I think we get confused about efficiency, and I think this leads us away from actually becoming efficient. There are two concepts that can confuse us. They disguise the challenge that we really actually face around efficiency. And I’ll talk about what all those things are, but if we’ve got the wrong mindset, it leads us to wrong action.
The notion of convenience and efficiency are real close cousins, when we think about it. But convenience and “hurry” both lead to a subtle trap, and I’ll explain what that is. But the point is that if we have the right mindset about efficiency, then I think will take right action.
Today, we’ll talk about the engineering mindset and contrast it with pseudo-productivity in convenience and hurry.
Setup
- I’m too busy vs. “Attention Compass saved me time”
- If you want to know more about Attention Compass, listen to Episode 22 here: https://dobusyright.com/what-is-attention-compass-and-how-will-it-help-me-dbr-022/
- Or hit me at [email protected]
- But I’m too busy
- This leads to the idea of convenience
- Define efficiency: E=O/I (efficiency equals outputs divided by inputs)
- Either increase output or decrease input, but (normally) have to hold the other constant
- Convenience and hurry are close cousins. What’s the problem?
Convenience
- Convenience tends to minimize the inputs and ignore the outputs – this is dangerous as a sole focus
- Go to the drive through and risk an error in my order
- Convenience – watch out for less absolute output
“Productivity?” (hurry)
- Hurry “production” at the other end of the spectrum
- In both cases we lose focus on one side of the equation
“Premature” efficiency
- I see this all the time – people naturally want me to think they’re productive
- So they double down on what they’re already doing – “premature efficiency”
- I brush my teeth before I go to the dentist. Is that efficient?
“Engineered efficiency”
- But engineered efficiency…
- An example (Henry Ford from Cal Newport’s A World Without Email)
- At first, workers went to the car
- But, Ford brought the work to the workers
- That was really the innovation, and it led to other innovations,
- None of this was obvious at the time; Ford had to engineer it
- So there’s no reason to believe that Ford just said, “Hey, everybody, go home over the weekend, I’m going to install this assembly line, and you can come back and get to work”.
- It’s the engineering that made the difference, but it wasn’t cheap or easy
There’s a cost – the J Curve
- This is typical of the engineering process. There’s a cost
- Things are going to get worse before they get better – the J Curve
- We face the J Curve all the time – it’s the cost of change
- I think both of the extremes (convenience and hurry) avoid the J Curve
The spectrum
- Efficiency is in the middle of the spectrum
- But convenience and hurry mindsets interfere with investment
- And so I think both these things are enemies in the long term
- The challenge is that they disguise themselves as productivity. For real engineered productivity, keep an eye on the math.
- So both can masquerade as efficiency.
- If we’re not watching both sides of the equation we might move the wrong direction
Negative connotations
- The negative connotation of convenient is complacent
- We still have to watch both sides
- In modern workplace, we’re probably bi-polar at the extremes
- IDEA: just because its inconvenient in the short term doesn’t mean it’s bad in the long term
- IDEA: just because it takes time in the short term doesn’t mean it’s bad in the long term
- Reduce the inputs (convenience) but hold the outputs (engineering)
- Increase the outputs (busy) but hold the inputs (engineering)
- Argument for that efficiency in the middle ground.
Waste
- Removing waste can be about the inputs (wasted effort) or about the output (e.g. bad quality)
- Identifying and removing waste is a core engineering process
- Waste in convenience is bad quality
- Waste in hurry is bad (frantic?) task switching
- Keeping the ratio the same in either convenience or hurry is an accident
- We’re usually not thinking about the ratio and its easy to mess up
- Thinking about the J Curve is inconvenient
- And
- Thinking about the J Curve takes time
- If you want different results then you can’t be complacent and focus only on the convenience, nor can you be hyper busy and focused only on the outputs.
The most effective way
- But you might not have to do it yourself
- Has somebody else already engineered a solution to your problem?
- If so, you should experiment with their solution, do some research
- We all do this naturally – we Google a solution
- Now, we all recognize that Ford’s way is a good solution –it’s obvious (in hindsight) – so, of course we do it that way
- How to have space for engineering research
Attention Compass will help with ~20% greater efficiency (mostly eliminating waste)
I describe Attention Compass in Episode 22, if you’re interested check it out here: https://dobusyright.com/what-is-attention-compass-and-how-will-it-help-me-dbr-022/
Or you can reach me directly [email protected]