Effectiveness vs Efficiency

Does effectiveness and efficiency refer to one and the same thing? If there are differences, which is to be given more importance? The idea of this blog post is to look at those.

The classic definition for effectiveness and efficiency by Peter Drucker is this: Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things. The other commonly given definition is: Efficiency is climbing the ladder of success fast; effectiveness is ensuring that the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

Let us look at a simple example to illustrate the point. Assume that a person has been trained on climbing trees and at the end of the training sessions he is able to climb 7 trees per hour. After this training, the person gets recruited by a company that is specializing in export of coconuts. The person is now expected to climb coconut trees and drop coconuts of the required quality. After a year, if the person has started climbing 10 trees per hour it would mean that his efficiency has increased from 7 to 10. However, due to his lack of knowledge if he is unable to differentiate from the ground between a coconut tree and a palm tree and has to climb all the way to see what kind of tree it is, his efficiency is of not much use. If all that he ends up doing is climbing 4 coconut trees per hour out of the 10 trees he climbs, his effectiveness is really low. Effectiveness in this perspective would mean that the person is able to identify correctly the coconut trees before he starts climbing them. It is clear that efficiency achieved before effectiveness will not add up to much. Extending this analogy to a much more practical example would mean that one has to identify his/her key tasks and perform them efficiently. It does not make much sense to hack away at activities that are not going to be of much value. The key to effectiveness is to evaluate before each activity and ask the question “Am I climbing the kind of trees I am expected to climb?”

Level Appropriate Work

If effectiveness is so important, why do people not perform at their peak levels? Why is ‘Peak Performance’ an attribute of only a limited set of people? Most of the time people perform activities which are a level below their current position in the organization. Consider the example of a project lead getting promoted to the post of a project manager overseeing many projects & project leads. If the person continues to do the activities of a project lead instead of working on the tasks of a project manager, he is performing one level below his position. The primary reason for someone doing this could be because of the comfort zones they have created for themselves in the work they are familiar with. Moving up the ladder entails learning new skills & letting go of some of the tasks they are experts at. This takes courage and a belief in their ability to perform new activities at the same expert levels. This also would require hitting the ‘pause’ button to evaluate the potential work, which performed exceptionally by them, would lead to maximum benefit for their team. The identification of those activities and performing those activities to the best of one’s ability is where effectiveness blooms.

Effectiveness or Efficiency?

The question that invariably comes up in any discussion about efficiency and effectiveness is “Which one should I pursue?” for getting better. The answer is one should work on both these aspects. Effectiveness without efficiency is going to slow down one’s progress towards their destination while efficiency without effectiveness is going to take a person faster towards the wrong destination. The recommended practice would be to work on improving effectiveness first and then concentrating on improving the efficiency. After all, choosing the right destination comes first before identifying the fastest way to reach there.