Peter Drucker once said, efficiency is about doing things right, and effectiveness is about doing the right things. This is an idea many people are familiar with. One of the problems is we only apply it to our work lives. In fact, efficiency is so highly valued many people take pride in their supposed ability to “multi-task.” If you're a muli-tasker you might take offense to my use of the word “supposed.” But the fact of the matter is, multi-tasking is largely an illusion. I'll explain my claim in later posts. For now, back to the topic at hand.
We
need to understand the efficiency/effectiveness distinction in all
walks of life, not just in work. Drucker said, there's nothing worst
than efficiently doing the wrong things. In The 7 Habits of Highly
Effective People, Stephen Covey alludes to the
efficiency/effectiveness distinction, when he writes, “It's
incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the
busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder
of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall.” It seems we're all in a hurry to race up the ladder when we should be spending some time checking which wall it's leaning against.
If
you really understand what Drucker's saying, by distinguishing
between efficiency and effectiveness, you'll understand the
importance of creating your life's goals. If you don't know your
goals, how can you know what are the right things to do? I don't
think you can. Creating goals might be a scary endeavor. But chances
are, if you don't do it, you'll become highly efficient at helping
other people achieve their goals. People like your boss. And
ultimately, you'll end up at a place you don't want to be.
There
is a professor at the Harvard Business School named Clayton
Christensen. Christensen is a world-renown expert on disruption and
has written many books including his landmark The Innovator's
Dilemma. The professor's most recent book is titled How
Will You Measure Your Life? Clay
says, “When I was a Rhodes scholar, I was in a very demanding
academic program, trying to cram an extra yearʼs worth of work into
my time at Oxford. I decided to spend an hour every night reading,
thinking, and praying about why God put me on this earth. That was a
very challenging commitment to keep, because every hour I spent doing
that, I wasnʼt studying applied econometrics. I was conflicted about
whether I could really afford to take that time away from my studies,
but I stuck with it—and ultimately figured out the purpose of my
life … Think about the metric by which your life will be judged,
and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life
will be judged a success.”
In
this earlier post: (What do you want to be remembered for?) I posed the question, “How do you want to
be remembered?” In this current post, I am revisiting the subject
from a slightly different angle. As far as I'm concerned, Peter
Drucker is peerless on the intellectual front. Yes, efficiency is
important. But even more important is effectiveness. It doesn't really matter what your goals are. They come in all the colors of the rainbow. However, I do wish to help you achieve
them. The key to realizing your goals is effectiveness. This is a
subject I am passionate about, and will speak to often.
So
please answer the question, “How do you want to be remembered?”
or the modified version, “How will you measure your life?” I realize, those are difficult
questions to answer. So first you might want to create shorter term
goals. What do you want to accomplish this month? This year? In the
next five years? In the next ten years? Having these answers will
also allow you to do the Best Possible Self exercise. An idea I spoke
about in this post: Scientific Permission to Dream
Ready? Steady? Go!
