Are You Productive? Or Efficient?

Are You Productive?  Or Efficient?

Are You Productive?  Or Efficient?  Please DON'T get me wrong.  If we stretch back what we learned in school or in our history, what propelled countries and industries is the sheer volume of productivity.  Back in school, we would be like dogs from the kernel trying to impress our school mentors.  When we were wooing our 'dream girl', we were moving both mountains and molehills again, all guided with that 'productivity mindset'.  Fast forward now. Where and who else do we hear pitching and espousing for productivity.  True, our call and contact centers are still driven by volumes a.k.a. productivity BUT what has been closely attached to it as a KPI [key performance indicator] is EFFICIENCY

Now comes EFFICIENCY which Mr Google defines as 'DOING THE SAME AMOUNT OF WORK IN LESS TIME'.  Now, most of us know the difference between effectiveness and efficiency wherein the former is DOING THE RIGHT THINGS while the latter is DOING THINGS RIGHT.  Their intersection does yield productivity.  But still, many of us tend to get confused about the difference between productivity and efficiency

Too often, PRODUCTIVITY and EFFICIENCY are [wrongly] thought as synonyms [but they're NOT].  And while they are related, but certainly, they are NOT interchangeable and in some cases, though, they couldn't be farther apart.  But in the shortest discussion possible, PRODUCTIVITY is PERFORMANCE while EFFICIENCY IS HOW WELL YOU PERFORM

Swinging over to our personal lives, during these times where there has been human diaspora of workers from the Third World, we all salute such workers a.k.a. Overseas Foreign Workers [OFW] because they are grinding and working hard to support their families back home.  And that is laudable.  What is missed out in millions of families is the 'EFFICIENCY' in raising the children 'in absentia' [although many will argue we got so many social media tools to compensate

Fast forward, how were millions of children raised when their father was the primary financier is working for 'donkey years' ten thousand miles away?  The obvious UPSIDE was that the family breadwinner was that ptoductive.  BUT, overall, were things ran efficiently?  Sadly, I can attest to so many FAILURES in families because the focus was simply on productivity.  Time to look into our efficiencies please❗❗❗