Let's talk about efficiency. This may sound somewhat geeky but I promise you will become a slightly better decision maker by the end of this writing piece.
Everyday, we steer through our lives by making decisions that move us towards a set of desired outcomes. It would be right to say that we engineer our reality one decision at a time. Whether we get where we want highly depends on our capability to make accurate and timely decisions.
With good decision making being so life-changing, how do we gauge and improve the performance of our decisions over time?
If you are an efficiency junkie, you take pride in how little resource you are using to get something done. You would probably focus on "subtractions" i.e. cutting down on the time, manpower and material required. While this approach may work in some situations, more often than not, you are forced to deal with elevated risk.
A simple example is this: If one focuses only on speed and cost cutting in work, he or she might risk unintentionally steering away from the ideal result.
There is clearly more to making good decisions. Think about effectiveness.
The word "efficient" and "effective" are often used interchangeably in the English language although they really mean two different things.
Let us see how Google defines these two words.
efficient: (of a system or machine) achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense.
effective: successful in producing a desired or intended result.
Owing to my technical background, I know that the highest possible efficiency and the highest possible effectiveness cannot co-exist. That said, the best decision will be one that strives to get the best of both worlds - to balance efficiency against effectiveness.
The "best" decision should result in a desired/intended outcome while minimising waste/expense.
Obviously, "best" varies from case to case, nonetheless, optimum outcomes seldom stem from the obsession of any one metric. Try to recall any good decision that you made that is not "well balanced" in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.
Once you realised that optimal decisions are made with a balanced approach, it is time to learn the art and science of finding the balance point.
While many would approach this by asking "How much efficiency should I compromise?", I recommend thinking in the opposite direction and ask instead "How much impact do I want to get?"
This is my usual thought process:
Why am I doing this? What do I want to achieve?
How to achieve it? What is the bare minimum that I need to do?
What can I do to maximise productivity? What waste to cut down?
I find going through this thought process very useful and I use it everyday. Do try it! The bottom line is, you would be more aware of what you want and make more impactful decisions.
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You should be able to understand the difference between efficiency and effectiveness by now, congratulations! Thanks a lot for checking out my blog, more interesting content is coming your way in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!
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