Effective or efficient?

There are two different sides to Apple: The design team in California is effective while the manufacturing system in Taiwan is efficient. If we switch the two, the results would be disastrous.

Effectiveness = change. Efficiency = same.

As founders, freelancers, creatives, our primary job is to be effective. It is to find out what change we are seeking to make and then to take the action that will bring about this change. On the contrary, most office jobs are designed for efficiency, they are designed not for change but for maintaining the status quo.

An effective person in an efficiency job and vice versa lead to misery for both the person and the company.

This is where startups vary from the typical organisations. The only reason for the startup to exist is to grow and the only way to grow is to be effective. Any startup which is looking at efficiency instead of effectiveness is bound to be doomed.

This is also where a founder differs from a CEO. You could not predict what Uber or WeWork would be in 5 years when their respective founders were at the helm but now you can more or less be sure what the companies will be in 5 years. The CEOs are focussed on maintaining what works rather than changing things.

Is efficiency bad?

A question arises from this discussion: is efficiency bad? The answer would be no. But I don’t think it’s human. We can talk about efficiency of a server in the cloud trying to take the minimum energy while getting the work done. We can try to make the Tesla more efficient in how it uses its battery.

But, as humans, we are not designed to be efficient. Efficiency is a relic of the industrial age where humans were considered a raw material. Technology is moving at a pace where if enough of us decide to be effective, we won’t need any of us to be efficient anymore.

Yes, not being efficient brings its own challenges. We have been trained to keep busy from age 5 and if we become effective, we don’t need to be busy anymore. And this brings about an existential crisis.

So, for many, efficiency still remains the way to go because effectiveness is too scary, too effective actually. It will bring about the change and change is something we fear as we become comfortable in the status quo.

In the end, it’s a choice we have. Do we want things to remain as they are or do we want them to change?

Make your choice: blue pill or red pill? Effective or efficient?