5. Effectiveness

» Posted on Jul 3, 2009 in Performance Management | 0 comments

Productivity Principle 5…

Effectiveness – the principle of doing the right thing.

“If you know what you’re doing, efficiency is the only improvement opportunity” – David Allen

Yes, ‘IF’…

You see, effectiveness is more important than efficiency…

This table from page 72 of Marketing Due Diligence by Malcolm McDonald demonstrates the importance of effectiveness over efficiency:

McDonald explains:

…an understanding of the difference between strategy and tactics and their association with the relevant adjectives, ‘effective’ and ‘efficient’. The table shows a matrix in which the horizontal axis represents strategy as a continuum from inefficient to efficient.

Those firms with both an effective strategy and efficient tactics (box 1) continue to thrive.

Those with an effective strategy but inefficient tactics (box 2) merely survive.

Those firms with an ineffective strategy appear to the left of the matrix. Often, companies end up with an ineffective strategy because they place too much emphasis on tactics and fail to address the underlying strategic issues surrounding changing market needs.

Either way, such business are destined to die. The question is whether they will do so slowly or quickly, and organizations doing the wrong things more efficiently (box 3) are destined to die more quickly than their less efficient counterparts (box 4). It is a bit like encouraging an incompetent manager to work harder, thus doubling the amount of chaos and customer dissatisfaction he creates!

Being effective means producing powerful effects (the right effect). Being efficient means producing results with little wasted effort.

Efficiency is how well you do something, and effectiveness is how useful it is.

Peter Drucker put it like this:

Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things. – Drucker

Ask: Am I doing something that truly matters, or am I just being busy for the sake of it?

Effectiveness comes from taking the time to stop and evaluate, rather than running faster and faster.

“Here you see, it takes all the running you can do to stay in the same place” – The Red Queen’s speech from Through the Looking Glass

Work smarter, not harder.

Effectiveness Resources

• Doing the right thing requires clarity. If you feel your life is completely on track with what you want to do, have and become, keep going full steam ahead. If you feel that taking some time to clarify your life direction would be useful, check out the Life Direction Clarifier.

Continue to Productivity Principle 4: Process Management

See the list of all 8 Productivity Principles.

Tags: creative process, david allen, doing things right, effectiveness, malcolm mcdonald