Effort has no intrinsic relation to Result.

One thing I’ve noticed as a younger person in business is the assumption younger people are going to be okay with wasting their time. I’m all for giving and being given autonomy, but I’m also aware that when told to just figure something out on my own, without a framework or parameters, there’s a 50 - 75% chance (depending on many factors) that what I come up with will end up in the garbage.

I suppose I can understand the idea behind this - that wasted time or effort is a learning experience, that it serves as practice, that it lets you develop ideas in isolation, etc.

But I don’t believe in wasting time. In the past, I generally haven’t reacted all that positively to ‘figure it out on your own’ unless it came with the freedom to execute what I figured out on my own. To put it bluntly, I’m smart enough to know when I don’t know enough to proceed, and I’d hope a fair segment of my generation is, too.

What bothers me most of all is the assumption a refusal to waste time is somehow related to laziness. That because someone chooses to spend their time in other, more productive areas, they’re trying to avoid work.

Personally, If I know I’m going to need to do it three times before you tell me what is actually needed, my options are to waste 3x the effort that is used in the final attempt, or to wait until I get actual direction and do it once.

To some, striking out blindly in hopes of brute forcing a solution is an admirable quality. I’d argue having the foresight to not waste effort before the inevitable “okay, this is what I actually want” conversation is a better indicator of understanding the difference between effort and results, but I’ve never understood the obsession our society has with pretending how hard we work is related to the quality of the finished product.