Some lessons stick. One, I remember, resulted from a small remark my father made when I was a kid. While I was tightening a screw, he mentioned that sometimes one can only continue tightening things until one discovers that it was too much. It’s what happened. I had turned the nut often enough to break the bolt. The tool I had been using was multiplying my force and I couldn’t tell how little or how much I was applying.
This is true in many situations.
Consider efficiency for example. When dealing with processes that are often repeated, that untrained users might use, and that are part of a larger task, efficiency will be useful. It helps reduce friction in the system and can, at the same time, create a space that allows people to be effective despite their lack of knowledge of the whole system.
However, implementing a process transforms the existing process. It does so by changing the variables it uses, but also those it impacts. This makes the change somewhat unpredictable. This can be problematic if one assumes that the applied change will be straightforward, that is, if one discounts the existence of side effects.
This is what efficiency does. It focuses on one point while lacking awareness of other elements. However, a change applied in one area can impact the friction elsewhere. A change may be effective in one area and transform previously available balance or fluidity elsewhere.
An overall impact one can observe is how a tendency to search for one problem unfolds. It is based on two assumptions: One is that solving a problem has a determined consequence; The other is that a process can be applied until all problems have been solved.
It leads to a slow deterioration of the initial objective of being efficient as an organization. And slowly transforms itself into developing efficient processes. As the desired outcome of the original process moves out of sight, effectiveness finds itself lost in multiple additions to the process.
A tight focus becomes a loose focus.