Here’s something that drives me crazy: a perfectly good word is co-opted by someone with an agenda and given a new definition, scaring people away from its use. It happens frequently in politics, most famously with the word “liberal” during the last two presidential elections. Democratic candidates ran away from the old and newly damaging label like peepers who tripped a motion-sensitive floodlight and toward something more benign, like “progressive”. The literal meanings of the words be damned. The pendulum seems to be swinging, as it ever does; any politician with POTUS aspirations in 2008 will likely be distancing him or herself from the “conservative” label.
My problem with all of this is that I kind of like words. They’re fairly effective tools. Seeing a word mis-used for me is like seeing a fine set of woodworking tools left to rust in a neighbor’s front yard. It seems wasteful, and lazy. Worse, from the perspective of the carpenter, being careless with the tools makes the eventual process of woodworking less effective. Less efficient.
Which brings me back to quality. I’m noticing more and more these days a deterioration in the practical meaning of the word efficiency. Most often it’s used in conjunction with the idea of cost savings, sometimes by people who are for the approach (stridently, “we need to become more efficient!”) and sometimes by those who are against it (sneeringly, “it can’t just be about efficiency!”). To both camps, I am begging you, please knock it off.
Lenny Bruce was arrested in 1961 in San Francisco because he insisted on exploring literal meanings of words. Well, that and because he kept saying “cocksucker” in public. There was a man who respected the tools of his craft. My point here is that efficiency is not inherently good or bad – it is a word that describes the relationship of the output to the input of any system. How can you be “for” or “against” efficiency? It reminds me of that great scene from The Princess Bride:
Vizzini: “Inconceivable.”
Inigo Montoya: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means, what you think it means.”
Efficiency implies the optimization of productivity (measured outputs over measured inputs). To improve efficiency, the productivity ratio is improved. You can do that in a number of ways: by holding inputs constant and improving outputs (by reducing waste, say), by holding outputs constant and decreasing inputs (there’s your cost-savings play in an efficiency context), or any other combination that decreases the ratio of inputs to outputs. Like all the other tools in the quality toolbox, it’s there for the betterment of the organization, and is only as good as the craftsmen and women who use it.
As the saying goes, it’s a poor carpenter who blames his tools.
A cabinet maker uses woodworking tools not a carpenter. A carpenter uses a hammer.
Comment by Bob — January 5, 2007 @ 8:15 pm
Hmmmm. Not sure I agree, Bob. I’d define a carpenter broadly as “a woodworker who makes or repairs wooden objects.” Another good definition is: “A skilled craftsman who performs carpentry — a wide range of woodworking that includes constructing buildings, furniture, and other objects out of wood.” I’d therefore argue that cabinet makers are a segment of the carpentry population.
Comment by thequalitygeek — January 5, 2007 @ 8:37 pm