I am tired of all the talk about efficiency.
Efficient processes. Efficient meetings. Efficient organizations. Efficient use of time. Efficient this and efficient that.
Of course, efficiency matters. Nobody wants to waste time, money, energy or resources.
But I believe we sometimes make efficiency the end goal instead of seeing it as a means to something more important.
That is why I came up with this leadership formula:
E = E × W
Efficiency = Effectiveness × Well-being
Would you agree?
Efficiency is not enough
Imagine a team that completes everything quickly.
Meetings are short. Emails are answered immediately. Processes are optimized. Targets are tracked. Everyone is busy.
From the outside, this might look like a very efficient team.
But what if people are exhausted?
What if they are afraid to speak up?
What if they do not understand why they are doing the work?
What if collaboration is poor and people only focus on their own tasks?
What if employees deliver results today but have no energy left for tomorrow?
Then I would question whether we are really leading effectively.
A leader’s job is not simply to make people work faster.
It is to help people work better, together, and for the right reasons.
Effectiveness gives efficiency a purpose
Efficiency asks:
“How can we do this faster or with fewer resources?”
Effectiveness asks:
“Are we doing the right thing in the first place?”
These are very different questions.
You can become extremely efficient at doing something that creates little value.
For example, you can have a perfectly organized meeting that should never have happened.
You can answer emails faster without improving the quality of your communication.
You can optimize a process that is no longer needed.
You can help a team reach a target that does not contribute to the organization’s real priorities.
This is why leaders need to look beyond efficiency.
Before asking how we can do something better, we should sometimes ask whether we should be doing it at all.
And then there is well-being
The second part of my formula is W: well-being.
People are not machines.
They need energy, meaning, connection, trust, recovery and a sense that their work matters.
When leaders focus only on output, people can become another resource to optimize.
That is dangerous.
A healthy workplace does not mean that everyone is comfortable all the time. Leadership still involves pressure, difficult conversations, high expectations and accountability.
But there is a difference between challenging people and draining people.
Good leadership creates an environment where people can perform without constantly sacrificing their well-being.
The multiplication sign matters
Notice that I use a multiplication sign:
E = E × W
Not:
E = E + W
Why?
Because if one side becomes very weak, the overall result suffers.
You can have highly effective people who are completely burned out.
You can have happy people who are not clear about what they are trying to achieve.
Neither situation is sustainable.
The goal is not to choose between performance and people.
The goal is to create the conditions where both can support each other.
What does this mean for leaders?
It means we need to ask better questions.
Instead of only asking:
- How can we save time?
- How can we reduce costs?
- How can we make this process faster?
- How can we have shorter meetings?
Also ask:
- Are we working on the right priorities?
- Does everyone understand the goal?
- Are people able to do their best work?
- Do our ways of working create unnecessary stress?
- Are we communicating clearly?
- Do people have enough trust and autonomy?
- Are we creating results that can be sustained?
These questions take us from simple efficiency to real leadership.
Start with your meetings
Meetings are a good example.
We often try to make meetings more efficient by reducing their length.
That’s useful, but it is only one part of the equation.
A 30-minute meeting that creates confusion is not better than a 60-minute meeting that creates clarity and commitment.
So ask yourself:
What should be different because this meeting happened?
If the answer is unclear, perhaps the meeting should not happen.
If it should happen, make the purpose clear, involve the right people and make sure everyone knows what happens next.
That is effectiveness.
And if people leave the meeting with clarity rather than frustration and unnecessary workload, you are also supporting well-being.
The same applies to leadership communication
Leadership is communication.
Every message, meeting, decision and conversation influences how people understand their work and how they behave.
If I communicate a goal clearly, people can act on it.
If I create confusion, they may spend hours trying to figure out what I actually meant.
That is an efficiency problem, but it started as a communication problem.
This is why I believe communication should never be treated as something separate from performance.
Clear communication can create clarity.
Clarity can create better decisions.
Better decisions can create better actions.
And better actions can create better results.
Don’t optimize the wrong thing
Here is the question I would like every leader to consider:
What are you currently trying to make more efficient?
Then ask:
Why?
Maybe you will discover that the process needs to be improved.
But maybe you will discover that the process should be removed.
Or that people need more clarity.
Or that the team needs better cooperation.
Or that the goal itself needs to be questioned.
Efficiency is valuable when it helps us achieve something meaningful.
It becomes a problem when efficiency becomes the purpose.
My leadership formula
So this is my simple formula:
E = E × W
Efficiency = Effectiveness × Well-being
I don’t want leaders to stop caring about efficiency.
I want us to put it in the right place.
Use efficiency to save time.
Use effectiveness to make sure the time is spent on the right things.
And protect well-being so that people can continue creating value over time.
Because leadership is not about getting the maximum output from people today.
It is about creating the clarity, conditions and commitment that help people perform well tomorrow too.
What do you think? Would you agree with my formula?
