When we have to talk about the same thing.

I lis­te­ned to this while wri­ting this post, try it while you read :o)

This is the second in a series of posts reflec­ting on our willin­gness to remem­ber and the qua­li­ty of that know­ledge. These posts should be read in order of publi­ca­tion. Star­ting with num­ber six, for example, would make no sense to the rea­der. Hap­py reading!

So let’s start by defi­ning a few terms. Here are the defi­ni­tions from Larousse.

Effec­ti­ve­ness: Cha­rac­ter of an effi­cient per­son or orga­ni­za­tion that pro­duces maxi­mum results with mini­mum effort and means.

Effi­cien­cy: The abi­li­ty of an indi­vi­dual or work sys­tem to per­form well in a given type of task.

We are the­re­fore tal­king about results, efforts, means and good per­for­mance. The first refers to pro­duc­ti­vi­ty ver­sus use­less­ness, the second refers to the first, but adding the notion of “good” performance.

Now let’s look at English. Effi­cien­cy is the qua­li­ty of being able to do a task suc­cess­ful­ly, without was­ting time or ener­gy. This is about suc­cess and avoi­ding losses. We can also find the word Effec­ti­ve­ness, which is defi­ned as fol­lows: Some­thing that is effec­tive works well and pro­duces the results that were inten­ded. If you talk about the effi­ca­cy of some­thing, you are tal­king about its effec­ti­ve­ness and its abi­li­ty to do what it is sup­po­sed to.

From this star­ting point, we can conclude the fol­lo­wing. In English, we talk about the variable of suc­cess (this notion can vary from one per­son to ano­ther, from one context to ano­ther) and avoi­ding losses, which is still a vague variable. Final­ly, we are tal­king about what was sup­po­sed to be, which is still a variable notion. In sum­ma­ry, the English for this concept is rather flexible and will vary from one per­son to another.

In French, we find a pecu­lia­ri­ty. While effi­cien­cy remains somew­hat vague, effec­ti­ve­ness is quite rigid. Pro­duce maxi­mum results with mini­mum effort and means. That’s pret­ty clear. We will start on these bases tomorrow.

To be continued…

-Dan­ny

I’m Dan­ny (aka Coa­ch­Dan­ny). I have a pas­sion: humans. Come with me and take this minute eve­ry day to explore what’s going on today and why is it tren­ding. Click here to get your dai­ly thought right on time for break­fast.

Sources: https://solomotivation.com

Trans­la­tion by Abbie Sims: https://www.linkedin.com/in/acsims/

Last Upda­ted on Decem­ber 28, 2020 by Coach Dan­ny