Efficiency vs Effectiveness: Why Being Effective Comes First

Editor’s Note: This piece sits within the Cultivated canon on systems, value, and organisational clarity. Efficiency is often mistaken for progress. Effectiveness is what actually creates value.

Efficiency vs Effectiveness

The business world is obsessed with efficiency.
Faster. Leaner. More with less. Optimise everything.

I once worked with an “efficiency” manager whose entire role was to reduce cost and improve productivity metrics.

He focused almost entirely on tooling costs (without truly understanding how people used them to release value).
He centralised teams without studying the work they each did.
He outsourced key activities, off-shored work, implemented controls and governance.
And cut entire departments from spreadsheets.

The numbers on his spreadsheet improved.
He was rewarded.

Until the organisation caught up.

Until value took longer to achieve. Until good people left. And until costs skyrocketed.

The organisation’s ability to fulfil its purpose declined with every cost-cutting efficiency approach he made.

Customer satisfaction dropped. Delivery slowed. Morale collapsed. Costs reappeared elsewhere. Revenue suffered.

Yet on paper, the organisation had become more efficient.

This is the trap: efficiency without effectiveness is organisational theatre.

Making something ineffective more efficient does not create value. It accelerates dysfunction.

Effective First, Efficient Second

Effectiveness comes first.
Always.

An organisation exists to create value
— for customers, society, or stakeholders.

If you are not achieving that purpose, efficiency is irrelevant. In fact, it is dangerous.

My default stance is this:

• Be effective first, even if it is slow, clumsy, or expensive.
• Once effective, optimise for efficiency. Get fast. Then get faster still.

People create effectiveness. Tools, automation, and systems create efficiency. You need both — but in that order.

The Same Principle Applies to Communication

I once sat in a transformation programme where executives were obsessed with “efficient communication.”

They wanted fewer messages, fewer meetings, fewer channels.

They were solving the wrong problem.

Communication must be effective before it is efficient.

Sending one email to 2,000 people is efficient. It is rarely effective.
Alignment requires repetition, multiple formats, tailored narratives, and time.

Clarity is expensive. Alignment is effortful. Momentum is earned.

The Cultivated View

Effectiveness is the bridge between idea and value.

You cannot optimise your way to value if the system is not delivering value in the first place. Efficiency is a multiplier — but multiplying zero still gives zero.

Organisations often mistake motion for progress.
Efficiency metrics for impact.
Activity for value.

Effectiveness asks the harder question: Are we doing the right things? Are we shipping value?

Efficiency asks the easier one: Are we doing things cheaply?

The Takeaway

Deliver value effectively first. Then optimise.

There is little point in becoming efficiently ineffective.

Whether you are leading a team, designing systems, or communicating change, focus on effectiveness. Efficiency is the icing on the cake — not the cake itself.