Hacking Work: Breaking Stupid Rules for Smart Results

by Bill Jensen, Josh Klein

Why work harder than you have to? One manager kept his senior execs happy by secretly hacking into the company's database to give them the reports they needed in one third of the time. Hacking is a powerful solution to every stupid procedure, tool, rule, and process we are forced to endure at the office. Benevolent hackers are saving business from itself.

It would be so much easier to do great work if not for lingering bureaucracies, outdated technologies, and deeply irrational rules and procedures. These things are killing us.

Frustrating? Hell, yes. But take heart-there's an army of heroes coming to the rescue.

Today's top performers are taking matters into their own bypassing sacred structures, using forbidden tools, and ignoring silly corporate edicts. In other words, they are hacking work to increase their efficiency and job satisfaction. Consultant Bill Jensen teamed up with hacker Josh Klein to expose the cheat codes that enable people to work smarter instead of harder. Once employees learn how to hack their work, they accomplish more in less time. They cut through red tape and circumvent stupid rules.

For instance, Elizabeth's bosses wouldn't sign off on her plan to improve customer service. So she made videotapes of customers complaining about what needed fixing and posted them on YouTube. Within days, public outcry forced senior management to reverse its decision.

Hacking Work reveals powerful technological and social hacks and shows readers how to apply them to sidestep bureaucratic boundaries and busywork. It's about making the system work for you, not the other way around, so you can take control of your workload, increase your productivity, and help your company succeed-in spite of itself.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Management, Self Help, Audiobook, Productivity, Technology

224 pages, Hardcover

First published September 23, 2010

About the author

Bill Jensen makes it easier to do great work.
Bill is today’s foremost expert on work complexity and cutting through clutter to what really matters.

He has spent the past two decades studying how work gets done. (Much of what he’s found horrifies him.)

He is an internationally-acclaimed author and speaker who is known for provocative ideas, extremely useful content, and his passion for making it easier for everyone to work smarter, not harder.

His first book, Simplicity, was the Number 5 Leadership/ Management book on Amazon in 2000. His next best-seller is Simplicity Survival Handbook: 32 Ways to Do Less and Accomplish More.

His latest books, Disrupt! Think Epic. Be Epic. and The Courage Within Us, reveal the secrets of 100 great disruptive heroes on how to thrive and take advantage of continuous disarray, disorder and change.

Bill holds degrees in Communication Design and Organizational Development.

He is CEO of The Jensen Group. Among his clients are Bank of America, Merck, Pfizer, GE, L’Oréal Italia, Genentech, NASA, The World Bank, BBC, Philips Lighting, the US Navy SEALS, the government of Ontario, Singapore Institute of Management, Guangzhou China Development District, and the Swedish Post Office.

Bill’s personal life fantasy is to bicycle around the globe via breweries.

Reviews

[Rory Parle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty thin on content. This book would have worked reasonably well as a single article.

[Justinas Rastenis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the concept of hacking work especially on things that doesn’t make any sense. However, I would suggest treating this book with caution for anyone working in Europe. The reasons for that are that European labour market is much more balanced towards needs of workers as well as European companies are often more heavily regulated and those regulations often create work begging for hacking. The problem of hacking in those situations is that it will break one of the main rules of positive hacking. Other than that I really enjoyed this maverick approach to work the book suggests as well as practical ways of seeking efficient results.

[Dennis Boccippio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh.

HBR may have it right, Hacking Work may be one of the ten breakthrough ideas of 2010. The downside is, what Jensen and Klein have to say really could fit within the confines of a good HBR article; it's a bit thin and repetitive for 200 pages. That said ... it's a quick and fairly innocuous pages that doesn't feel like a waste of time.

Jensen and Klein do a reasonably good job at encouraging those who might not yet be inclined to take personal ownership over their career vector to do so. (As a manager, I'd say this alone redeems the book). The concept that employees' intellectual capital and effectiveness is theirs to wield and sell in 'the new economy' is the underpinning of the book. It's an interesting proposition, but there are two areas that are critically under-explored:

- The issue of whether or not the economic meltdown will serve to further unlock this new mode of thinking (a global vote of no confidence in corporate leadership, as the authors posit), or inhibit it (due to job insecurity) is mentioned, but not probed in any depth. When the first real, "hard" data get published on this topic, this book might be worth a re-visit.

