Effectiveness Asymmetry

Doing the right thing and doing the thing right are different skills — and the second is useless without the first.

Efficiency asks: how well is this being done? Effectiveness asks the prior, embarrassing question: should this be done at all? A team can efficiently build a product nobody wants, efficiently answer mail that should never have arrived, efficiently climb a ladder leaning on the wrong wall.

The asymmetry: improving efficiency is comfortable — it is measurable, it feels like progress, it offends no one. Questioning effectiveness is uncomfortable — it threatens projects, careers, habits. So organizations perfect the unimportant, beautifully.

Ask of your own week, ruthlessly: which of these tasks would vanish if I questioned their purpose rather than their method? There is nothing so wasteful as doing well what need not be done. First the right wall. Then the ladder.