Gas in the Tank.

Improving systems and policies (be they of efficiency, governance, process) will increase your organization's efficacy the same amount that putting more gas in your tank will help you drive faster. Organizations tend to react to the chaos of their surroundings (ie. work load, need, lack of resources) with trying to create systems of efficiency and governance that ultimately do not increase impact but merely increase bureaucracy. Whenever the conversation shifts from "what is best for the mission [i.e. what will increase our impact, serve our constituents, make the world a better place] to "what is best for the organization" you can begin to see how systems orientated or policy centric thinking has gone a little too far. I don't care about your "organization" as an entity in it of itself, I care about it only to the extent that it is a vessel to achieve the mandate set for it. We so quickly forget that efficiency does not equal efficacy [though it can be a part of efficacy] that the systems we create often work opposition to our underlying value and desired impact. A system only works if it's increasing impact not if it's increasing efficiency.

In the data driven environment we're currently in, it's increasingly important to understand the metrics that we actually want to be evaluating ourselves against. Efficiency definitely needs to be a part of that conversation, but be cautious about what ultimately matters: impact. Get back to focusing on your underlying value & mission, look at your systems from this lens and if they do not ultimately serve the value - create a system that does.