- Put bluntly, the issue of whether or not most employees have the skills and maturity to hack the workplace, well, that's the $64M question. Jensen and Klein assert repeatedly that in their 'extensive interviews' workplace hacks are already happening, all over the place - but again, there's precious little hard data to support this. It's a critical weakness. The book is supposed to be targeted at those not yet hacking, though its real audience is likely to be the already-converted (highly skilled employee hackers and supportive managers).

This second weakness would bother me less if the "sell" weren't couched in very naive and simplistic antiestablishment platitudes about control and its inherent evils. This is not the sort of philosophy that will set people on the "still developing" side of the emotional intelligence spectrum on a course for success. Indeed, while the authors claim to be addressing all manner of workplace hacks - both social and technological - their focus is clearly on the train wreck that is enterprise IT. The disconnects between the enterprise IT industry, employees' needs, and even managements' needs, are many, and the reasons are probably a lot deeper and more complicated than a facile and universal management desire for "control".

So - meh. There's a good idea here, but it's spread too thin, hyped a bit too hard, not backed up by strong analysis, and by trivializing management needs with silly and simplistic assertions, probably loses some needed friends. But give it a read - YMMV.

[Chris Wood · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm a strong supporter of challenging corporate procedures or rules to either better understand why they're there, or to "fix" things to suit the organizations true needs. However Jensen & Klein's book spent more time explaining that business hacks were okay with emphasis on trivial examples such as using Google Docs or digital receipt tracking opposed to sticking strongly to corporate tools. With an expectation for more enlightening, corporate sized, large value add mindshifts or more significant examples, the "Hacking Work - Breaking Stupid Rules for Smart Results" book was a disappointment. A quick read; however for those already questioning procedures in your organization, this book will be of little value add.

[Alessandro Cardito · Rating 1 out of 5]

If someone created a program that randomly puts together text according to stereotypes picked on the internet, then i'd be pretty confident to say that this program generated this book based on stereotypes on the work place.
I always know that when you read these books you've to swallow a lot of bullshit to read those maybe 10 pages that are worth the book.
In this case, those 10 pages never arrived- the book is anecdotal nonsense from page one to the end.

[Kes · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a readable book about how to improve your workplace. Basically: what inefficiencies are there in your workplace? How would you improve it, relying on soft hacks (people and relationships) or hard hacks (non-living things)?

The authors call of these actions "hacking". (They also draw a distinction between white hat, grey hat, and black hat hacking.)

What I liked about this book was the way it reconceptualised your workplace. What are your KPIs (or what is the end that you have in mind)? How do you keep yourself engaged in your work? If you're a workplace, how are you user-focused? How do you ensure that things work together in a cohesive manner? After all, while "every business has to balance between consistent processes to reduce costs and maintain quality", the question is the mix.

I did like the observation that organisations tend to be about power, control and risk - that:

Globalisation and dozens of other forces have robbed organisations of predictability, stability, and control. So they push lots more controls and changes down through the company.

It's a fun book, although I did find the tone a bit too energetic.

[Hilary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting mindset, but they didn't mention the crucial security caveats until chapter 4, and some of the examples were *extremely* unethical. (At least one would be an immediate firing offence.) I was hoping for more useful examples which weren't weighted towards "Use Google Docs to bypass corporate firewalls".

I get better info from LifeHacker.com.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fairly useless for a sole trader, but has merit for those working in enterprise-sized companies. While the relatively 'simple' idea behind the book has been drawn out for about 100 pages longer than it should have, there are a few good case studies and examples within the book that redeem it.

Reading Jensen's book today (2017), it's all too obvious that it hasn't aged well; examples include:

1. Constantly referring to the tipping point where Gen Y (they use 'Millenial' sparsely... which is refreshing, but also shows how dated the book is) will become the dominant generation within the workforce.

This happened several years ago, around 2013.

2. The incredibly irritating use of the word 'hacking' for anything and everything productivity related. It's as if people in 2010 didn't know what a hacker was...

3. The obvious shift from software to cloud based work tools, and the insane penetration of the saas business model.

And more that aren't as prevalent throughout the book, but were popping up often enough for me to notice.

The first half of this book was almost unbearable to read, with Jensen spouting (what are now, I assume) cliches about 'hacker culture' and the activities 'hackers' get up to.

Thankfully, as I read through the book, it got into some better case studies and more nitty gritty examples that I could take some good insight from.

