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Work Smarter Before Working Harder to Get Ahead at Work – 5 Ways to Create Lots More Value · Enhance.training

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Work smarter before working harder is common sense.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Too many people are working really hard on tasks, activities and projects that don't produce much value in the eyes of their boss, and therefore they don't get ahead at work very quickly.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: For example, these people get caught up doing a lot of the urgent but not important tasks.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: How do I work smarter is a question we should often ask ourselves.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I have five essential approaches to increase the value your efforts create, and these are firstly target the bigger picture, secondly, maximise automation, third, work to leverage your team's efforts, fourth, focus on results rather than activity, and then fifth, aim to deliver eight commercial benefits.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And before I dive into these five approaches, I'm going to quickly cover firstly what does working smarter mean?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, is working smarter possible in my role?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And third, why working smarter before working harder is needed.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Any professional and manager of Teams has lots of opportunities to work smarter before working harder.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: To get ahead at work, delivering as much value as possible to the business is a must.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Use these five approaches to identify the most valuable areas of your job and put more effort into these areas.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Jess Coles.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've had a 20-year management career working in amazing companies like Innocent Drinks, EY, Williams Lee, and many others.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you're new to this podcast, Enhanced.training shares people management expertise, resources and courses so you can become a better manager quicker and help your team deliver a lot more.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Do visit us at enhance.training and use the free resources and the free webinars to quicker develop your authentic management approach, build your skills and deliver more from a motivated and happy team.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you find this podcast useful, please share it with friends and colleagues.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: For those of you that are not sure what working smart means, let me cover that.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Working smart is simply creating more value for the business in the same time worked or effort taken.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: For example, you know improve how you produce a set of reports and produce five reports in the same time as it used to take to produce three reports.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Another example, reducing the cost of producing a widget without any other factors changing.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: A final example, you're converting a set number of inquiries into a higher level of sales.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: These all increase the value produced without spending more or taking more time and are examples of working smarter.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Working harder would be to work longer to produce the five reports, or sell the widget at a lower price and lower profits to keep market share, or to spend more on advertising to get enough leads to win the same level of sales.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: If businesses don't constantly look to make improvements to how they serve their customers or the cost of serving their customers, their competitors will overtake them.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Don't improve for long enough and there won't be a business left.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Help your business be successful by looking for improvements in everything you do.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Another question asked, is working smarter possible in my role?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is a good question.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Any job that involves regular problem solving, the answer is easy, yes.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Most professional roles and all management roles fall into this category.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: For those that do more routine, repetitive tasks as part of their job, then working smarter might be harder to achieve, yet there will still be opportunities.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Every job should have opportunities to save time.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Saving time by changing how you do a task is an improvement and therefore working smarter.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Look for the opportunities in your role and act when you find them.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Why working smarter before working harder is needed.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: To be successful at work, to be given more interesting tasks, more responsibility, more autonomy, to be regular promoted or progress your career, you can't avoid working hard.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: I have not met any successful person that has not worked hard.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Working smarter, not harder, is the dream.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Working smarter and work harder is the reality of being successful.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: I have met a lot of people that worked very hard but progressed their careers slowly.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Working hard is not enough on its own to gain success and promotion at work.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Working smarter before working harder is about finding what is valuable to work on and then do more of what's valuable to work on to the company rather than just working harder on everything.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let's cover how do I work smarter.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I have five key approaches to identify the most valuable areas in your job.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Use these and focus more of your efforts in the high value areas.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: When you have urgent requests and problems coming in from all directions, it can be hard to focus on the most important valuable work.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Do your best to carve out time to work on the most important areas rather than the most urgent.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the first way to work smarter is to target the bigger picture.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: One of the better ways to work on what is really valuable to the business is to understand the current business goals and how these fit into the longer-term strategy.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Understand how your business unit, function, team, and finally your personal role can help reach those business goals.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Formal goals are usually what the company thinks are the highest value activities.