Don't Strive For Efficiency At The Expense Of Effectiveness
by Wendy Hearn
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Published on this site: February 4th,
2004 - See more
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What is your level of effectiveness? What difference would it make
to your life and work if this level were raised? One of the first
steps to achieve this is to understand what being effective really
means. I've found that many people confuse effectiveness with efficiency.
They struggle to improve their efficiency but their effectiveness
doesn't always improve. Striving for efficiency is sometimes at
the expense of effectiveness.
What's the difference between effectiveness and efficiency?
Being effective means producing powerful effects. Being efficient
means producing results with little wasted effort. It's the ability
to carry out actions
quickly. However, by so doing, you may not necessarily be
achieving effectiveness. Effectiveness allows you to accomplish
the worthwhile goals you've chosen. The ones which support
your vision and your mission.
For instance, you may be very efficient at working through your
to-do list and completing a lot of it. However, when you shift to
being effective, you may
choose to delegate part of it, stop doing some of it and focus
on one or two things which will allow you to achieve your
goal. Perhaps you're efficient at sending follow up letters
to potential clients but being effective may mean only following
up certain key ones, yet doing so in a fuller, more complete
way.
Where does your time go?
When your intention shifts to being more effective, you can achieve
your worthwhile goals in much less time. You choose the things which
will make you more effective instead of doing more and more to achieve
efficiency.
Effectiveness comes from taking the time to stop and evaluate,
rather than running faster and faster. Discovering for yourself
what effectiveness means, and what it will take for you to achieve
this, is an area in which a coach works, both with individuals and
organisations. When I'm working with clients, we often focus on
their effectiveness. The coaching session we conduct by telephone
once a week gives them the opportunity to stop, look at where they
are and where they want to be.
I believe that by taking time out, this allows you to increase
your effectiveness. I'm also a great believer in taking this time
at regular intervals during your
day. So many people set out to work harder and harder, without really
looking to see if they're being effective. I've found that what
works best for me, and most of my clients use this, is to work for
15 minutes slots with breaks of a few minutes in between.
I strongly believe that if more people worked in this way, companies
would be much stronger and more effective. For instance, lets say
you're working on a proposal. You work on it for 15 minutes and
then put it aside for the next few minutes. You can use this break
to either stretch your legs, step outside for fresh air, enjoy a
period of quiet reflection or to clear thoughts from your mind.
You choose what would feel most useful.
When you return to your proposal for the next 15 minutes, you'll
probably find that something occurs to you which you'd forgotten,
or you didn't see as being very important. You may find you now
have a different perspective on it or you now have a solution to
something you were stuck on. It's increased your effectiveness.
When you only have 15 minutes, you'll work more effectively to achieve
more within this artificial deadline.
What I want is for you to be effective in achieving your goals
and vision.
Wendy Hearn
Coach
She works with business owners, professionals and executives to
discover and unlock their own inspiration, to effortlessly take
the actions required to have the success they desire. To receive
Wendy's fre^e newsletter, send an email to:
[email protected]
http://www.Business-Personal-Coaching.com
Copyright 2004, Wendy Hearn. All rights reserved.
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