By Omogbemi Adelagun. Esq
In the previous piece, we pictured that HR departments are becoming more and more worried about the difference between WORKING HARD and WORKING SMART, and whether the latter as against the former should be the new compass point in performance appraisal for HR Departments.
From the feedbacks received, a lot of the readers of the previous piece enjoyed the 2-hr stories told by Bob Burg and John Mann in their Book ‘The Go-Giver’. The two stories were found quite intriguing especially as they enable us to easily decipher the very important difference between WORKING HARD and WORKING SMART. We saw vividly in the story of Bob & John that Smart-Working is depicted more by proper planning and strategizing (more of mental work than physical) as against Hard-Working which is depicted more by its emphasis on hard labor and hot sweat (more of physical work than mental).
The second story (The Experienced Oldman who knows actually where to tap) was far more intriguing and it revealed a further essential ingredient of Working Smart which of course seems to always pay off in a result-based and innovative environment. That essential ingredient is called ‘the Wisdom of Experience’ which was well displayed by the old man who knew exactly where to tap in order to make the dead engine to run as against the many young experts who were as competent but lacked the wisdom of experience to know where exactly to tap. The wisdom of experience and, perhaps, sometimes the spot use of intuitive or subconscious wisdom (as against the cognitive) is what makes the difference between Working Hard and Working Smart. It is this elixir that turns silver into gold, making the Smart worker an attractive and beloved star in a result-based or innovative environment.
In this concluding piece, we will be looking at the story of the Bata Shoe Company – a story that keeps resonating in many HR stories but not yet fully explored as it should have been. I have always had a salutary reminder of the ‘Bata Shoe’ story, which made me think that the story perhaps holds one of the simplest yet most profound and important messages for all of us as employees especially when deciphering between Hard Work and Smart Work.
The Bata Shoe Story goes like this. In the 20th century, one would always keep seeing the signboards of Bata Shoe, the UK shoe company even across all tiny villages and markets. It was a clear-cut case of commercial product dominance everywhere that spanned many years. Bata Shoe was, in evidence, far more than any other maker of anything. Everybody vaguely wondered what was the secret of Bata Shoe’s dominance. It all started from a simple story of the salesmen sent by all the shoe making companies in the UK to come and survey Africa and to see if any market opportunity exists.
At the end of the nineteenth century, just as colonial Africa was opening up as a market, all the manufacturers of shoes in Victorian England sent their representatives to Africa to see if there might be an opportunity there for their wares. All the sales representatives carried out a rigorous survey but came back with the same answer. ‘Nobody in Africa wears shoes. So, there is no market for our products there.’
However, it was a different outlook from a particular Bata sales representative that was also sent to Africa during the same time and who didn’t spend as much time and efforts on the market survey like the others. The employee came back saying, ‘Nobody in Africa wears shoes. So, there’s a huge market for our products in Africa! ‘There is a huge opportunity for us to hit the market fresh since nobody in Africa is wearing shoes.’
And that was it! That was the magic behind Bata Shoes success in Africa! Even in the remotest of spots, you would find signs promoting Bata appear all over Africa. It’s why Bata’s shoes are known as the shoes of Africa. That was the origin of the tremendous success of Bata Shoes in Africa. Simply because one employee that was not visibly hardworking but with a great vision sees an opportunity while many others despite their hardworking survey efforts sees none, given the same circumstance and scenario.
One needs not go too far to appreciate the superior and visionary potency of Smart Working in all of these simple but great HR stories. I will leave you to form your conclusion as to who is the valuable gem in today’s turbulent, highly digital and intensely competitive world – ‘the Hard Worker or the Smart Worker’? Should the proper HR language be Hard-work or Smart-work?
Omogbemi Adelagun is a notable Corporate Writer and Corporate Counsel Doyen in Nigeria
