Can I have some more efficiency please

If cash is king then efficiency is the queen.

Also known as productivity, efficiency means taking care of only what needs to be taken care of in the most resource and time efficient manner. Every percentage point your people are more efficient means less cost per unit of production, which in turn means that you are more competitive, or more profitable, or hopefully both.

Government sponsored major public-private sector efforts to improve productivity in what then was mostly the primary (mining and agriculture) and the secondary (manufacturing) industries.

For example, on the factory floor time and motion studies are used to identify optimal layouts for equipment and motions for the workers. Management and supervision are modelled on rigid hierarchy.

However, in the tertiary sector - the knowledge, software and service industries - matters are not so straightforward.  If you can work out how to accurately measure productivity then you could make a fortune selling the idea.

There is no definitive ‘right way’ to instil efficiency as an aim in your people, only observations. Here are a few.

Being busy doesn’t mean efficient

Many of us believe that being busy is a sign of a good worker. We admire (consciously or subconsciously) busy people. They have a sense of energy and achievement that others want to be part of.

However, what if the person who is busy is just a perfectionist, unable to make timely and informed decisions?

What if they just fill their day with trivial and unimportant activities that do little other than keep them busy?

Being orderly is a sign of efficiency, or not

A clean desk and a clean workspace with everything in their proper place is important for efficiency isn’t it?

The answer to this is both yes and no.

There are many people who can’t concentrate if anything is out of place. You remember them from school, they were the ones who obsessively lined up their ruler and pencil on the desk to the nearest millimetre and would have a meltdown if someone moved their eraser. To these people having an orderly personal workspace is important as they can’t work properly without order.

On the other end of the spectrum are the paper collectors – you know who I mean – the types of people with foot high stacks of paper on their desk who know from experience roughly where everything is. If you mess with their filing system they too will have a meltdown as they won’t know where anything is any more.

The main problem with an overly orderly workplace is that it reeks of inefficiency. Everything in its place means nothing is at hand when you need it and you spend a lot of time organising rather than working.

So, let people use and abuse their personal workspace as they see fit (subject to hygiene and safety), and enforce a general level of cleanliness for the rest of the office. Understand that other people can work with and cope with different levels of orderliness.

Volume versus quality

Someone who produces a high volume of work must be missing out on quality, right?

The software industry has discovered that their most productive workers produce 10 times as much work as their least productive, and that includes higher quality work.

Having a thorough knowledge of your field, plus the innate curiousity that goes with finding out about new fields of knowledge and the drive to be more efficient are what I would be looking for if efficiency were my sole goal.

Many companies are now turning to practical tests to see whether potential candidates can perform the job well or not.  The reason for this is that in an interview process we tend to favour the well groomed and well-spoken candidate who may in fact be bullshitting you and maybe themselves about their ability.

Hire the best only – a bad mistake

One of the worst mistakes you can make is to build an organisation around one or two efficiency superstars (and yes, this may include you as the founder).

At the beginning you manage to pull off miracles on a regular basis for your clients based on your superstars. Everyone is happy: you, the superstar who gets to feel achievement, and your customers.

As your company grows you put on good people who do a great job and are highly competent. However, they may need more direction and support, and they don’t produce as much under the tight deadlines the superstars responds to.

At first your best and brightest take delight in coming in at the last minute and saving the project.

Later, this turns to resentment as they see themselves as the only ones who know how to get things done and they are only being paid about the same as everyone else. If you are lucky this is the point where they quit in disgust. If you are unlucky they will stay around and turn toxic.

So, hire a good team and recognise that they need help and support to be efficient. Leadership and culture will be key to improving the average level of efficiency across your organisation.

In other words, you need to bring your whole organisation on the efficiency journey, not just rely on a few key people to average out the inefficiency of the others.