How To Build An Effective Path To Your Goals, Not Just An Efficient One

When you hear "be more efficient," what comes to mind? If you're like most founders and operators of professional service firms or law firms, you probably think faster turnaround times, streamlined processes, and cutting costs wherever possible.

And that might also be what you associate with the pathway to success.

But here's the uncomfortable truth: efficiency might just be sabotaging your service business. This blog post is going to show you why that is and what to do about it.

Why "Efficiency" Is a Dangerous Word for Service Businesses

To quote from one of the greatest movies of all time:

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

It might be one of my least favorite words in management-speak. Not because it doesn't have a role in building a successful business.

It does but...

What do you think the word Efficiency means?

Carelessly tossed about, service providers of all shapes and sizes are told to become more "efficient" as if it's the Holy Grail of profit growth and scalability.

And then worse (because you might know what it means to you), the word gets bandied about with team members and now we really have a problem.

What Misguided Efficiency Looks Like in Professional Services

This is NOT what you want:

• Employees rushing through a job, leaving mistakes for clients to find
• Team members ignoring time-intensive interactions, like collaborating or communicating with potential clients or each other, letting growth opportunities fall through the cracks
• Technology bought and paid for that is programmed wrong, dehumanizes your hard-earned reputation or is left unused by half your staff

You DO want profit growth, more billable hours logged, a new associate to replace the one that just left, and enough time to see your kid's softball tournament this weekend without having to bring your laptop to the field...

And yet efficiency-focused mistakes show up all the time in the real world:

• A law firm associate rushing through the drafting process to "efficiently" leave room to get to inbox zero and a client consult, only to discover later they left off a major piece of the summary
• A consultant using templates for every client communication to save time, inadvertently sending the same rote "let's connect" email to someone they just met with last week
• A marketing agency cutting discovery phases to "efficiently" start campaigns faster, resulting in misaligned strategies and disappointed clients 

So where does all that confusion come from and what can we use and do instead?

The Historical Problem with "Efficiency"

Well first... some background.

The Efficiency Movement (the ground zero of Efficiency in the modern business world) got its first major boost in the age of manufacturing and industrialism (think late 1800's to early 1900's).

Where bigger and better meant less overhead and more profit (anti-trust issues anyone?) and the goal was as little manual intervention in the chain as possible.

Efficiency was meant to be academic to the point of dispassionate, down to the minute in scrutiny, and devoid of any and all waste.

Children could even be considered good hires because their hands were smaller and could reach into the machinery more efficiently.

That is the background of this word that's so beloved in business.

Maybe some of this sounds good to you (hopefully not the child labor bit) but, without proper framing, efficiency can be anathema to a professional or legal services business.

I'm not saying all aspects of the efficiency movement were wrong. Standardization and waste reduction have their place. In fact, I love what the power of process design, automations and AI can do for our businesses.

But when we blindly apply industrial-era thinking to relationship-based businesses, we create problems.

Seeking efficiency without effectiveness generates the opposite of your value promise and the reputation you want to uphold, all while it detours you typical growth path of "serve clients well and more will come."

The Better Alternative: Effectiveness

Focus on Effectiveness, Not Efficiency

So what instead?

First, I prefer the word Effectiveness and this is what I'm always aiming for with my clients.

Goals + Values are what define Success for you. If you meet one at the expense of the other, the Successful Outcome isn't reached.

Like getting work done fast but wrong or getting sucked into admin work when you could have been strategizing with a client... those aren't successful outcomes.

So you, your team, and your technology needs to be Effective at reaching the Goal, both overall as well as with the individually defined goals, not necessarily Efficient.

To make this confusing, sometimes Efficient is also what your clients say they want. That's when you dive into their version of Effectiveness too.

Do they want the job done right, done fast or done cheap?

When you're clear on what effectiveness means for your specific situation (or theirs), like in this comprehensive guide to goal setting for business growth, decision-making becomes much clearer.

Once you've done that, here's what comes next:

Break Down Processes to Find True Effectiveness

Second, break down a process into the components that matter to really figure out what's most Effective. You can do that by trying on questions like the following:

• When can you rush through a task?
• When should you ignore it entirely?
• What can go to technology or AI without violating your core values or jeopardizing your brand?
• And when does it make sense to put only an experienced human at the helm even if it's less Efficient for them or the process?

This is where effective process mapping becomes invaluable. When you map out your processes with effectiveness as the goal rather than speed, you can identify exactly where human expertise adds value and where automation makes sense.

It's not that efficiency isn't part of the equation. (It is!)

But do you want efficiency or do you want to reach your profit/time/life/impact goals?

I'm betting on the latter.

Measuring What Matters: Effectiveness Indicators

You can take this even further by transforming your metrics into those that more accurately reflect your definition of success.

Instead of tracking "time to completion" or "tasks processed per hour," consider pairing them up with effectiveness indicators like:

• Client satisfaction scores and retention rates + number of clients served
• Profit per client (not just revenue) + net new clients
• Quality of deliverables (fewer revisions needed) + number of deliverable completed
• Strategic project completion rates + ROI on strategic projects

These metrics tell you if you're being effective, not just fast.

Learn more about key performance indicators that actually matter for professional service businesses and law firms.

Making the Shift in Your Organization

When you bandy about words that are easily misinterpreted or ill-defined, you easily end up with the wrong things.

But get clear on the outcome and what it means to be Effective in reaching that outcome, you'll have a much higher chance of Success and find ways of using Efficiency to help you reach that goal.

The beautiful thing about focusing on effectiveness is that it naturally leads to better systems and processes.

When your team understands what "effective" looks like, something that effective team communication can be helpful with, they can focus their efforts in ways that support both quality outcomes and sustainable growth.

Ready to Choose Effectiveness Over Efficiency?

The next time someone (including yourself) throws around the word "efficient," pause and ask: "What would effectiveness look like here instead?"

You might be surprised how this simple shift transforms not just your operations, but your entire approach to serving clients and growing your business.