There is Nothing Worse

Peter Drucker once said, “There is nothing quite so unless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all.” I tend to agree. But, I prefer to paraphrase and say there is nothing worse than efficiently doing the wrong things.

As most of us know, Drucker also said, efficiency is doing things right and effectiveness is doing the right things. Though we need both, in view of the first quote, we can see that deciding on the right things ends up being more important than doing things right.

Probably the most famous example of Drucker's quote pertains to the Titanic. Efficiently doing the wrong thing would be like trying to arrange the deck chairs as the ship was going down.

But, let me give you a personal, and somewhat embarrassing, example. When I first started a business, I did like most people, and created business cards. Then, I hit upon this 'marvelous' idea to hand-write a note on each card.

I created a streamlined system whereby I could crank out these 'personalized' cards in rapid succession. I was the embodiment of efficiency. Of course, not a lot of the cards were ever given out. And, of the ones that were, the effect was virtually zero. I was doing with great efficiency something that should not have been done at all.

A Drucker example, of efficiently doing the wrong thing, would be holding on to the past. Drucker would say there is nothing quite so futile as trying to keep a corpse from rotting. Holding on to the past is such a common human tendency, it led the late Andy Grove to proclaim, “Only the paranoid survive.”

Let's talk about a very common mistake that all of us see every day. Spam email. Yes, it is true that email is an extremely efficient way to disseminate your company's information. The problem is that spam is less than useless. In fact, it can often backfire.

I have a number of Realtors, whom I have contacted, in the course of my business. Sometimes I end up sending emails to said agents. And, on a number of occasions, these Realtors have added me to their spam list. I did not opt-in. They just unilaterally added me to their mail campaign.

Now, I realize these real estate agents probably think it cannot hurt to 'drip' on me. However, they are incorrect. Not only do I not care about their messages, I have also lost respect for them and their spamming ways. I would never use them to represent me. Yes, efficiently doing the wrong things can blow up in your face.

Of course, one of the main problems with Drucker's prescription is that it can lead to procrastination because we cannot know all the right things to do before we get started. Especially in the case of the entrepreneur, we often must learn by trial-and-error. What a conundrum!

What is the solution? Well, there is a fundamental tension between efficiency and effectiveness. And, it is up to each of us to deal with that tension. One of the basic paradoxes of the entrepreneur is to possess rock solid conviction and blaze a new path. While, at the time, be humble and keep learning and improving. In a word, iterate.

There are no easy answers along the entrepreneurial journey. My suggestion today is, while you are dialing-in the efficiency of your operation, be sure to keep checking to make sure you are headed in the right direction. The real pisser is that the right direction changes over time. Sorry, but it is true. For solace, read Grove's book.

The good news is that course correction is not all that hard IF you are willing to let go of the past. Thus, organized abandonment is a subject we will discuss next week. In the meanwhile, when it comes to balancing effectiveness with efficiency, remember to do both. Always both.