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Effectiveness Beats Efficiency Every Time
If you want to make a difference in people’s lives, be effective
Imagine you’re given a problem to solve. Any problem.
Let’s make it very concrete, you’re selling someone a car. The problem is, the person doesn’t know what car to buy.
There are two extreme approaches:
- Take your time to understand what the other person wants, knowing it might cost you other deals
- Try and push the person as quickly as possible to make a purchase decision, so you have time to work with other folks
What we’re weighing here is effectiveness (1) vs. efficiency (2). They both have their tradeoffs, but with people effectiveness wins most of the time.
In his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey writes about the interaction with his son, where he explains how how to maintain the lawn.
He hammers home the point that effectiveness beats efficiency, because being efficient with people usually leads to ineffective outcomes.
The Yin and Yang of Effectiveness and Efficiency
We can think of these two forces and Yin (female energy, moonlight) and Yang (male energy, sunlight).