Examples include:

Hints as to (now) common survey funnels such as the 'Ask Funnel' becoming incredibly important. Reading this book in 2010 and implementing this take away would've been a great competitive advantage.

From p. 105:

A recent study by the IBM Institute for Business Value found that companies that practice customer co-creation experience reduced costs, increased revenues, improved customer intimacy, and enhanced product innovation and differentiation.

The oncoming influence of the 'gig economy' and freelancers.

From p. 117:

... business leaders could have gotten the update from Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat: Be prepared to compete with everyone, everywhere, for everything. ... Your essential base-level needs now are food, shelter, a job, and your ability to compete for your own job every day.

No matter what you do or where you do it, a change anywhere in the world at any time can suddenly pull your job out from under you.

Your ability to please your customers or your boss or your company is no longer key. Your only hope lies in your ability to adapt and continuously do better than you did yesterday no matter what is thrown at you.

Friedman called this ability "uploading".

And finally, the idea that senior management need to understand how their staff work during their day to day.

From p. 174:

You have no idea how destructive and wasteful your infrastructure is because you don't need to use it the way the workforce does... Drive the forklift, use the database, fill out the form, submit it to HR, and find out how long it takes to get a response. Use your own infrastructure.

And this is where there's a slight paradox.

The information in this book is great. But it's now commonplace, which makes these insights seem trite and obvious. That business culture has changed to the point where the points in this book are now obvious may partly be in thanks to this book.

When it was published, this would've been a great read. Today, however, there are far better books available that will provide better insight into working 'smarter'.

[CTEP]

For the month of April I read the book Hacking Work by Bill Jensen and Josh Klein. The subtitle of this book is Breaking Stupid Rules for Smart Results. This book takes a look into how low to mid level employees are often bogged down with bureaucracy in their work place that limits their ability to do their job and what they do because of it. In this book they detail a number of instances where people took action to make them more efficient unbeknownst to boss or organization. These actions range from working on proposals with other employees via google docs instead of emailing giant reports back and forth to taking advantage of a relationship with a database manager to get greater access which leads to effortless customized reports. Throughout the book the authors detail actions of others including why they were feeling stifled, what they did to fix it and what the results are. This book’s is important to anyone working anywhere. It is encouraging everyone to take a critical look at the methods required to perform your job and assess weather or not these methods work for you and instead of giving up if they don’t tacking action so that your job is tailored to your working style and not the other way around.

[Joe Richardson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bought based on the expectation that this was a book on how to automate corporate processes. Instead, it's about how to develop a "hacker mindset" and how to "think outside the box" and all that usual crap, but this time with a techie/corporate aesthetic. Skip.

[Dan Burt · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.25 stars.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

meh.....

[Jim Street · Rating 2 out of 5]

My version is old and the info is little more than descriptive. As a non-manager who basically hacks everything as part of my job function, I was kind of disappointed.

[30nist]

Some nice bits and pieces. Could be shorter.

[Frank · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you ever had to work around a company rule or policy that prevented you from doing your job effectively? Ever used non-company software and tools to get things done? Or reached out to a co-worker to skirt a dumb work process? If so, than Hacking Work is your kind of book.

Hacking Work is all about the rising tide of benevolent hacking at work and the people who bypass corporate-centered systems in favor of efficient, user-centered approaches. The text is not anti-work or anti-business. On the contrary, it's about saving business from itself and reintroducing effeciency and human innovation back into the workplace. Because, ultimately, if your organization is not as effective and flexible as it can be, a competitor down the street or across the world will be.

Fortunately, the maturation of available software today, including loads of free, open-source options and the proliferation of social media, make it easier than ever to introduce hacks that introduce efficiencies and benefit the person doing the work and the organization. In this sense, hacking includes everything from the emergence of Gen Y as the major demographic in the workforce, to the return of a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) work sensibility, and "a growing openness about challenging the tools and procedures we're handed."

To give you a sense of what you'll find in the book, below are 10 Hacking Work starting commandments:

1. Be cool
2. Try non-hacking first
3. Do no harm
4. Never compromise other people's information
5. Play well with others
6. Pay it forward
7. The law of attraction works
8. Be true to yourself
9. Talent is overrated
10. Hacking can be a journey of self-discovery

Definitely, definitely read this book. And while your at it, tell your boss and your boss's boss to read it too.

