“We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life.”
- Steve Jobs
Every organization strives for excellence but only a few are able to achieve it. This competitive advantage called Excellence depends on two major paramaters that is Effectiveness and Efficiency. Together Excellence, Efficiency and Effectiveness form the three E's business strive for to remain ahead in a competitive market such as today.
Effectiveness is the vision behind a idea, process and is accomplished only by some in the organisations. For eg. Mr. Ratan Tata had a vision, goal when he proposed the entry of Nano. It was the idea of empowering each person in India with four wheeler which inspired such a model and it gained immediate acceptability and market in customer mindset.
At the same time efficiency is the process of optimized utilization of resources to gain maximum productivity be it in terms of speed or money. This is the aspect most managers are found to be striving for within organizations.
Combination of these two gives rise to Excellence which in mathematical terms can be thought as a multiplying relationship
Excellence = Effectiveness * Efficiency
Some powerful examples to explain this can be the rise and sustainability of FlipKart and Mumbai Dabawallas. Both the business process models are best examples of excellence and had effectiveness in the form of ideas such as delivering value in the form of e commerce or food to customers at their door steps and offices. Also the efficiency in the systems have made delivering value on time and at low cost possible at such large scale.
Both the E's can be considered to be catering to stakeholders of its own kind. Effectiveness serves business, shareholders, investors. Efficiency on the other hand serves customers. But what about the hidden E that is Enjoyable.
This fourth E is often neglected by organizations since processes that are effective and efficient but not enjoyable can ultimately effect in less customer orientation. Also the business looses on social responsibility as unhappy workers do not tend to be good citizens.
This is a phenomenon also discussed in 'Modern Times', a short film depicting Charlie Chaplin as a worker in a assembly line . Youtube link for the film is as below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGNYyG8F7WY
Now these 4E's can also be used to make distinction between Craftsmanship and modern management.
A craftsmen is person with lower goals and has no process to attain scale or excellence, his business process is highly dependent on skills of one worker. But the workers satisfaction level is extremely high. Now this implies process lacked vision or goal which implies effectiveness. Also since the process involves the skills of just one person completing all the minor tasks this leads to lack of efficiency though the process is enjoyable for worker to participate in.
But in case of modern management there are several processes that run parallel to each other and gives emphasis on developing dexterity in which the whole process is highly dependent on each component. Also techniques such as deskilling are implemented to give emphasis on process rather than people. Now this implies their is a vision to give emphasis on process which means effectiveness. Also tasks being fragmented to many minor tasks leads to efficiency since speed and efficiency improves if a task is done again and again. Considering the hidden E it can be present in a positive or negative way depending on the process model and consideration this. For eg. A worker could be rotated periodically to help him overcome monotony.
This thinking was demonstrated in class with a practical in which students were asked to come forward and build a tower from simple cubes. A student came forward and was asked to set a target for himself. The class expectation was extremely low 8- 10 and the student himself expected 10 only. But in the process he was able to build up 17 block tower.
Now in another demonstration 8 students came forward to do the same task but the only difference this time was that the one making the tower was to be blindfolded and others were to just give suggestion. The tower thus made was only of 7 blocks. The tower builder was asked to explain why such low height of tower and he told that it became confusing for him to listen to so many persons without any strategy and hierarchy.
First demonstration shows craftsman is always prone to set low targets and in the process loose competitive advantage as his process can not attain excellence which could have been towers of great height and also scaling up of his process for larger customer base was extremely difficult.
Second demonstration shows that given a business process without effectiveness, strategy attainability of process goals is not possible.
The combination of the two shows that to attain excellence one should be able to combine effectiveness (strategy, goals, acceptability, market) with efficiency (cost effectiveness, time efficient).
Hope this blog has given you a clear understanding of the 3 E's which are highly useful in team building and business process development.
Any improvements are most welcome.
- Steve Jobs
Every organization strives for excellence but only a few are able to achieve it. This competitive advantage called Excellence depends on two major paramaters that is Effectiveness and Efficiency. Together Excellence, Efficiency and Effectiveness form the three E's business strive for to remain ahead in a competitive market such as today.
Effectiveness is the vision behind a idea, process and is accomplished only by some in the organisations. For eg. Mr. Ratan Tata had a vision, goal when he proposed the entry of Nano. It was the idea of empowering each person in India with four wheeler which inspired such a model and it gained immediate acceptability and market in customer mindset.
At the same time efficiency is the process of optimized utilization of resources to gain maximum productivity be it in terms of speed or money. This is the aspect most managers are found to be striving for within organizations.
Combination of these two gives rise to Excellence which in mathematical terms can be thought as a multiplying relationship
Excellence = Effectiveness * Efficiency
Some powerful examples to explain this can be the rise and sustainability of FlipKart and Mumbai Dabawallas. Both the business process models are best examples of excellence and had effectiveness in the form of ideas such as delivering value in the form of e commerce or food to customers at their door steps and offices. Also the efficiency in the systems have made delivering value on time and at low cost possible at such large scale.
Both the E's can be considered to be catering to stakeholders of its own kind. Effectiveness serves business, shareholders, investors. Efficiency on the other hand serves customers. But what about the hidden E that is Enjoyable.
This fourth E is often neglected by organizations since processes that are effective and efficient but not enjoyable can ultimately effect in less customer orientation. Also the business looses on social responsibility as unhappy workers do not tend to be good citizens.
This is a phenomenon also discussed in 'Modern Times', a short film depicting Charlie Chaplin as a worker in a assembly line . Youtube link for the film is as below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGNYyG8F7WY
Now these 4E's can also be used to make distinction between Craftsmanship and modern management.
A craftsmen is person with lower goals and has no process to attain scale or excellence, his business process is highly dependent on skills of one worker. But the workers satisfaction level is extremely high. Now this implies process lacked vision or goal which implies effectiveness. Also since the process involves the skills of just one person completing all the minor tasks this leads to lack of efficiency though the process is enjoyable for worker to participate in.
But in case of modern management there are several processes that run parallel to each other and gives emphasis on developing dexterity in which the whole process is highly dependent on each component. Also techniques such as deskilling are implemented to give emphasis on process rather than people. Now this implies their is a vision to give emphasis on process which means effectiveness. Also tasks being fragmented to many minor tasks leads to efficiency since speed and efficiency improves if a task is done again and again. Considering the hidden E it can be present in a positive or negative way depending on the process model and consideration this. For eg. A worker could be rotated periodically to help him overcome monotony.
This thinking was demonstrated in class with a practical in which students were asked to come forward and build a tower from simple cubes. A student came forward and was asked to set a target for himself. The class expectation was extremely low 8- 10 and the student himself expected 10 only. But in the process he was able to build up 17 block tower.
Now in another demonstration 8 students came forward to do the same task but the only difference this time was that the one making the tower was to be blindfolded and others were to just give suggestion. The tower thus made was only of 7 blocks. The tower builder was asked to explain why such low height of tower and he told that it became confusing for him to listen to so many persons without any strategy and hierarchy.
First demonstration shows craftsman is always prone to set low targets and in the process loose competitive advantage as his process can not attain excellence which could have been towers of great height and also scaling up of his process for larger customer base was extremely difficult.
Second demonstration shows that given a business process without effectiveness, strategy attainability of process goals is not possible.
The combination of the two shows that to attain excellence one should be able to combine effectiveness (strategy, goals, acceptability, market) with efficiency (cost effectiveness, time efficient).
Hope this blog has given you a clear understanding of the 3 E's which are highly useful in team building and business process development.
Any improvements are most welcome.
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