2007/07/04

Efficiency and Effectiveness

Peter Drucker (1909-2005), an influential business guru, is often quoted for his saying:
Efficiency is doing the job right.
Effectiveness is doing the right job right.

Interestingly, a parallel can be found in the poetic and prophetic writings of Isaiah (ca. 8th century BC):

Does the plowman keep plowing all day to sow?
Does he keep turning his soil and breaking the clods?
When he has leveled its surface,
Does he not sow the black cummin
And scatter the cummin,
Plant the wheat in rows,
The barley in the appointed place,
And the spelt in its place?
For He instructs him in right judgment,
His God teaches him.
For the black cummin is not threshed with a threshing sledge,
Nor is a cartwheel rolled over the cummin;
But the black cummin is beaten out with a stick,
And the cummin with a rod.
Bread flour must be ground;
Therefore he does not thresh it forever.
Break it with his cartwheel,
Or crush it with his horsemen.
This also comes from the Lord of hosts,
Who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in guidance.
(Isaiah 28:24-29, NKJV)

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