its nice to work hard and have a result that speaks for itself (imagine if you were on the team that pulled off the iphone) but i think the flip side of that is

its nice to work hard and have a result that speaks for itself (imagine if you were on the team that pulled off the iphone) but i think the flip side of that is, most of us arent making an iphone, and often the fruits of that "hard work" disporportionally benefits those with the leverage and power in other words, yes hard work is "paying off" but often its the person above or at the top (owner) that really reaps it, so then some people become jaded and start to reject that ethic i think we also concentrate too much on the individual and not enough on the organizational/structural issues that prevent teams (and indviduals) from functioning well and moving upwards... those are harder to deal with and concentrating on ones own small chunk if the world is easier to grasp, but conversely the effect individuals can have from "just working hard" is extremely small in alot of cases i guess its a combination... we should work hard but we should also make sure people actually benefit from that proportionally (fairly)... if not, something structurally is wrong...