It’s all about breaking the stereotype and doing a piece of work more efficiently — so what if one has to break a rule or two for better results? Bill Jensen and Josh Klein, in their book Hacking Work: Breaking Stupid Rules for Smart Results, make a serious case for “benevolent hacking” and creating “work-arounds” to perform better in today’s competitive work environment.
Jensen and Klein try to impress upon the reader that the age-old practices, processes and professional codes in use at workplaces, though meant to be followed by all, may not be the most efficient tools; and, therefore, must not necessarily be followed — provided one knows how to hack one’s work through more efficient short-cuts. They say: “That which was supposed to help us, now dictates too much of what we can’t get done. Our tools have become more bossy than our bosses.” After all, it’s more about smarter results than conventional routes, or otherwise.
Through a series of case studies strung neatly together, Hacking Work excels in highlighting a growing trend among “today’s top performers (who) are taking matters into their own hands … bypassing sacred structures and breaking all sorts of rules just to get their work done”.
The book certainly has a fresh feel to it, not least because it is reinforced by examples from the recent sub-prime crisis in the US and the global economic turmoil that followed. If anything, the contents of the book are more relevant in the aftermath of the crisis, which rendered millions across the globe jobless.
Hacking Work claims to be “exposing cheat codes for work and sharing them with the world”. These “cheat codes” may not be an exposé and would be in practice at every workplace — even if by only a few people. But the book certainly vindicates the efforts of those few who “hack work” with an exaggerated sense of guilt of bypassing the set norms; and encourages more people to join the caravan.
The book seeks to encourage its readers to break the red tape and make things easier for themselves and their businesses. It is a call to all those who are stymied by overbearing and dated bureaucratic rules that prevent work from getting done easily and efficiently. “When a twelve-year-old can gather information faster, process it better, reference more diverse professionals, and get volunteer guidance from better sources than you can at work, how can you pretend you’re competitive? When you have more empowering tools in your mobile phone for your personal use than what your company provides or approves for your projects — how can you work within, or be saved from, devastating market forces? You can’t,” the book says.
Jensen and Klein offer real-life stories of hacks in the workplace to help readers find “work-arounds” and overcome barriers in productivity. By “hacking”, they mean “benevolent hacking”, which is essentially for better performance of employees and better results for employers.
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In an interesting case study covered in the book, we see that a company uses Microsoft’s SharePoint servers, but the bosses are reluctant to have presentations delivered in anything but PowerPoint. The trouble is that the employees when collaborating to prepare presentations cannot use PowerPoint because it takes forever to first upload each slide on SharePoint and then download it. So, “every presentation began with the same collective groan: Pain in the ass!” This is a perfect example of how general rules at workplace can make life difficult for employees.
Then, we have another perfect example, in the same case — of smartly hacking work. An employee learns how to use Google Documents from his son and the entire staff adopts the find to collaborate on projects — from office, home or wherever. They save their projects on PowerPoint only before a presentation is to be made to the bosses.
In another example, a person wants a remote work arrangement for two days every week. He, apparently, knows that his wish would not be granted if he requests his bosses for it. So, he strategically volunteers to take on projects that occasionally require working over the weekend. He does it from home. He documents his progress and, after a few months, presents his case to his boss, highlighting how much more productive he is while working remotely. He is given the freedom to work from home for two days every week, because he has already made a case for himself before approaching his boss.
The book is useful for employees as well as employers — for employees, it suggests ways to break norms, use “forbidden tools” and ignore “silly corporate rules” to make work simpler; for employers, it is a call to get over the rudimentary dictums they have held so close to their hearts for ages and help their employees work “morebetterfaster”.
HACKING WORK: Breaking Stupid Rules for Smart Results Bill Jensen and Josh Klein Portfolio Penguin 210 pages; Rs 399
