Paul
Reeve




Entrepreneur
A nice cup of tea and a sit down
Angry Hippo

First Name		Paul
Last Name		Reeve
In the field of		Entrepreneur
Hardest lesson to learn		Sometimes people just don't get it.
Still to learn		Courage to risk it all
Home truths		We can always improve
Inspiration		The disillusioned
Open ears to		aspirations
Untapped skill		thought leadership
Future plans are for		A nice cup of tea and a sit down
Style of approach that works		Angry Hippo
Me on me
The Wolf. If I'm curt with you it's because time is a factor. I think fast, I talk fast and I need you guys to act fast if you wanna get out of this. So, pretty please... with sugar on top. Clean the fucking car! [c/o pulp fiction]

observation #1: Trying to boil the ocean wil leave you high and dry 26/01/2007 12:31 Boiling the ocean: the dilemma of efficient and effective behaviour. For me, the difference between being efficient and effective is the difference of doing the job right, rather than doing the right job to begin with. If all things were equal, I would predict that most of us would choose effective over efficient, based on this definition. Not only does it mean that you concentrate on the essentials, but it permits the opportunity to execute it well. Of course, we have all experienced the comfort and relief that comes through what we perceive as being efficient, like a train on time, or fast processor, or a maintenance company arriving when they say they will. However, beneath these efficiencies beats the heart of effectiveness. If effectiveness is our preferred course, why do we find ourselves operating in a production line mentality? Are we too busy and pressured, that we need to invent ways to spend less time doing stuff. Or is efficiency itself, a self-feeding beast. By refining ways of doing things, allows you to churn through more, giving you more capacity to do more, thus keeping you always behind because the void just gets overfilled with new tasks; resulting in inefficiencies, and so the process starts again. Effectiveness, on the other hand, gives you the space to consider the best outcome and the best course of action. By spending the time on determining what is essential over how to execute it now, is the only way to ensure that you get the best result. Too many times, I have witnessed entrepreneurs and creatives struggling against self-imposed weight of workload, risking not only deadline but their credibility, forcing them to squander great opportunities. By taking the time to look at the destination at the start, you can identify your hurdles and the path of least effort around them. By jumping head first, only leads headaches. Having worn the entrepreneurial hat, I fully respect the stance that without a team, you are forced to do it all yourself. For some sole traders, efficiency leads to the belief that if they can churn through things on their list quicker, the further they will go. And once they have reach a magical moment in time or success they will start thinking more "strategically".  Unfortunately what happens deadlines past and so does opportunity. I fully appreciate the sentiment, but it fails to convince me it serves as profitable business behavior. Let's look at it another way. The ability to churn through a lot of work is a great achievement, provided that you aren't tied to an immoveable object.  Not only does it  present a false cost of the work being done, it also comes with missed revenue-generating potential. Business is like a diet, in the sense that little efforts accumulate to a greater sum of the parts, but only after a major breakthrough is made. Breakthrough comes from effectiveness. I recently recalled an incident where I was building my online portfolio with the intent to woo prospects. I spent months making sure that everything was executed to the standard that I wanted it (it was my effigy to me after all). However, employing an effectiveness mindset, I would have realised what I was doing would only interest other designers, and not the people that I needed….cashed up clients. Three months down the drain. Effectiveness would have shown me what resonates with my prospects is vital to business, where resonance with my peers is nice for the ego. Effectiveness shows you the bigger game to play, and sometimes the easy way to play it. And once I realised what all that effort led to nothing, I felt as if I was somehow less worthy of considering myself a businessman. In fact, successful people leverage this experience to ensure that they capitalise on it. My approach to effectiveness applies as much to an entrepreneur, as it does to an employee; As much to our aspirations as does to our everyday tasks; as much as to our public to our private lives. How many of us would exchange an effective lover for an efficient one? We have the choice to be effective. I urge you to stop, think and consider whether your actions are effective and serving your aspirations. If not, turn up the heat. Comments ( 0 )

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