Effectiveness: everybody’s dilemma

Recently, I visited a friend of mine, a top industry captain, at his office. I found him to be in a bad mood shouting at all and sundry, complaining bitterly that his employees were not working as they should and that soon his company would have to wind up.

He went on to unload his woos on me saying that when people are asked to do something they often fail to do it on time and so on. Was he talking about the effectiveness of his staff? Or was he lamenting about their inefficiency? What on earth is this effectiveness, people are worried about so much? I am hearing it almost everyday.

How often have you heard an employer complaining about an employee that he or she is not effective? Almost all the time, I guess. Maybe you yourself had wondered whether you are effective or not, and you probably want to pull your socks up.

This is an old phenomenon, but, since of late, particularly in employment situations, people often talk about one’s effectiveness. Also, it may be that at times, someone is talking about the effectiveness of an organisation. Whatever it is, the concept of effectiveness has come to stay in our system and many are the people who worry about it.

Let us be clear of what we are talking about. Did my friend shout at his employees that they are slow in their work, or was he saying that they did not understand why, in the first place, they are there? Often, we confuse between effectiveness and efficiency. They are not the same thing. There is a difference, though.

It is Peter Drucker, the celebrated management guru who explained the clear but subtle difference between these two concepts. Effectiveness, he said, is to do the right thing. On the other hand, he defined Efficiency, as doing a thing right. Doing the right thing is not often understood.

People just go about doing things but do they realise they are wasting valuable resources, including time, in not being focused on a particular purpose or an objective? It is meaningless, therefore, to be asking people to be ‘efficient’, without asking them to be effective.

Basic question to ask yourself or any other is, “what are you doing?” How that is being done is another matter, altogether. Be satisfied first that what you are doing is what you should be doing.

This is like, if you want to reach a certain destination, you must select the right road or path. Once you are on the right road, it is a question of how quickly you will want to reach your destination.

You are effective when you select the right road, because if you had selected a wrong road, you will never reach your destination. You are efficient when you travel on the chosen path as quickly as possible. Ultimately, it is the ‘what’ and the ‘how’. ‘What’ means, “where do you want to go?” and ‘how’ means, “are you doing it in the best way possible?”

In life, we need to be effective first and then efficient. If it’s the other way, you may be doing things that are not meaningful. However, one without the other will never make you a successful person.

But, effectiveness has an edge over efficiency in that it is the more important one. There is no point being efficient without being effective.

It is like running at ‘breakneck’ speed on a wrong road. You will never reach your destination, because the road you have chosen will never take you there. It is going somewhere else.

In simple terms, it is all about doing the right thing all the time. There is a purpose in everyone’s life, and if we understand what this purpose is, and work diligently towards it, then we are effective as well as efficient.

Otherwise, we are ineffective. If we aimlessly live from day to day, then we will not achieve the purpose we live for. It is extremely important that we clearly understand the purpose of whatever activity we do.

Only then would we be able to design a set of activities to achieve the ultimate end. If the purpose is not sound and clear, you are not going to achieve it easily.

As much as all these apply to individuals, they apply very much to organisations too. Organisations, whether they are in government or outside, will have to live by this rule of existing for a particular purpose and ensuring that they stay the course.

Staying the course is difficult as in the case of a ship in the high seas. Navigation of a ship is to maintain course because failing to do so will take the ship elsewhere.

Seafarers would know that unless the ship is steered and kept on course, the rough seas will change the direction of the ship. Similarly, a life without steering and maintenance of purpose will be like a ship without navigation, straying into oblivion.

There are many institutions whose purpose for existence is not clear to those who work in them or the general public who come into contact with them.

This is true mostly for public sector organisations. In the private sector, there is an in-built safe guard because if the organisation does not earn profits, then it will have to close down.

This does not happen in the public sector. This is where the governments need to be ever vigilant to ensure that activities of public sector organisations are implemented to achieve the purpose of the sheer existence of the organisation.

Today, effectiveness has become a key word embracing all what we do. We need to ask ourselves a number of key questions and satisfy ourselves that answers to those key questions are focused towards what we need to achieve.

In modern management parlance, the words, ‘vision’ and ‘mission’ seem to be the guiding lights for individuals and organisations alike.

Although there could be various interpretations, I would offer a simple definition to these two popular words. Vision is to articulate the general direction in which an individual or organisation wants to proceed.

That might set the ground for one’s effectiveness, while mission is to set out the path through which we could reach that vision articulated in simple and understandable language. That would be efficiency.

Whether we are in business or any other employment, we must be effective and efficient. There is no room for us to be complacent and let our life drift; we have to steer it carefully and make it meaningful.

It has to be done with an effort and mind you, it will not happen by chance. If you let it drift, not only you but the society too will be the loser.

People, like nails, lose their effectiveness when they lose direction and begin to bend.

Walter Savage Landor