The Hardest Workers Don't Do the Best Work

The column uses Michael Bradley and Lionel Messi to contrast visible hustle with actual performance. It then draws on Morten Hansen’s research to argue that the best workers often do fewer things, because they avoid inessential tasks and protect their attention.

Reading notes

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• Bradley’s high mileage at the 2014 World Cup was widely praised, while Messi had the lowest work rate among non-defenders and still stood out as the most valuable player.
• Hansen’s five-year study of American workers found that top performers do less, not because they are inactive, but because they choose more carefully.
• The strongest workers seem to have better ways of deciding what not to do and of focusing on a few important activities.
• Saying no is treated as a skill, especially when a worker needs to avoid extra tasks without openly rejecting a boss or colleague.
• Hansen gives the example of James, who declined extra work by pointing to the risk of reducing attention to a merger project.
• Hansen also gives the example of Susan Bishop, who stopped accepting work outside her specialty and used that boundary to turn down a Coca-Cola search assignment.
• The piece notes that the evidence may run both ways, since star performers can be more selective because their reputations already give them leverage.
• As success grows, new opportunities multiply, and selectivity becomes more important to preserve the habits that made success possible.
• The column ends by saying hustle can be a virtue, but it takes work to keep it from becoming a vice.