Gardening’s Great Goal

Gardeners taught me about strategy.

I am both lazy and incompetent when it comes to gardening. So this year we hired a gardener for a spring clean. Now I’m not only lazy, incompetent - but out of pocket too.

As the victorious gardener returned his coffee mug and my hand reached for my wallet, a question crossed my mind: how do I know if I got what I paid for? How do I measure success?

As money exchanged hands, and my wallet started to feel lighter, I noticed several bagfuls of garden waste.

Aha! The gardener cleared out a lot of waste! That must mean he was successful, and my money well-spent. I felt reassured.

But, is the amount of waste cleared a good measure of success? If that was the case, wouldn’t I view the gardener as even more successful if he chopped down and disposed of our prized apple tree?

No, success cannot be measured by the amount of waste cleared.

As the gardener pocketed the money, another thought arose.

Aha! The gardener had seemed very busy throughout his time in the garden. That must mean he was successful, and my money well-spent. I felt reassured.

But, is busyness a good measure of success? Peter Drucker reminded us that, “There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all.”

No, success cannot be measured by busyness.

As the gardener finished finger gunning and turned to walk away, my wife came to see the garden.

My poor wallet.

“Finally! We can now have that picnic we always wanted in the garden without being muddy, bug-ridden, and insect-bitten.”

Aha! Clearing the garden gave us an attractive, comfortable space - taking us towards our goal of having a picnic in the garden.

In organisations, it becomes all-too-easy to measure success in terms of efficiency, be it costs saved (waste cleared) or staff utilisation (busyness).

Unfortunately, neither of these necessarily take us towards our goal - and in fact will usually take us further away. We can just as easily fire staff to reduce costs, or prioritise all the wrong work to keep our staff busy.

As John Seddon reminds us: “The counterintuitive truth is that by chasing efficiency (managing costs) we undermine effectiveness (and drive up costs).”

Success can only be measured in terms of making progress on our preconceived goal. And defining a goal takes upfront thought, creativity and courage.

The takeaway? Don’t measure success in terms of efficiency, but in terms of effectiveness - making progress towards your preconceived goal. And, your goal is