Book Review: Fake Work

Fake Work is defined as work that is not targeted or aligned with the strategies and goals of the company.

Looking at the landscape of work today, you see companies making cut backs on personnel and resources which then transfers additional responsibility to the people in organization who still have a job.  In this type of an environment, it becomes even more critical to spend your time working in alignment with what makes your company successful.

Americans are working longer and are busier than ever, unfortunately this has not actually translated into productivity.  Consider this quote from page 11 of the book:

An average worker today needs to work a mere 11 hours per week to produce as much as one working 40 hours per week in 1950.

This stat is alarming.  I believe it illustrates how much busy work we have allowed in our work lives.  Technology such as the internet, e-mail and cell phones make our lives easier in many ways but they have also caused us to be distracted and to spend very little time to actual real work.

The authors, Brent Peterson and Gaylan Nielson, really dive into what “Fake Work” is and where it came from.  They also give some specific strategies for overcoming fake work and being more effective as an employee and as an organization.

Consider the following scenario regarding “Fake Work” that we have all prescribed to at one point and time. The scenario revolves around the attitude of “keeping our nose clean”.  There are a lot of workers who get stuck in an unproductive work situation and decide that the best course of action is to just put their head down and keep working and, in the end, everything will be OK.

The problem with this scenario is that if you are just putting your head down and working, you are not paying enough attention to your work and how it aligns with your companies goals.  What you ultimately discover is that fake work rears its ugly head eventually in the form of lay offs, companies going out of business, reputations that suffer etc.

The authors give tons of great examples of fake work from real life scenarios throughout the book.  These are really helpful examples as some of the scenarios are really obvious but some of the scenarios aren’t that obvious.  It becomes easy to see how we fall into fake work sometimes if we aren’t careful.

Regardless if you are a business owner, manager or entry level employee, this book is a must read if you care about ensuring you and your company are more effective.  In today’s economy, these tools and advice are more critical than ever before.