Marketing 101: Effectiveness vs efficiency

I know we are all already tired of this. We all know the words from Peter F. Drucker (who happens to be Austrian):

“Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.”

this picture actually has nothing to do with the post. i just
like it and the post i stole it from

So here is my story:

Right now, I am interning in the Maharishi Ayurveda Spa in Lancaster. A place that was famous, back in the good old days when deepak was still here, and all the celebrities from NY came here to retreat. 

Not too long ago, this place made 40.000 Dollars a month - minus.

In the last 2 years it had 6 different "general managers" and since one year a new president. 

Investments where made; renovation, marketing strategy, new people.

sounds good.

Just do something

When I came here, I first figured out, that there is no written down vision or mission statement. No goal, except for the presidents plan of making this a profitable place again. Well... I am just an intern...

I was told that there are several projects they are working on, one of them was the online presence. 

Since I know some stuff about that already, i thought this would be a good project for me to help with.

So, i started collection infos about a blog, started a facebook group, a youtube channel, and provided all sorts of information for my boss.

Then they desided they want to change the website. So i was asked to drop the social media stuff and get started with the website.

well... i am just the intern...

I spent the last 2 weeks creating a new sitemap, moving content from A to B, writing new texts, suggesting ideas, implementing stuff, uploading new pictures and so on.

Now, they tell me the website project is canceled for now.

Aaah well... I am just the intern.

They wasted 4 weeks of me being a valuable help for them for 2 projects that did not even get started. But I am not even worried about my time. I am worried that they are going to continue this kind of working until its too late.

At least i have learned my lesson. Think before you do.

Often it seems easy to know the difference between effectiveness and efficiency, when in fact most of the people only look at doing things right, but don't spend much time on thinking what the right things are.

I am curious if there are any other project that they want me to get started on. And I will be a nice employee and do it without asking the only real question: "Why?"

As a matter of fact, I just spent some time last week on writing down my vision and values for next year and made some interesting discoveries. But more about that another time :) 

P.s. I just started reading more about Peter F. Drucker and started to getting really interested in his work. There might be more to come on him too :)