Effective or Efficient
May 06
When I was at Leeds University (yes please note there is nothing between the word Leeds and the word University) I ran for the post of Financial Affairs Secretary which was a sabbatical post. I won the election and ran the commercial activities of the Student Union (brilliant experience) for a year. But the best bit of the year was meeting the University Bursar. He was a gentleman called Ray Head. At our first meeting he gave me some of the best advice ever.
“To be successful in life you have to be very ambitious and you have to be lazy”
The first bit made sense but I struggled with the second bit. He never did fully explain what he meant. Since I have started working, I have realised the significance of being lazy. What Ray meant was that you have to learn to achieve results through other people. Otherwise known as delegating!
It is so true. I have seen really hardworking people not get much done – whereas I have seen people who are focused get more done by using charm and respect to get others to achieve great things for them. They recognise that there is only so much they can do themselves. The worst possible combination is hard workers who are perfectionists as well – forget it!
The 3 R’s
In Economics we are taught about the importance of the 3 E’s; [tag]Efficiency[/tag],[tag]Economy[/tag] and [tag]Effectiveness[/tag]. The three of them are given equal status and much focus is being efficient and economical. If you are running a business – my advice is to just focus on one of them – [tag]being Effective[/tag]. Being Effective is about making sure you are doing the right thing.
To illustrate the point, we can all think of many times where we have spent ages doing stuff really brilliantly and on the cheap or we are quick to get something done urgently. We therefore demonstrate that we are economical and efficient. But we realise afterwards that we did not need to do the work – hence we were not effective at all. To be effective you need to step back from a situation or a project and say “Is this important?” Or “what am I trying to achieve?” Next time you see an episode of The Apprentice, look at the team leaders and ask yourself ‘are they being effective?’ I have yet to see a team leader ask themselves “what is this task really about?” Sir Alan does test different skill sets in each task – not just sales, but it is very rare that the teams find out what is being tested.
To sum this entry up, as a very good friend of mine – [tag]Rami Ranger MBE [/tag]says
“The problem with common sense is that it is not that common”
Enjoy being effective.
(thanks to http://packphour.wordpress.com/2007/12/08/common-sense/ for image)
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