Efficiency is the enemy, Farnam Street:
It’s possible to make an organization more efficient without making it better. That’s what happens when you drive out slack. It’s also possible to make an organization a little less efficient and improve it enormously. In order to do that, you need to reintroduce enough slack to allow the organization to breathe, reinvent itself, and make necessary change.
The good stuff happens in the margins. The scribbles in books, the breath between notes, the five minutes before meetings start when folks are real. Driving a car for the sensation of driving fast, rather than driving fast to achieve the best possible time.
It’s the difference between enjoying a hobby and making a profession out of a hobby. Efficiency is the adversary of fun.