You can learn more about Hacking Work at www.hackingwork.com.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

An inspiring call to arms. This book takes an unflinching look at the ethics, means and motivations of "hacking work" - finding ways to work around difficult bosses, inflexible processes or stubborn technology. It has lots of examples from real interviews conducted by the authors. The only thing keeping this book from 5 stars is a lack of even more examples (I could read those all day) and some more specific best practices on How to Hack. But they make the point that any advice they could give would be quickly outdated, so no big deal.

No tech savvy required - just a drive to succeed, a creative mindset and a frustration with the status quo.

[Amanda Jorgensen · Rating 1 out of 5]

The title of this book is too "in your face", it makes you feel a bit guilty about reading it, like you're committing a crime or something. But the the idea of learning how rules work and how you work around them (white hacks) is just what we all do every day, without wanting to call it a big hack or anarchy. The book is not well written, if you read what they say on the back of the book this should be enough, the rest is just the authors saying this phrase they so love one thousand times - "hack it!" actually meaning - "think about what you do before you do it" :P. It is ridiculously repetitive and not very enlightening at all.

[Themistocles · Rating 2 out of 5]

The biggest hack I did while reading this book was to just close it and go do something infinitely more useful, like write this review or stare at the wall.

It's ok, I guess, for total beginners or people who never thought of (gasp) thinking outside the box, but if you don't fall into these two categories then it's just a ton of blah blah, re-blah blah and yet more blah. Sure, there are lots of small examples sprinkled throughout the book, but I didn't read a single one that made me go "oh!".

This is the second book that I've read that was on HBR's lists, and just as disappointing as the first. I wonder what they're smoking over there at Harvard.

[Henry Pan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since I was a kid, I hate to play by the rules for all kind of games, from the single player hacks to MMO games hacks, this made me feel I saved up a lot of useless time; by transferring this mindset to the workplace as well as life, companies tend to assign tasks to employees with the effort of reaching cost-savings for the company as a whole, now here is where this book comes into place - there are many ways to do those tasks, why not go around the rules once for a while (of course, you don't wanna break the law as an expense)

[Aizuddin Khalid · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book gives a few pointers to open your mind to make a breakthrough & simplify matters.

They gave some true examples which we all can relate to. I believe as we read this book, we envision some real examples among ourselves, or even we might see ourselves once taking shortcuts or so. It helps motivate you that it's OK or may be even necessary to be bold and brave to take unorthodox steps to make changes for the better.

[Rob Cantrall · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an interesting topic -- finding ways around stupid rules and policies -- but the authors are little more than observers here, not even truly reporting. There are some interesting anecdotal hacks that they outline and a reasonable case is made in favor of hacking, but it all feels a bit too loose to be truly useful. Read it for the anecdotes, and not much more.

[Derek · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book to be a quick read. The idea being, find ways to get around bureaucratic rules within the organization you work for, and become more productive. At times it's a bit too rah-rah, and I found it light on actual tips or examples. Instead the authors refer you to their web site, in which case, what do you need the book for?

[Terry Barker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got this for one penny at Amazon. Of course, shipping was $3.99, but it's still a great deal. The book doesn't have a boiler plate of tools to use for hacking, but it does give a good sales pitch about the risks and benefits. By the way, the work hacking is not the malicious kind--it's about going around rules when you can get the job done faster, while benefiting the company.

[Elliott Bäck · Rating 3 out of 5]

These rules are mostly things that you would do naturally. The tech bent of the book is silly in most large organizations, while bending rules could likely get you fired. Also, many of the anecdotes feel dated. The instructions in the book become repetitive over time.

[Vipin Ramdas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read to highlight how you can "work around" corporate processes, practices, policies,tools without actually breaking the law. A must read for anyone who has been frustrated at work and said "darn these corporate processes and tools

[Radek · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that not only glorifies breaking the rules and achieving results by any means that are not likely to throw you into jail, but also provides some applicable knowledge how to do it and even encourages some schedule of your "hacks".
Ironically, I have obtained it from my employer :)

[Nannie Bittinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should be required reading for anyone in the working world.

[Polle De Maagt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smart ideas, great way of approaching organisations. The concept of adopting hacking reflexes to actually get things done is really nice. However, the examples get a bit boring towards the end.

[Ritchie Macapinlac]

Interesting. Simple but effective concepts.

[Gabe Mounce · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book besides "Maverick" about how to break the rules of work and do stuff that matters!