let’s think beyond hustle culture
It’s clear that employees are burned out after the events of the past few years. This is a collective exhaustion that is once again pushing us to rethink how we work and live. We’ve been running on adrenaline for too long and have to figure out a way to work in healthy ways.
The time has come to think beyond hustle culture and contemplate what’s next.
Hustling for a short period of time to get something done is necessary from time to time and I think most people are willing and even find satisfaction from it. But it can no longer be the way we operate 100% of the time.
In too many cultures, we’re only about hustling without ever giving people a break. I worked in company after company where hustle culture was the norm. I now realize that their definition of success and mine were quite different as the culture didn’t bring out my best self and the company truly didn’t leverage all the gifts I have. So if hustle culture is over, what’s next?
A few weeks ago, I caught up with a coaching client who took a different job a year ago. She talked about being completely engaged at her current company and job one year in, much more so than her last company. We dug into this a bit more to understand what was so different about her current company. We went back and forth for a while and finally, she said, “You know, I think the biggest difference is we are appropriately resourced for the work we are doing now. “ I started asking her a bunch of questions about what this meant and how it made her approach her job. She talked about having the space to do good work and how she wasn’t just rushing from one thing to the next and always feeling behind.
How we can continue to be competitive and agile and achieve great things without “hustling” and burning everyone out? At the end of the day, hustle culture stems from organizations that are trying to do too many things.
We need more thoughtful about what it means to set realistic, achievable goals. Don’t get me wrong, there should be stretch in those goals as we don’t want these to be too easy, but if left unchecked, an exciting stretch can become a painful strain.
#1 Make a clear list of what you are doing as a company.
I am advocating that there should only be 3 goals at the organization level. I know many of you will push back on this and I get it. I am not sure it’s possible either, but what if we were to try? Think about it - people can’t remember a laundry list of things; organizations can’t align on more than a few things.
Now, this is super hard for a leadership team because it requires focus, commitment, and in some cases, sacrifice for the greater good. But with 3 specific goals, you can align the workforce and people know what to do. If you have more than that, you likely create internal friction as it inadvertently leads to competing priorities and resources.
#2 Make a clear list of what you’re not doing as a company.
When you need to shift directions with your goals, you have to always stop and think about what you’re not going to do. Be explicit with the workforce. “We are changing X, this means, we will now do Y, and we will no longer do Z.” If you need to reduce your workforce, you have to think about what you will stop doing to balance your resources. Not doing so will create disengagement and impact your company’s ability to be successful. And if you need to add another project or task not aligned to the organizational goals, you can’t issue a directive and expect it to get done with the existing team and priorities. You must be open to figuring out how to resource the project and commit to what you’re not going to do or figure out how to get additional investment. If it’s that important, you will do it.
#3 Be intentional about resourcing time and money.
While hustle culture is also about doing more with less, the reality is getting people to work, harder, longer, and faster can no longer be an operating norm. So, we must be more intentional about resourcing.
I remember early on in my career when I would inherit functions or departments that were underperforming, there was always a small group of people that spent all their time building a report that nobody read or running a process with no impact. I recall once, there was an employee who spent 40 hours a week creating a recruiting activity report. When I asked her who read it or how the data was used, she had no idea. When I asked people who received the report what they did with it, they all said they didn’t even look at it. Why were we paying someone probably close to $90k a year to do something that had no impact? And then complaining that we had no resources to do the other work? It blew my mind.
I am sure you’ve all seen similar things at companies. We have to root this out. Post-hustle, we have to be maniacal about resourcing and what we have people spend their time on. Time is so precious. Remember this, if you borrow $20 from someone, you can return it. If you waste 20 minutes of someone’s time, that’s something they will never get back.
#4 Model the right behavior as a leader.
In hustle culture, there is no distinction between urgent and important. This is a real challenge because in the corporate world, most of us are not working on life and death things so there is no need to demand this “always on” mentality. Really examine your own behaviors as a leader. You set the model for others. If you’re always working, others will feel that they need to do that too. Manage perspective and expectations and think about your own work in terms of urgent and important and ensure you are modeling the right behavior.
We all still have work to do on what’s next and I am open to your thoughts and feedback but I do think you can achieve great things as a company and a culture without burning people out with the constant hustle.
