? Is working harder and harder actually doing what we assume it does "" resulting in more and better output?"
Watch our blog this week as Wayne busts the myth of achieving more by working longer hours and shares evidence of the negative impacts of long, exhausting hours spent at work.
We look forward to hearing what steps are you taking to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Please share your thoughts and comments. Thank you.
Hello. This is Wayne Rivers at The Family Business Institute. We've got an exciting new announcement today as we lead
off our blog. We are starting our third and fourth bootcamp classes, so the Charlie class will start February 19 of 2020, and
the Delta class will be on April 15, an auspicious day, in 2020. So, if you have young, high potential future leaders in your
organization that you really want to learn the business of construction, that's who's a great target. Also, bootcamp is
targeted for smaller contractors or specialty contractors that don't fit into our regular peer group program. So younger
people, smaller contractors, that's who we're looking for. If you have anyone you'd like to nominate, just look below, we'll
have information for Charlotte, and you can click there and ask her for more information and she'll send it right along. So,
we're really excited. Our first two boot camp classes have been amazing, and Charlotte can send you all the testimonials
and all that stuff.
So, this week in the blog, I want to talk about long hours, and why this long hours is a myth, and I want to try to dispel this
long hours silliness once and for all so you never have to hear me blog about it again. So, in our boot camp classes, it's
come out here recently where people are more financially successful than they've ever been, but they're also busier than
they've ever been. So, while they're making lots of money, they can't take off on weekends because they're working
Saturdays and things like that, and they can't enjoy the prosperity that their hard work has helped them create. So, I think
I'm going to be able to give you five ironclad reasons why this myth of the 80 to 100-hour work week is actually
counterproductive for you and your organization.
The first reason is your mental and physical health. If you're working 80 to 100 hours a week, that just crowds out so much
other stuff. There's no time for your family. I know lots of you are hearing about the long hours at home. I know you are.
It crowds out time for rest and relaxation and rejuvenation, exercise, spirituality and church, civic organizations, just time
to put your feet up and take a breather, for gosh sake. This treadmill that you're on is really quite exhausting, and I know
you feel that, and you probably don't know how sick, so to speak, you are, because this is your normal right now. And until
you to a new normal, that is, a 60 hour a week, or better yet, a 50 hour a week, you won't realize how much life is being
sucked out of you by these 80- and 100-hour work weeks.
The second reason is, if you're there that much, if you're on the job 80 to 100 hours a week, you've become a huge
bottleneck in your organization. If you're there that much, you're pretty much everywhere putting your hand on every
part of the organization at least every week, and that means that you are becoming a bottleneck for decision making and
getting things done in your organization. Now, how do we know this? Because most CEOs either don't know or wouldn't
admit that they're bottlenecks in their organizations. We know this from the people lower than the CEO on your org chart.
So, for example, we had one company where the CEO had 21 direct reports and the CEO thought that was okay. It was
quite manageable for him. Guess who was complaining? It was the 21 direct reports. They couldn't get any time with the
guy. They couldn't get their own jobs done because they needed decisions that only he could make, large scale decisions,
and yet he was never able to give them any of his time, and if he couldn't give them time for big decisions, he certainly
couldn't give them time for mentoring and coaching and developing them as future leaders.
The third reason this myth needs to be exploded is it sets a terrible example for your employees, and in today's workplace,
where work-life balance matters more than ever, if your employees see you setting the example of 80 to 100-hour work
weeks, they must be terrified, and they're probably already shopping their resumes around for places with better worklife balance. Your good employees, who are capable of being hired away, will be, and that'll leave you with what? The C
players, the lower quality employees, which means now your 80 to 100 hours might mean 90 to 110, because those people
need more of you to get their jobs done. So, don't run off your A players by setting a rotten example.
The fourth thing is, it sends a loud and clear signal that you do not trust your employees. You haven't built a team that
can run the business pretty darn well whether you show up or not, and that's ultimately what you should want as an
entrepreneur, a business that runs pretty well even if you don't have to walk in the front door every day. And that gives
you freedom to dream up new entrepreneurial things and to take that R&R time, and to spend time with your family, and
to join peer groups and learn from other family business leaders, and all the other things that can cause you to or help
you to grow the business, and in so many different ways.
And the fifth reason this myth needs to go away is because if you're working 80 hours a week now, as a 50 or 60-year-old
entrepreneur, you're building yourself a trap. You're building a treadmill that you can't get off. You're going to wake up
one day at 65 or 70 and you're going to find that your organization depends on you to the degree that you can't leave it.
You will have built yourself a trap. And I've seen this dozens, if not hundreds, if not thousands of times. It's a fact of life,
so figure out what you want. If you want a business that runs really well, whether you show up or not, that's what I've
always wanted, you can do that. You can engineer that. If, on the other hand, you want to be what one writer refers to as
a genius with 100 followers, that's okay too. Just understand it's a conscious choice that you're making. If you want to get
off that treadmill, make that conscious choice and then figure out what actions you need to take to make life better for
you and all the people that work for you.
Now, I have a request. For those of you that have made the leap, in the comment section below, I'd really like to know,
what was the catalyst that caused you to know that you needed to make changes? And then specifically, what actions did
you take to get off that treadmill, and how can we help? How can we take your example to help the other blog subscribers
that are struggling with long work hours? This is Wayne Rivers at The Family Business Institute. Thank you.
