The graft behind the glory: Why hard work can't be replaced

This is a guest post from John Stapleton, an entrepreneur, investor, advisor and founder of the New Covent Garden Soup Company.

Are we expecting too much of the younger generations? In business, many of my generation (Gen X) have written off the younger generations as snowflakes - weak, distracted and simply not resilient. Boomers likely have an even harsher view.

I think this is too extreme. Oldies have complained about younger generations for literally thousands of years. Looking down on generations coming after seems to be a part of human nature.

But there is one area where I feel criticism of the younger generation is justified - their attitude to hard work. Over the last five years (and with increasing regularity and ferocity), we are told that it’s OK not to want to work hard. It is portrayed that working hard is bad. Working hard is somehow an evil and if you do it, you’re a dinosaur, or stupid, or both. It’s regarded as OK to flunk off early, to question why it’s necessary to come into the office or to even work 40 hours a week. 

It is important to state that this is not a piece of anti-woke propaganda. The media is already full of that (and the business media is no different). Donald Trump’s White House will likely stoke this fire. However, the pendulum has swung and when it does, it always swings a bit too far – at least for many people – even for a lot of those who were eager for it to swing in the first place. 

It's a mistake to encourage others (particularly younger generations) not to want to work hard. It is portrayed that hard work is somehow bad for you. There is a strong view (often propagated on social media) that work-life balance is always more important than achievement and without this balance, your life will be full of traumatic experiences. Tied to this is the view that high productivity can only be delivered by working fewer hours. This is simply not true and it is a travesty to suggest it is. 

In my experience, achieving something worthwhile is difficult and is often only achieved through hard work and sacrifice. This is often what makes it worthwhile. This typically means being committed, putting in significant effort and not being fazed by long stints outside your comfort zone. Nothing is guaranteed, but if you’re smart about it, putting in the time often pays off. Without it, you fall well short.

In my world, if you are an entrepreneur and are doing something for the first time like launching a new product or service, there is a great deal of uncertainty and risk. In this case, working hard doesn’t guarantee success, but without the effort, success is usually elusive. Setting up and scaling a business means a lot of uprooting trees, crashing through walls and swimming against the tide. Making a significant difference, in any business environment, requires significant effort and this means putting in the graft.

Business dynamics tend to rotate in cycles. When opportunities present themselves, you simply have to take advantage of them. These opportunities can be in the form of technological advances (e.g. AI) or simply as a result of times of renewal (e.g. the 2008/ 2009 financial crisis). The status quo favours the establishment. Once disruption occurs, start-ups flourish and business opportunities present themselves. 

By the way, I’m convinced opportunities aren’t presented. They are seized. The window of opportunity doesn’t stay open forever. Even if it stays open for a while, others rush in to lay claim to the competitive advantage it presents and you miss out. 

Setting outrageous (but achievable) goals is the essence of being successful. If you want to reach these goals, huge effort is required. Simply put, if you want it badly enough, you'll have to put the graft in. This almost always means to a level beyond what everyone else is doing. 

It's also clear that by and large, those who earn more, work more. It’s a mistake to think that you can earn a lot by putting in a mediocre amount of effort. Clearly, not everyone wants to be the highest earner. But often, the view of those who feel entitled to a significant reward is that it can be achieved with mediocre input. It can’t. 

Here’s the big one: The essence of setting up or scaling a business is the exact opposite of having any form of work-life balance. Of course, you can get lucky. But “getting lucky” isn’t a recipe for success. Success almost always comes as a result of working hard. To suggest otherwise is wrong. There are, of course, exceptions. When I lived in San Francisco at the turn of the century, a mate of mine with very modest ability and application for hard work struck it lucky with his dot-com business. He was in the right place at the right time. Again, not a reliable recipe for success.

It’s bad enough suggesting to people they shouldn’t want to work hard but the greatest travesty of all is telling young people it’s not cool. Instead, it’s OK to put in less effort. When you are younger, you can more easily throw yourself into your business with passion. When you are younger, you can put the extreme effort into achieving this over long stretches. When you are older, it becomes more difficult (take it from me!). Uprooting trees and crashing through walls is easier in your twenties and thirties. In fact, it’s part of it. You thrive on it. 

Before anyone accuses me of propagating a business culture where employers take advantage of employees, this is absolutely not what I’m suggesting. In most western societies (certainly in the UK/Europe), there are more than sufficient laws in place to prevent abuse like this (and rightly so).

Some businesses I’ve created have, at times, employed over 150 people and in certain cases were awarded or recognised for culture and people process. These days, in a post-Covid environment, I am particularly supportive of an appropriate work-from-home (WFH) environment. I WFH a lot myself and recognise the far-reaching benefits of doing so. Flexibility is very important and this can drive incredible benefits. 

However, I’ve not found any replacement for working hard – especially when there are goals to be met, opportunities to be taken advantage of and business growth to be delivered. I have never personally been forced to work longer hours than I’ve wanted. I’ve always been focused on the outcome and/or achievement. If that required long hours, I’ve been delighted with the opportunity to achieve that outcome (if I was good enough).

When we set up New Covent Garden Soup Co, nobody asked me about my work-life balance. There was a huge amount to do and all the while, the risk that no matter how much of it you managed to do, there was no guarantee that you were going to be successful. As time went by, the risk reduced, but the effort simply became more intense because by then, more was at stake. However, I don’t believe it works any other way (and with the other businesses I set up, it was exactly the same). 

It was always a free choice for me to work hard. I chose to take it. It should be a choice for others also, especially the younger generations. To encourage this group to not do so or to suggest it is uncool, unworthy or unnecessary only does them a disservice. Especially if they have significant expectations or aspirations (which they rightly do). The best way to achieve anything worthwhile – in business or in any walk of life, is to put the graft in. I’d gladly do it all over again and in some ways, I still am.