Working smart

In the world of business where we are constantly under pressure to achieve, we are always asking how we can be more efficient. How can we get the desired results in the least amount of time or the most cost effective way? Well…

Last Sunday we saw Mo Farah manage to claim yet another gold medal to cement himself as one of the Britain’s greatest ever Olympians. With the 5,000 metre defence still to come, those who’ve simply heard of the victories could easily fall into the trap of thinking that he’s had it easy. However, the 10,000 metre title he secured in Rio was a far from perfect race.

On lap 10, his training partner tripped him up, which could easily have ended his title defence. Instead, he went on to win gold with the time of 27:05.17 – a time which is frankly ridiculous in itself!

Grit and determination aside, those who watched the run from the start could see him fall into his usual routine. Start at the back, stay in contention, run your own race and stick to what you believe in.

When there was an anomaly he hadn’t prepared for, there was no clear panic. He didn’t just run himself out to catch up and burnout. He didn’t work any harder than he absolutely needed to at a still early stage. Instead, he worked smart and found a way to deal with the issue and reached a resolution.

This mentality and thought process is often one we pass on to new recruits within our business. When you start a new role, it can be easy to go at a million miles an hour to show how hard you are working and then worry when the results aren’t coming in.

New Recruitment Consultants, or anyone within a sales or target driven environment, will sometimes work to tick a box. There won’t always be the focus on the bigger picture or the overall outcome and how that can be achieved.

The long and short of this is to work smart. Everyone has a target that they want to achieve in something. Mo’s was to win gold. Ours are to fill roles, satisfying the needs of clients and candidates. I’m sure that everyone reading this has something they want to achieve in their personal lives.

So slow down, break the problem into parts and come up with a plan. Break your targets into daily or weekly achievable goals and work out exactly what needs to be done and by when. Ensure this is an achievable aim and have a team around you that can advise and help.

Working smart allows us to complete a lot more, without the panic or stress that comes with pushing yourself beyond your limits. Of course, push yourselves to the limits of your abilities. Though if you find that you’ve looked back on a very stressful hour or day and don’t know what you’ve achieved, then taking a moment to get your plan back on track would have been a far more useful use of your time. I’ve always followed a simply rule taught at Venn Group “don’t forget the basics” and this is true is any field of work.