The Price of “Success”

Ever since Adam Smith noted the benefits of dividing up labor, efficiency has been management’s highest goal. Reducing waste and increasing productivity drove the Industrial Revolution and inspired “management science,” which holds that efficiency is fundamental to competitive advantage. “The belief in the unalloyed virtue of efficiency has never dimmed,” writes Roger Martin in this month’s Spotlight. Today, he adds, efficiency is “promoted in the classrooms of every business school on the planet.”