June 29 2023 Efficiency Is The Enemy Of Innovation In slack: getting past burnout, busywork, and the myth of total efficiency, tom demarco explains that most people and organizations fail to recognize the value of slack. Why efficiency is the enemy of modern effectiveness by wayne weiner, d.ed. let’s be honest: efficiency has gone rogue. what used to mean “getting things done quickly and smartly” now.
June 29 2023 Efficiency Is The Enemy Of Innovation Because the obsession with efficiency is shrinking opportunity. there’s a business story that captures this perfectly. a luxury brand redesigned its digital sales process to make it smoother and more cost effective. they minimized human involvement and relied on chatbots and emails to guide buyers. sales dipped. This idea has been gaining traction on wall street — if not yet in silicon valley, which has reacted to its first lull in demand with panicky mass layoffs. as the economist and former warburg pincus vice chairman william h. janeway has put it, “efficiency is the enemy of innovation.”. There’s only one problem: while innovation might (sometimes) create greater efficiency, efficiency itself makes innovation less likely by causing a concentration of profit and power for one or. Political scientist and leisure researcher jacob snyder analyses the ideology of the current moment and identifies its obsession with efficiency. he argues against efficiency's place as the supreme value in our personal lives and in our politics.
Efficiency Is The Enemy Of Growth There’s only one problem: while innovation might (sometimes) create greater efficiency, efficiency itself makes innovation less likely by causing a concentration of profit and power for one or. Political scientist and leisure researcher jacob snyder analyses the ideology of the current moment and identifies its obsession with efficiency. he argues against efficiency's place as the supreme value in our personal lives and in our politics. In a world of manic efficiency, slack often comes across as laziness or a lack of initiative. without slack time, however, we know we won’t be able to get through new tasks straight away, and if someone insists we should, we have to drop whatever we were previously doing. We digitize documents to save paper, but the near zero cost of printing leads to billions of unnecessary pages. this analysis is a strategic warning: efficiency is not sustainability. Watt’s efficient engine changed the economic equation. it made steam power profitable for textiles, flour mills, transatlantic transport, and ironworks. suddenly, everyone could afford to burn. Nature doesn’t worship efficiency. evolution builds redundancy everywhere: two kidneys, overlapping immune responses, ecosystems filled with “wasteful” diversity.
Efficiency Is The Enemy Of Innovation In a world of manic efficiency, slack often comes across as laziness or a lack of initiative. without slack time, however, we know we won’t be able to get through new tasks straight away, and if someone insists we should, we have to drop whatever we were previously doing. We digitize documents to save paper, but the near zero cost of printing leads to billions of unnecessary pages. this analysis is a strategic warning: efficiency is not sustainability. Watt’s efficient engine changed the economic equation. it made steam power profitable for textiles, flour mills, transatlantic transport, and ironworks. suddenly, everyone could afford to burn. Nature doesn’t worship efficiency. evolution builds redundancy everywhere: two kidneys, overlapping immune responses, ecosystems filled with “wasteful” diversity.
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