I felt like this got very close to what the parent was talking about:

  Work as hard as you can. Even though who you work with and 
  what you work on are more important than how hard you 
  work.

Realistically if the who + what is more important than the specific effort, I feel like the author is trending more into status/values because despite the relative importance, the last-place component of success there is the lede & focus here. I'd also contend that "work as hard as you can" is generally crappy advice, "work as hard as the situation demands" will leave you with more energy & the clarity that comes with understanding relative importance.