Bicol University

GRADUATE SCHOOL
Legazpi City

BEING EFFECTIVE OR EFFICIENT: WHERE WILL YOU MAKE A

DIFFERENCE

Being Effective or
Efficient: Where
Will You Make a
Difference?
A Reaction Paper in MAELM 210: Essentials of
Management

Prepared by:
MIGUEL DOMINIQUE A. MARTINEZ
(MAELM 2012 Summer)

Submitted to:
DR. EDUARDO B. ARDALES
(Professor)

A Reaction Paper

Management is defined as set of activities- planning and

decision making, organizing, leading, and controlling directed at an
organizations resources- human, financial, physical, and information
with the aim of achieving organizational goals in an efficient and
effective manner.

One of the important ideas in this definition is

achieving the organizations objectives in an effective and efficient

manner.
Effectiveness and efficiency may sound similar and begin with
the same letter but they mean differently.

Being effective means

achieving ones objectives while being efficient means achieving ones

objectives with the use of least amount resources like money and time.
For example, an advertising company may spend millions of pesos for
commercials and billboards to promote or campaign a new product.
That marketing strategy can be effective but that is not efficient. A
same company may just make a viral video and upload it on the free
Internet or think of any guerrilla marketing tactics. That marketing
strategy is efficient; however that may not be efficient. Its brief and
clear to tell the differences between efficiency and effectiveness.
Various departments within a company may have different
perspectives upon these two competing concerns. The marketing

department is usually not concerned with efficiency but is largely

concerned with the effectiveness of the campaign; whereas the
production or accounting department is always concerned with
efficiency and low-costs on its continual effort to produce enough.
Some managers believe that in order to be a successful organization,
there must be a balance between effectiveness and efficiency. Only
being efficient and not meeting the objectives of the organization is
futile and effectiveness may result in achieving the companys
objectives but at what cost?
I prefer being effective than being efficient. It is a lot more
important to be effective since it always means performing the job
well. It also means applying the proper level of quality or standard of
excellence in what you do. In relation to my work as a teacher, I can be
efficient and get all of the tests graded in time, or have the students
read more books than any other reading teacher, or cover more of the
book before the end of the first quarter than anyone else. But if the
students are not learning, I am being ineffective. We need to
remember that our ultimate goal is to be effective teachers.
Effectiveness is ultimately important. Nothing should be given up for
the sake of being effective. I think that efficiency is only beneficial if
its targeted towards the right goal. Once you are heading towards the
right goal, then efficiency helps you get there more quickly.

An organization can be very efficient, but be doing things that

are ineffective. As a result the organization's goals will not be met. On
the other hand an organization which is effective, even if it is quite
inefficient, will be able to accomplish its goals.
That's why I think being effective is better than being efficient.