Efficiency is the easiest (i.e “right” way), effectiveness is more difficult (i.e. “right” things, “right“ timing, “right” cost).

Achieving excellence requires all-hands-on-deck, in my view, and is therefore more difficult to achieve.

One thing I recall from days at GE was my boss encouraging all design engineers to do daily walkabouts, to see firsthand, the impact of their designs on production-line work/workers.

Walkabouts are helpful for discovering reasons for inconsistencies in finished products and, in a few cases, to discover and explain consistencies.

In the plant where I worked, one of the products was watt-hour meters and these, of course, required magnets.

For years HQ could not understand why the quality of the magnets was so high, relative to other watt-hour production plants.

A walkabout reveled that the blacksmith (yes, they had a blacksmith in those days), whose shift was 8 to 4, same as everyone else, actually came in at 6 AM to start up his hearth and stayed to 6 PM to clean up.

The effect was a steady state by 8 AM and readiness to start the next day by 6 PM.

I have been a fan of walkabouts (along production facilities and in the office) since that time.