What Were They Thinking?

C H A P T E R 10

All Work, No Play?

Maybe Long Hours Don’t Pay

VISITING EUROPE IS FREQUENTLY not only pleasant but instructive. In Denmark, by about 5:15 on weeknights, the roads and sidewalks are crowded with people going home from work; and few people work on the weekends. In Spain, I visited San Sebastian to give a talk on ethics and had lunch with a group of executives from some of the region’s top companies. In a dining room at the University of Navarra, we chatted through three courses and some bottles of excellent wine—the proverbial Spanish lunch. Visiting IESE, the business school headquartered in Barcelona, I learned that Spain takes its vacations seriously. The whole country essentially shuts down in August. In fact, during that month ...