Why hard work alone isn’t enough to get ahead – By Kate Morgan (BBC News) / Sept 27 2021
We’re constantly taught the recipe for getting ahead is to put our heads down and outwork everyone else. But that’s not quite right.
This article contains strong language some readers may find offensive
Late this summer, UK author Kate Lister had a realisation that resonated. On Twitter, she wrote: “How old were you when you realised your original plan of being really nice, working really hard, & taking on much more than you should in the hope you would be automatically rewarded for this without asking, was totally shit?”
Cynical or not, the sentiment resonated: more than 400,000 people have liked or retweeted it.
Despite adages and advice that tell people from a young age hard work will get you everywhere, it really won’t, says Jeff Shannon, an executive coach, and author of Hard Work is Not Enough: The Surprising Truth about Being Believable at Work. He believes “hard work is a good start”, and early in your career, it can certainly help you establish yourself in a job.
But it’s not enough to take you all the way to the top. “At a certain point you look around and realise, wow, everyone works hard at this level. Expertise and hard work just become the expectation, and will not help you up the ladder.”
CONTINUE > https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210921-why-hard-work-alone-isnt-enough-to-get-ahead
