Impact vs. Effort: Why Hard Work Isn’t Enough

We've all seen it on the faces of our team members, that familiar look that says, "I gave everything this week." And as founders who live and breathe our companies, we truly appreciate the commitment. After all, effort has been the gold standard for most of our lives. The majority of us grew up in environments where doing the homework mattered more than whether the learning actually changed us. We’ve been trained to believe showing effort is what matters most.

Once you’re leading a company, you start seeing the world through a different lens. Someone might tell you they poured themselves into the week, and you genuinely respect the energy. But you also know effort, by itself, rarely moves a business. The truth is, working long hours can drain us without actually driving progress.

The work that matters creates movement, and that comes from decisions, alignment, and momentum. It’s the conversation that unblocks your team, the choice that shortens a cycle, the insight that changes how you operate from that day forward. And it’s not about how many hours you put in or how exhausted you feel at the end of the week. It’s about whether the organization is stronger because of what you did.

Let’s explore why impact, not effort, is what drives real progress, and what that means for building a stronger, more aligned company.

Why Founders Don’t Celebrate Effort

When someone says they “worked hard,” it doesn’t tell us what we actually need to know. Yes, we’re grateful for the time and energy people put in, but we’re also aware of several realities that shape how we evaluate work inside a growing company.

Here’s why effort alone shouldn’t be celebrated:

1. Effort is assumed: In any organization with a decent growth rate (>10%), the intensity of the work rises for most of the roles, not because anyone asked for it but because that’s what growth demands. So yes, you value people who work hard. But inside a scaling company, that’s the starting point, not the differentiator.
2. The market responds to outcomes, not exertion: Customers don’t care how long something took. They care that it solved their problem. The P&L doesn’t change because someone pushed extra hours. It changes when value increases. Over time, you stop paying attention to time spent and start watching what actually moved.
3. Energy pointed at the wrong priority doesn’t move the needle: Every founder has watched smart people pour effort into the wrong thing. And while the intent is good, it doesn’t move the organization forward. In fact, it usually adds more work for others. That’s why you find yourself constantly asking whether the energy spent made anything better.
4. Effort can mask accountability: Here’s an uncomfortable truth: Sometimes the phrase “I worked hard” shows up when progress just didn’t happen. It’s rarely deliberate, but it shifts the focus from outcomes to how someone felt doing the work. Strong founders pick up on that quickly, not because they’re harsh, but because clarity and ownership are essential for any team trying to grow.
5. Progress isn’t linear: Companies that scale well lean into compounding improvement. Small gains, made consistently, outperform raw output every time. That’s why we look for force multipliers. Because one smart decision, made at the right moment, can reshape months of work.

These realities change the way we listen. Instead of tuning into how demanding the week felt, we pay attention to what actually changed. We look for movement, more clarity, and shorter cycles. These are what tell us the organization is genuinely getting stronger.

The question I ask myself like almost everyday is 'Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?'

Mark Zuckerberg

What Founders Actually Want to Hear

Once you’ve lived through the reality of building a growing company, you develop a different way of listening. You stop focusing on how busy someone felt or how much ground they tried to cover, and you start paying attention to whether something meaningful actually moved. When it does, you can hear it instantly.

Instead of “I worked hard,” you lean in when you hear things like “Look at this metric that shifted” or “Listen to this bottleneck I unblocked.” This is impact language. It’s grounded, specific, and oriented toward movement. It tells you immediately that the person isn’t just reporting activity, they’re connecting their work to the development and growth of the organization.

And when someone starts speaking this way consistently, their work begins compounding. They move from simply doing tasks to shaping the system. And that shift is often the moment you realize they’re becoming indispensable.

Impact language also changes how people think. Instead of asking, “Did I work hard?” they start asking, “Did anything actually improve because of what I did?” That question, and the discipline to answer it honestly, is one of the core behaviors that separates strong contributors from everyone else.

In a scaling company, this mindset is essential. Because the faster the organization grows, the more you need people who can see their work through the lens of outcomes, not hours. People who understand that progress compounds when everyone is aligned around movement, not just working hard.

What High-Performing Teams Learn to Do

High-performing teams focus on impact. Their updates center on outcomes, learning, and growth because they understand that progress is the real measure of success. You can hear the difference in how they talk and see it in how they execute.

They also spot bottlenecks faster. Instead of waiting for someone else to clear the path, they make thoughtful, informed choices that create forward motion. Over time, those choices compound. One improvement makes the next improvement easier, which is exactly how strong systems get even stronger.

Want to get your team on this level? Here’s a few things high-performing teams do consistently:

• Define impact clearly: They align on what progress looks like before diving in, using outcomes to guide daily decisions.
• Use data to track progress: Metrics and patterns help them see where momentum is building (and where it’s not).
• Prioritize leverage: They ask, “What’s the smallest action that creates the biggest shift?” and focus their energy there.
• Make learning visible: Whether something worked or not, they share insights to strengthen the entire team.
• Celebrate real growth, not sprints: Wins are tied to forward movement, not just effort or intensity.

Most importantly, these teams build a culture where progress is visible and shared. Success is tied to movement, not exhaustion. Alignment comes easier because everyone is speaking the same language and working toward the same vision.

Platforms like Ninety make this easier. When your business operating system surfaces the right metrics, bottlenecks, and priorities in real time, your teams don’t just work — they align. And that alignment is what enables growth. You don’t have to guess where progress is happening. You can see it, share it, and build on it.

How Great Teams Work

Founders rarely say this out loud, but it’s true: We don't sleep well because someone worked hard. We sleep well when the company is consistently becoming better.

If you’re serious about building a productive, humane, and resilient organization, shifting from valuing effort to valuing impact is essential. Hard work matters, of course. But when your colleagues start talking about how hard they're working and not about the impact they've created, know it's likely a sign that things are going off track, that the team is missing the proverbial forest for the trees. 

Great teams understand this. They prioritize clarity, track progress, and keep making the system stronger, day by day. So sure, appreciate the effort and celebrate commitment. But if you want to leave a lasting legacy, build a culture where people know the real goal: Progress that compounds, and movement that matters.