I work alongside a clever, bright and positive lecturer to deliver an ‘Operations Management’ course to both Gisborne and Hawkes Bay EIT tertiary students.
Yesterday we we’re concentrating on the topic of measuring “efficiency” when my colleague offered this wisdom during the lecture…
“Effectiveness” is doing the right thing.
“Efficiency” is doing the thing right.
A differentiation which can be expanded in meaning to understand that it is possible for someone to be highly efficient yet not very effective. This can happen when someone is efficient at performing the wrong thing/ task/ activity/ methodology. 🙂
Putting this understanding into a business context, as managers we need to be concentrating on building-up the capability of other people (e.g. those who report to us) so that they have the best possible chance of being as efficient as possible being as effective as possible in relation to the function that they perform. Operating Procedures are a primary tool to help develop capability in (and empower) others.