From hustle to harmony: A new way to define workplace success

Workplace success is no longer about how much we can cram into a day. It’s about creating the conditions for people to do their best work and feel good while doing it, writes Donna McGeorge.

For decades, the corporate badge of honour was being busy. Calendars packed edge-to-edge, emails flying at all hours and meetings stacked like a game of Tetris. But increasingly, HR leaders are asking a better question: Is all this activity really adding value? Or are we drowning in the illusion of productivity while losing sight of what truly matters?

The good news is there’s a different way: a more human, sustainable, and impactful approach to performance that puts clarity before chaos. At the heart of this shift is a mindset I call red brick thinking, a framework for letting go of the habits, systems and expectations that weigh us down and hold us back.

A 2024 Atlassian survey of 5,000 knowledge workers found that unnecessary meetings and fragmented collaboration routines were the top barriers to productivity, outranking even motivation and goal clarity. When people feel like they’re doing too much that matters too little, burnout follows quickly behind. It’s no longer a question of whether change is needed, but what kind of change will actually stick.

It starts with subtraction

That means deliberately removing the outdated, the bloated, the energy-sapping routines that no longer serve a purpose. In my corporate workshops, I’ve seen firsthand how teams can unlock sharper focus, better collaboration, and more meaningful impact, not by adding more tools or training, but by removing the stuff that doesn’t matter.

This isn’t about doing less for the sake of it. It’s about getting crystal clear on what matters most and designing your systems, rituals and culture around that. It’s the difference between defaulting to a one-hour meeting and asking, “What’s the shortest time we need to get the outcome we want?” (Spoiler: it’s often 25 minutes.)

HR leaders are perfectly positioned to lead this evolution. You already sit at the intersection of people, performance, and culture. But to truly shift from hustle to harmony, we need to challenge some deeply held beliefs. We need to start asking:

• Is this meeting, process, or report still necessary, or are we just doing it because we always have?
• Where are our people expending energy with little to no return?
• What would it look like to measure success by outcomes, not output?

At an organisational level, this kind of clarity gives people back time, agency, and focus. At a human level, it brings back energy, purpose, and joy. When we trade energy for impact, instead of time for money, we stop chasing productivity and start creating progress.

Here’s what I’ve learnt across 20-plus years of working with teams across Asia-Pacific: simplicity scales, and complexity compounds. Left unchecked, systems grow teeth, culture calcifies, and people opt out, not loudly, but silently, as disengagement creeps in.

The antidote is strategic simplicity

That might look like cancelling a standing meeting that adds no value, redesigning onboarding to focus only on what new hires actually need to succeed or giving teams permission to say “not now” to tasks that dilute their focus.

For many of us, letting go feels risky. We worry we’ll miss something or appear less committed. But the truth is, it’s the clutter that’s risky because it clouds judgement, drains energy, and spreads your best people too thin to think strategically.

Shifting from hustle to harmony doesn’t mean slowing down. It means aligning your energy to where it matters most. It means creating space for creativity, deep work and the kind of leadership that lifts others. When we liberate people from the noise of unnecessary activity, we create the conditions for smarter thinking, sharper performance, and healthier cultures.

HR can be the architects

HR has a critical role to play in designing these environments, not just in policy and programs, but in modelling a new success narrative where clarity, space and sustainability are part of the performance conversation. The future of work won’t be defined by how much we can do, but by how well we can discern what’s worth doing.

Workplace success is no longer about how much we can cram into a day. It’s about creating the conditions for people to do their best work and feel good while doing it. The future of work will belong to organisations that are brave enough to subtract.

Donna McGeorge is a productivity expert and the author of Red Brick Thinking.