The best leaders focus on effectiveness

I was reading a really good article this morning at 5am (don't worry, I'm not one of those influencer grinders...my sleep pattern is messed up this week) titled You Can't Optimize What You Don't Have which was really rather good - you should read it.

"We need to do more with less." Everyone nodded. A few people even wrote it down, as if it were wisdom rather than wishful thinking dressed in business casual.

Here’s what no one said: Sometimes, “do more with less” is just a costly way of admitting, “I don’t understand the problem.”

One of the main points in the article is that "There's a Line You Can't Optimize Across"

No amount of training, innovation, or “efficiency gains” can turn one person into the twenty you actually need.

I've written several times before about efficiency being a poor goal, or as Richard Pope says 'Efficiency is a trap'

Efficiency does not equal speed

Too often efficiency is confused with 'doing things quicker or faster' with the idea that being if we can just save time here, we can use it there (waves vaguely) . I get it. Honestly we are conditioned to move faster, quicker. Respond instantly, first to market, first to answer gets noticed etc. But just like there is a line you can't optimise across, there is an efficiency line, and more often than not, it's at a slower speed not faster. Put your foot down in a car and watch your fuel consumption. And it's the same in organisations, as a pursuit of speed (coded as efficiency) often causes us to miss things, to optimise the wrong things, to burn out, to introduce fragility and to break.

Focus on effectiveness

In my observations, having worked with hundreds of organisations, the best ones don't focus on efficiency as an end goal, they focus on effectiveness.

Good leaders often use efficiency as a way to improve effectiveness.

The best leaders realise that by maximizing effectiveness they will hit the efficiency line along the way.