Weekly insights and actionable advice for high achievers. Find fulfillment without sacrificing success.
Read time: 4 minutes
We are people, not machines.
Efficiency is for machines, technology, systems, and processes. Effectiveness is for leadership, people, and relationships. As Japanese author Kosuke Koyama once wrote:
Straightness is not natural. It is technological. Technology is efficient. Straightness is efficient. The straight line is the shortest distance between two points. The shortest distance is an efficient distance. Straightness is artificial. It is man-made. Nature is full of curves that embrace curves: acute curves and gentle curves. Curves produce irregular forms. People, and trees and plants and animals and branches and fruits and vegetables are full of curves. Emotions aren't a straight line either. Too much efficiency makes us sterile and straight. No wonder so many people in the technological age are unhappy. In striving for efficiency, we become more like machines than humans.
Koyama continues,
Technology is increasingly making us outsiders. It covers up all the confusing parts and presents to us only the attractive, simple side—shiny switches. We are prevented from seeing the process. The working part is hidden. Only the result is visible. This is what 'straightness' means.
Finally, he shares a thought-provoking question:
There is something deceptive about the 'streamlines'. It is a kind of plastic surgery. Can human life really be so neatly streamlined?
Koyama wrote these words in 1979. How much more relevant are they in 2025?
The Crucial Difference Between Efficiency and Effectiveness
My best insights often come out during coaching sessions with leaders. A few weeks ago, I said to a client, "Efficiency is for machines. Effectiveness is for leaders."
That phrase caught his attention.
Let's start with a comparison and contrast between efficiency and effectiveness.
Effectiveness:
- Doing the right things
- Qualitative
- Achieving goals or desired outcomes
- Outcome-based
Efficiency:
- Doing things right
- Quantitative
- Minimizing resources, optimization
- How work is done
It's not that the two are totally at odds. As I said, when it comes to machines, systems, and processes, efficiency is crucial. However, when it's done at the expense of people or fails to achieve the desired outcome, efficiency becomes counterproductive.
Effective leadership is not necessarily inefficient; it just doesn't use efficiency as the primary bar of success. It places efficiency in the context of flesh-and-blood goals and outcomes. It takes into consideration that there are people involved—people with feelings, dreams, good days, and bad days. People in need of encouragement and inspiration.
This is why some leaders struggle to inspire others—they are operating from an efficiency-based leadership paradigm, i.e., people should just do what they are told and get the job done. They may or may not say that out loud, but that's how it feels to the people they lead.
An effectiveness-based leadership paradigm is different. It places people above processes. It's still looking to get results, but not at the expense of people. The results promote both individual well-being and organizational success.
It's time for a new leadership paradigm.
The Trust-Based Leadership Model
Trust—whether in the workplace or in life—is not efficient, but it is effective. It is built brick by brick and is costly, sacrificial, and slow. It doesn't move with the pace or efficiency of a machine, and it can be eroded or destroyed more easily than it is built. Trust moves at the pace of walking, which is around three miles per hour.
Take, for example, this study about how long it takes to build a friendship:
- 40-60 hours to form a casual friendship
- 80-100 hours to become a friend
- 200+ hours to become a good friend
Whether in leadership or life, trusting relationships take time and investment. They are anything but efficient.
This is a good lesson for leaders to learn.
The Choice Every Leader Must Make
The question isn't whether you can afford to slow down and invest in people. The question is whether you can afford not to?
What's one relationship in your life where you've been prioritizing efficiency over effectiveness, and what's one concrete step you can take in the next 24 hours to change that?
Until next time,
PS - Whenever you're ready, there are three ways I can help you...
- Transform those anxiety-filled, rushed mornings into your foundation for daily success with the Win the Morning, Win the Day! Minicourse
- Hire me to do a keynote or workshop
- Schedule a Discovery Call to find out if executive coaching is for you (primarily for business owners or executives, non-profit and for-profit)
Sources
“Science Says It Takes Many Hours to Become Friends with Someone”, Wanda Thibideaux, Inc. Magazine, Oct. 11, 2028
Three Mile an Hour God, Kosuke Koyama, 40-41