That makes perfect sense but it actually has a dual meaning for me. I am a union carpenter and I usually work with groups of people. I see a lot of people who actually work harder than me at getting less done because of wasted energy. I will give you a little example of this.
I am in room "A" and Jim is in room "B". Both rooms are equal size and both rooms have the exact same thing needing done. Trim work around the floor, doors, ceilings, windows, etc.
Once I get my trim cut for the entire room, I will next have to glue it. I walk into the hallway to grab the glue. I also grab the nailer, the air hose, the nails, and everything else that I can carry that I will need in the future.
Jim finishes cutting his trim for one window and goes to grab the glue. He comes back and glues his trim. He then Returns to the hallway and grabs the nailer. When he needs more Nails he makes another trip to the hallway to grab more nails. After that, he begins to cut trim for a doorway, repeating the entire process over again.
I am relaxed, working at a normal pace and actually enjoying myself. Jim is rolling in sweat, running back and forth, and trying to work as fast as he can. Yes he is working very hard. He just needs to learn to work smarter.
This is a pretty extreme example, and it usually happens on much a smaller scale but thousands of times a day by the same type of people. They just seem to have too many wasted movements.
Some people can just achieve the exact same results with far less work. In the hypothetical case of Jim and myself, I would have possibly finished two rooms in the time it took him to do one. He was working way harder but I was working smarter. He was trying to rush so he could keep up with me, but rushing also causes mistakes to be made, therfore wasting even more time.
Ther are people who appear to have developed a 'natural' Lean system in the way they operate and many, who haven't. Some continually waste time and energy due to a lack of thought/understanding/skill and believe they are doing the most they can.
Some just plain don't want to. I say this because I know I just possibly couldn't have been the only one for decades to figure out a better system. The old system made everyone happy because it was more "lax", sometimes even keeping a production line down. What appears to be everyone putting their ability into working harder isn't always what it appears, especially if it affords a opportunity to not fault one's self for that extra downtime. I use to put the hardware on filing and other metal cabinets that came down off a line. After I was done I was told to put them on a rack. A expediter filling scheduling orders would then come along with another rack looking for a particular door to fill that order. (think of him/her as a shopper in a store running from station to station to get all the stuff on a list type thing) There may be several racks sitting around with various sizes and colors of doors, so he has to shift through them to find what he needs. If a door I was to install hardware on came down the line bad I had to send it to refinish and the expediter was then left going through other racks trying to replace it. If he didn't find one in time it bought the whole assembly line to a halt. I devised a system of several racks placed in a row with a additional second tier of racks on top of them. Each row consisted of it's own size, so if someone needed a 24x36 cabinet front they only had to look at the marker I placed at the entry to the rows to see they needed to go down that particular row, each rack had the color numbers on them, so if he needed a 24x36 835 (which was the number for black) he only needed to go down that row and look for the number 835. (you'd think you could pick out black pretty quick but there's different variants of black like a black/brown). I got so good at this I could watch the line in progress above me and determine what was going to come down bad before it got there, seeing that order was coming down I knew that would be on the nights scheduled run, therefore I could go through extra's sitting around and pull in advance and have ready any doors scheduled for that night waiting for the expediter when he went down those rows looking for them. This was a lot more then what my job description entailed but I was a work alcoholic and I loved the challenge, of course my co workers who got a whole lot less downtown hated me but I sure loved those kudos from supervisors who'd say to me "it's like you can see things before they happen and intervene, great job". When I was on the second shift in another plant for the same company the plant manager would come get me and tell my supervisor he had a plane waiting for some "hot" parts and he wanted me on the job. He'd then go home and enjoy his dinner with him family rest assured he had nothing to worry about, those parts would make that plane.
It is funny how you say that people didn't like you for being good at your job as I have had experiences similar and, I have clients who experience the same.
Future opportunity in a company comes from the top down due to the hierarchy and when you make them look good, opportunity generally arrives. The funny thing is that those who don't do the work still want the same levels of opportunity and when they don't get it, they call it favouritism, which it is - based on track record.
I have worked with many people who ran around like chickens with their head cut off but, did very little. They are working hard but, not well.
Exactly. I'm writing a blog on the subject right now. You may recognize some of it because I copy/pasted/edited my comment on your blog. Is this wrong? I think I just plagiarized myself. I feel ashamed and angry at the same time.😲