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- The Crusade Against Efficiency - Part 1
The Crusade Against Efficiency - Part 1
Mistakes of Mainstream Management [MMM Series]: Chapter 3
Laksh Raghavan
September 22, 2024
I’d like to start today’s post with the story of Hermann Maier, an Austrian downhiller who was known as the "Herminator" for his spectacular skiing skills. In the 1998 Winter Olympics, Maier fell dramatically during a race. Here’s the video for the curious:
This story was originally recounted by Roger Martin, a top business thinker of our times, who had originally watched it in real-time as a kid and was shocked like everyone else! But, he also realized how Maier's zero-friction ski suit, which made him super-efficient when he was upright on his ski, actually resulted in him not being able to slow down after the fall.
This perspective totally resonates with me… Our blind chasing of efficiency can at times lead to disastrous consequences. Luckily, Hermann was able to recover and he went on to win 2 gold medals, But, I see this very mistake committed by entrepreneurs and corporate executives/managers alike - without them fully realizing what they are chasing and why. This, when coupled with not understanding what they are measuring and how, creates an environment where it becomes hard for human creativity to flourish.
The American obsession for efficiency can arguably be traced back to Adam Smith and the depiction of the pin factory in his book, 'The Wealth of Nations.' By implementing the division of labor, the factory achieved a level of efficiency far beyond what would have been possible if each worker were responsible for crafting entire pins from start to finish. Our blind chasing of efficiency is now omni-present - it has even infiltrated the bleeding edge of innovation, Silicon Valley high tech. companies. The chase is now on at various levels of abstraction and has contributed to disastrous consequences in our economy and our lives.
In the announcement about Cyb3rSyn Labs, my new startup, I wrote:
The startup is a crusade against Taylorism, reductionism and our blind chasing of efficiency.
The first two will be covered in future posts - I’d like to focus on the topic of efficiency in this post. Let me begin this week’s post with a pertinent quote from Peter Drucker's book, 'Management Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices':
"The whole of a system is not necessarily improved if one particular function or part is improved or made more efficient. In fact, the system may well be damaged thereby, or even destroyed. In some cases the best way to strengthen the system may be to weaken a part—to make it less precise or less efficient. For what matters in any system is the performance of the whole; this is the result of growth and of dynamic balance, adjustment, and integration rather than of mere technical efficiency. Primary emphasis on the efficiency of parts in management science is therefore bound to do damage. It is bound to optimize precision of the tool at the expense of the health and performance of the whole."
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