Assume a number of coins with different face value are thrown on the floor. 3 persons are requested to pick up as much coins as possible within the time limit, say 30 seconds. 30 seconds later, the result shows as follow:
1. A picked up five 5¢, five 10¢ and five 20¢. Total 15 coins were picked up with total value of $1.75.
2. B picked up one 5¢, one 10¢ and seven 50¢. Total 11 coins were picked up with total value of $3.65.
3. C picked up eight 50¢ with total value of $4.00.
Now, the question is who is more efficient and who is more effective? A is more efficient as he/she picked up most coins. C is more effective as he/she carried the highest monetary value even though fewer coins were picked up. Get the picture now?
Of course, the optimum way is to be efficient and effective. In the above example, the best case were to pick up fifteen 50¢ and make up a total value of $7.50. However, let us be realistic. In real life, it is rather difficult to both at the same time. If we are allowed to choose one among these two, effectiveness should come first.
Therefore, on the journey to our financial success, we should always focus on the effectiveness (how to) of our plan first and continual learning narrow the gap between efficiency and effectiveness.
Perhaps that's a good way to explain both these two terms. In another simple manner, perhaps, efficiency is about doing the tasks efficiently but the manner of working things out may be wrong! Effective is all about getting to the objectives and goals ultimately despite being inefficient with things, ie. working haphazardly...
ReplyDeleteBut then to choose only one out of the two,this would depends very much on the situation - in real life situation, most of the time we will not be able to get to what should be done to be effective! Thus most of the time we would have to choose efficiency first and then discover what's to do to be effective.
Eg. The Japs were never known to be effective, but they were pretty efficient with things and are very structured in their tasks and thoughts.
Sometimes or rather most of the time, we do the wrong thing, learn about it and get to the right path - from efficiency to effectiveness!