On (A) and (E)

That role of efficiency, the (A) role, is called administration. A person, country, or company is efficient because you systematize to see to it that the right things, at the right time, in the right sequence, at the right intensity are happening. You don’t reinvent the wheel each time you need to wheel something around. There is a manual. Identify what is successful. Systematize success so it is predictable what the outcome is going to be. There is a system, there is a manual. So system optimization. Programming. Routine. What is going to happen? You become efficient because you are not going to waste time exploring. Follow the system and it will produce the desired results. That is efficiency in the short run. Now let's go to effectiveness in the long run. 

What will make an organization effective in the long run to satisfy present client's future needs and/or the future needs of future clients? What kind of new needs are going to emerge? 

Years ago I was working with a cosmetics company. We asked the question: what does the future look like?  It was about 40 years ago. The future is men's cosmetics. That was the answer. You have to predict, you have to predict the future. Where’s it going? What the future needs are going to be. It’s called planning. What is planning? Planning is not deciding what you are going to do in the future, it is deciding what you are going to do in the present to prepare for the future. Because if you plan what to do in the future, nothing will happen. 

There was a bar in Amsterdam that I visited that had a big sign on the wall that says: free drinks tomorrow. They have never served a drink. Every time somebody says, “where are my drinks?”  They would say, “tomorrow”.  Well, tomorrow, you are right, today is not tomorrow. In Mexico when they tell you mañana, which means tomorrow, they are telling you to forget it, it is not going to happen. Mañana. Who knows when? Maybe yes. Maybe not.

You have to predict the future. You have to look at the future and imagine the future.  But you have to act in the present and prepare for the future. Like playing tennis. You have to imagine where the next ball is going to land. You have to prepare yourself for the ball when it arrives. 

You know, by the way, what is the name of God? Do you know the name of god? It is YE HOVE. In Hebrew when you put the letter Y, in front of the word, verb, it means in the future. Such as, I will work in the future and I will sleep in the future. And what is HOVE? Present. Ye Hove means: make your future today! Don’t live in the future, don’t live in the past, live in the present.  But not as a continuation of the past. Prepare your future in the present. That is planning. 

And if you do it effectively, by taking risks, you have to take risks because the future might not happen…If you can prepare for what is going to happen, you might be effective in the long run.

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