Being Effective or Efficient

Being Effective or Efficient: Where Will You Make a Difference?

A Reaction Paper in MAELM 210: Essentials of Management

Prepared by:MIGUEL DOMINIQUE A. MARTINEZ (MAELM 2012 Summer)

Submitted to:DR. EDUARDO B. ARDALES(Professor)

BEING EFFECTIVE OR EFFICIENT: WHERE WILL YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE Bicol UniversityGRADUATE SCHOOLLegazpi City

A Reaction Paper

Management is defined as set of activities- planning and decision making, organizing, leading, and controlling directed at an organizations resources- human, financial, physical, and information with the aim of achieving organizational goals in an efficient and effective manner. One of the important ideas in this definition is achieving the organizations objectives in an effective and efficient manner.Effectiveness and efficiency may sound similar and begin with the same letter but they mean differently. Being effective means achieving ones objectives while being efficient means achieving ones objectives with the use of least amount resources like money and time. For example, an advertising company may spend millions of pesos for commercials and billboards to promote or campaign a new product. That marketing strategy can be effective but that is not efficient. A same company may just make a viral video and upload it on the free Internet or think of any guerrilla marketing tactics. That marketing strategy is efficient; however that may not be efficient. Its brief and clear to tell the differences between efficiency and effectiveness.Various departments within a company may have different perspectives upon these two competing concerns. The marketing department is usually not concerned with efficiency but is largely concerned with the effectiveness of the campaign; whereas the production or accounting department is always concerned with efficiency and low-costs on its continual effort to produce enough. Some managers believe that in order to be a successful organization, there must be a balance between effectiveness and efficiency. Only being efficient and not meeting the objectives of the organization is futile and effectiveness may result in achieving the companys objectives but at what cost? I prefer being effective than being efficient. It is a lot more important to be effective since it always means performing the job well. It also means applying the proper level of quality or standard of excellence in what you do. In relation to my work as a teacher, I can be efficient and get all of the tests graded in time, or have the students read more books than any other reading teacher, or cover more of the book before the end of the first quarter than anyone else. But if the students are not learning, I am being ineffective. We need to remember that our ultimate goal is to be effective teachers. Effectiveness is ultimately important. Nothing should be given up for the sake of being effective. I think that efficiency is only beneficial if its targeted towards the right goal. Once you are heading towards the right goal, then efficiency helps you get there more quickly.An organization can be very efficient, but be doing things that are ineffective. As a result the organization's goals will not be met. On the other hand an organization which is effective, even if it is quite inefficient, will be able to accomplish its goals. That's why I think being effective is better than being efficient.