This weekend, Lando Norris learned a tough lesson in performance vs. effectiveness, which unless he’s a big fan of the civil-military cooperation, and I don’t see him being much of a CIMIC fanboy, isn’t something he thought about much.

by the author via Midjourney and yes I use a lot of robots

But I was, working my way through a week’s worth of growth with a weed trimmer, because doing a job well (effectiveness) is more important than just doing the job (performance).

Measures of Effectiveness (MoE): A metric used to measure a current system state. “Are we on track to achieve the intended new system state within the planned timescale?”Measures of Performance (MoP): A metric used to determine the accomplishment of actions. “Are the actions being executed as planned?”

Because everyone has a different standard for success, or effectiveness, that goes beyond just doing the job.

Whether it’s trimming weeds, or, in the Formula 1 example, losing a race by less than a second to Max Verstappen, as happened to Lando Norris, we are measured not by whether we do the job, but by how well we do it.

And the expectation is that we’ll do more than the bare minimum listed in the job description. That without additional compensation we will be the most effective employee that ever lived.

If we don’t?

We’re a quiet quitter.

Or whatever term we’re going to use this week for people that just do enough to get paid and GTFO at the end of the day.

And if you want a more effective team?

  • Make sure you’ve got the right people on your bus
  • Let them build the processes you need to succeed
  • Get the tools they ask for to make those processes work

Then give them what we all want: a living wage, a flexible work environment, leadership that treats them with grace and humanity.