Time, Money, Efficiency?
2024.05.26.
The question of “Do I want more or do I want better?”—that is, the quantity vs. quality debate—often runs alongside another thought: how can I be more efficient? More efficient in business. A sales manager friend once told me a story about how he motivates his team to work more efficiently. His question was: “Can you imagine earning 1,000,000 forints a month? No? Have you ever earned 1,000,000 forints? Yes? How long did it take? Three months? Well, then you can do it; you just need to figure out how to be three times more efficient so you can do it in one month.” Is that all there is to it?
Money/time?
Well, yes, in my first 27 years of being an entrepreneur, I saw, heard, and experienced that the two main dimensions of business efficiency are money and time. That is, if you want to be good, you need to make more and more money in less and less time. (I know, I know... There are, of course, a bunch of other indicators for measuring corporate efficiency, but almost every hard indicator boils down to how you can make more money while spending less and, of course, meeting deadlines!)
Let’s take a closer look at these three things: is money important? Why is time such a difficult issue? And what exactly is efficiency?
Is Money Important?
It is. Let’s accept that generating money is one of the primary goals of a founder. We can debate it, but starting a business is fundamentally about this: taking risks today to earn more tomorrow than the amount you risked. (If profit-free value creation is your goal, then maybe you should start a foundation, an association, or a social club instead.) But still, when we talk about efficiency, why do we only consider time as a resource?
What’s Our Problem with Time?
We always see it differently. My relationship with time has changed interestingly over the years. You could say it’s “complicated,” quite complex and multifaceted, and it reflects my current life situation well. It’s certain that my fears and misconceptions about time have often influenced my daily decisions and overall well-being. “I have time, I’m young. No need to rush! Time is money. The early bird catches the worm. Latecomers only get the scraps. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Time is like the ocean. Time works for me...”
Are we afraid of missing out on something? Afraid we won’t get a second chance? Afraid we’ll grow old and won’t be able to do what we can do today? Now, immediately... And yes, our time is finite, and we don’t know when it will run out. So, we do have issues with time, perhaps we take it more seriously than we should.
What Is Efficiency?
This question is quite relevant for me as I’m currently figuring out how to dive back into entrepreneurship. I quickly googled it, and based on internet results, efficiency is defined as the ability of an organization or process to achieve its set goals while maximizing the use of available resources and minimizing waste (don’t waste!).
But what should I factor in when planning my operations? How do I see the next 3-4 years? What criteria should I include in my spreadsheet when thinking about the resources on the path to profit? After all, I’ll need to use these resources without wasting them.
What Lies Beyond Time?
The first thing that came to mind besides time is Us. Us, as the leaders of the company. Our belief in our own future is one of our most important resources. For me, belief is what enables me to put on my shoes every morning and keep moving forward. The belief that I will be able to overcome obstacles, recognize opportunities, and believe in my future. If I lose my belief, it doesn’t matter how much time I have because I won’t want to go anywhere. And if I don’t move forward, no matter how much time passes, I’ll remain stuck in life, in business.
Then there are the others—the people around us. My family, my friends. What good are my successes if the people with whom I could share them fade away? No matter how efficiently I reach my goals, if no one who matters to me cares anymore.
And then there are the colleagues who walk this path with us. If I focus on time, on time-based efficiency, and rush ahead, it’s not certain they can keep up. And if they can’t, what happens? I’ll likely have to wait for them, so what was the point of rushing? Or I’ll be alone up ahead, but then what’s the point of having colleagues if we’re not moving together? And if we’re not moving together, how will we know we’re still headed in the same direction? The system gets tense, and I start wasting the very thing that makes all this worthwhile: the fact that I:
Love My Work.
Don’t get me wrong: of course, time is important. Money is important. Efficiency is important. But time is just one element of the equation for success and business efficiency... the product that eventually results in our profit, and the divisors used to calculate efficiency, consist of many elements. What elements? Those come from the values, awareness, and life situation of the individual business leader.
It’s worth considering and keeping in mind: if even one of these elements that matters to us suddenly becomes zero... then no matter how good the partial results are, the final result will still be zero.
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The article was translated from Hungarian to English by ChatGPT. Thank you, ChatGPT, for being here.
