 Efficiency is a performance concept. It measures what you accomplish relative to what you expend to accomplish it. Benjamin is facing a math problem that he needs to resolve in order to design a test for a physics theory. After two weeks of trying without success, he finally takes it to his math teacher, who tells him that it is a classic problem no one has ever solved. But it had been more efficient for Benny to take it to his teacher first. The performance answer is that efficiency is zero in both cases. There is no efficiency unless the valued result is achieved. Where there is no performance, there is no efficiency. Susan wants to solve the same problem as an exercise in learning, just to see if she can do it. On not finding a solution, she also takes it to her teacher. When she gets the same answer as Benny, she is satisfied that it cannot be done. Would she be more efficient if she had taken it to her teacher first? Her purpose was testing herself and her ability to use math. She succeeded. We can measure efficiency in her expenditure of time and effort and the value of the lesson she learned. The question of greater efficiency goes to whether she would have learned as much if she had taken it to her teacher right away. This begs the question of what she really values. In this case, Susan was testing herself and there was little purpose in addressing the effort to her teacher. Not having to struggle to find a solution was not a valued result. It was not the lesson she had set herself to learn. Efficiency compares values and value is your determination. Someone else will have their own understanding of what your time and effort is worth and the value of what you gain. The value in personal performance are your values and only the values you have will be useful for determining personal efficiency. Your efficiency is a measure of how effective you are in accomplishing what you value. It is a concept of personal performance and relates well to the use of the black box. Personal efficiency is not something that you have to know in order to be effective but will gain in usefulness as we address dealing effectively with others. What it does provide to the individual student is a concept of what others are likely to observe in your efforts. It is a general tool for evaluation. Those who understand the basic concepts of efficiency will be able to appreciate the efficiency of others in ways not open to those who are focused only on processes. One classic performance engineering experiment was to measure how much good lighting affected ability to work. When the lighting in a test group was increased, they became more productive as expected. Then, as a check, they lowered the light level again and were surprised to see the performance go up again. So they lowered it more and performance continued. It wasn't until they reduced it to the level of bright moonlight that the work actually dropped off. People reacted to the intensity of interest by leadership in what they were doing. The studyers were focused on the wrong process input. It is people who do the work, not lighting, and the people were reacting to the intense interest of leadership in what they were doing. As teenage students, you are motivated by both intense interest in others, parents and teachers, and by your own sense of value. Still, the investment is yours to make and learning is an active process that you perform. It is easy to get tied up in non-performance efforts, learning to be the best mathematician of your age group, or to compete against someone else's records. These are not performance matters, and efforts are unlikely to enhance performance for the educational purpose. Educational performance always comes back to you and whether you will become a more effective adult. You come into this from childhood. Trusting teachers and parents are also focused on the general purpose of education. Trust is an assumption, a belief that they are aligned with you in this purpose of becoming an effective adult. On reaching your teenage years, you come to realize that you have more choices to make, more control over how hard you work and what you set yourself to accomplish. These outside influences shift from directive efforts to guidance and support. It is not some overnight change, but it happens largely through your increased personal acceptance of the educational purpose. But as others see you making choices on what you do to gain what you value, their value also changes from being directive to supportive. And efficiency? It is their understanding of your efficiency that is the key. When they see that you are concerned with getting the most from your efforts, then they can relax. It is their efforts that have achieved some level of success. When you become more effective, it also makes them more effective. This is the nature of performance. That when you accomplish valued results as a student, everyone else shares in your successes.