Go ahead… be a little inefficient!
Being efficiently ineffective can lock us into waste. Being a little inefficient to be more effective can unlock value.
We don’t hear this too often from our managers, do we? Most of our efforts are focused on getting more efficient.
Overuse of efficiency drives can lead us to apply the idea in all the wrong places. Like in learning. Learning is more about effectiveness than about efficiency. We do a lot of inefficient things when we learn like repetition and practice. And yet, those seem like the very things that allow us to be more … dare we say, efficient?, in the long run. The difference it appears may lie in timeframe and sustainability of the outcome.
Being efficient in the short term does not always translate into sustainable efficiency in the long term. Blind pursuit of efficiency may even lead to an illusion of efficiency without any space for learning, conviction and adaptation.
Tom DeMarco teaches us this concept in his book Slack: Getting past Burnout, Busywork and the Myth of Total Efficiency. Slack is a very relevant topic for times when building learning organizations is key to growth and value creation. Becoming effective inefficiently may sometimes be better than becoming ineffective efficiently.
To create room for transformation, maybe it’s time for us to give permission to ourselves and our colleagues. Yeah, it pays to be a little inefficient.. so, go ahead.. be a little inefficient!
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