Efficient vs. Effective

I love going to Barnes and Noble because you can sit down and read all of the magazines you might not otherwise read. So with the preface - I was reading an articles in Fortune magazine about the "the best advice I ever got". They basically asked 25 of the country's most successful people what was the best advice they ever got. The question basically got back to "who was/are your mentors"? A couple that I liked included: Find out what you are truly good at and then surround yourself with people that are strong in the areas you are weak. Do what you enjoy and do what you're good at. Balance is the key to success. And a whole lot of others I can't remember (so they must not have been that good).

They also interviewed Rick Warren in that piece. He said several things I really liked. First, he said that a lot of organizations (churches, businesses, etc...) focus on being efficient but not about being effective. Being efficient has to do with what's going on inside your organization but being effective has to do with what's going on outside your organization. Effective has to do with the people that are not using your product and why are they not. For the church it has to do with the people that don't believe our message and why they don't. I've personally seen a lot of efficient churches that run like well oiled machines, but they suck because no one who's not already a Christian would want to be a part of it.

I think that the more I read from Rick Warren the most I admire the man. He had another good piece of advice but I might make that another blog because it hits on a whole other topic.