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: The more you can focus your energy, time and work on helping achieve those formal goals, the more likely you'll be doing high value work.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Work with your boss to create more time and energy working on the higher value areas of your role, aligned within the bigger picture.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Help yourself and the team create the most value for the business as possible.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: The second way to work smarter is to maximize automation.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Automation can be very small, it could be like using links within a spreadsheet, for example, or using systems to send out information automatically, all the way through to using systems or robotics to replace parts of or full roles done by people.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Wherever you can use automation too, firstly increase accuracy, or secondly, increase the speed of doing a task, or to reduce the cost of doing a task, take it.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Each of these outcomes adds additional value to the company.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Your automation works very well in stable environments or replacing repetitive tasks that don't change very quickly.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Automation doesn't work as well in fast-changing environments or where tasks keep changing.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Always look out for opportunities to use automation.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Do check the business benefits before investing in automation.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: The third way to work smarter is to leverage your team's efforts.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Managers are in a brilliant place to work smartly.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Managers are solving problems all day long.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: It is a key part of the job.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Examples of working smarter before working harder are firstly spotting problems that when removed will help the whole team save time and effort.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or secondly, challenging the status quo to remove redundant tasks, outdated tasks, or low-value tasks, freeing up more time for the team to spend on the higher value tasks.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Third, saying no to you or the team doing lower value tasks than are currently being worked on.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, getting agreement from your boss or the leadership team to focus more of your team's time on the higher value tasks.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: The more you can do as a manager to leverage the time and efforts of your team so they can create more value for the business, the better off you, your team and the business will be.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: The fourth way to work smarter is to focus on results rather than activity.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Undertaking activity is only really valuable if it creates desired results for the team and the business.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: When you're focused on goals and results, research shows that you are at least 20% more likely to achieve the results.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: To get a team focusing on results, I would suggest that, firstly, you would create specific goals for the results you want, ideally with your team.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, explain why they are important and how they fit into the wider goals of the business.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And third, measure and share the progress against these goals, i.e.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: create visibility of progress.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then fourth, keep your focus publicly and obviously on the goals agreed, and your team will have constant reminders that the goals are important to you and thus important to them.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Goals and results provide much clearer direction and the ability to measure progress.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Use goals and results to focus the team on the higher value areas.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: The fifth way to work smarter is to aim to deliver eight commercial benefits.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: All the work you focus on and you get your team to focus on should be creating one of these outcomes or benefits for the company.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, increased revenue.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, saved costs, thirdly, saved time, fourth, improved processes, fifth, increased efficiency, sixth, reduced risk, seventh, achieving business targets, and then eighth, pleasing customers.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: These benefits are what all businesses need, and the more work you can do to achieve these benefits, the more value you will create.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Prioritize the opportunity to create the biggest impact to one or more of these benefits and complete this first.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Only then move on to the next opportunity on your prioritised list.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I have found one of the best ways of finding great opportunities is asking a lot of questions and listening to what team members tell me.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: The best opportunities are rarely obvious, yet if they were they'd have already been taken.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Keep in mind these eight commercial benefits and keep asking yourself, how does what you're working on achieve one or more of these?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, in summary, work smarter before working harder to get ahead at work is a must.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: From my experience, you have to work hard to have a successful career, whatever your current role and ambitions are.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Working hard alone is not enough either.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: In my view, working smart and working hard is the starting point of a longer term success in a career.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: The five critical approaches to consistently work smarter are firstly, target the bigger picture, secondly, maximise automation, third, work to leverage your team's efforts, fourth, focus on results rather than activity, and fifth, aim to deliver eight commercial benefits.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Ask your team to look out for any opportunities to work smarter.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Keep yourself and your team focused on the higher value tasks, activities and projects rather than the urgent ones.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions on work smarter before working harder to get ahead at work, please drop me an email at support at enhance.training and I'll get back to you.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Don't forget to visit us at enhanced.training and take a look at all the free resources to help you become a better manager quicker.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks very much for listening, and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.