The early centuries of the Church of Instrumental Reason were characterised by remarkable unity.
Optimisation was good.
Improvement was desirable.
Metrics were authoritative.
Progress was measurable.
These principles were accepted universally.
Or nearly universally.
The trouble began when practitioners attempted to define efficiency.
At first, this seemed straightforward.
Efficiency was generally understood as producing more with less.
The definition was admired for its elegance.
Unfortunately, nobody could agree on the meaning of "more."
Nor, after prolonged discussion, could they agree on the meaning of "less."
The resulting disagreement became known as the Efficiency Reformation.
Its effects would be profound.
The first faction to emerge were the Outputists.
The Outputists maintained that efficiency meant maximising results.
Inputs were of secondary importance.
What mattered was production.
Growth.
Expansion.
Throughput.
The movement's most influential Outputist, Archdeacon Maximillian Throughput, summarised the position succinctly:
"If more emerges than before, efficiency has occurred."
The statement achieved canonical status.
Not everyone was convinced.
A rival faction soon appeared.
These were the Inputists.
The Inputists argued that true efficiency consisted in minimising expenditure.
Resources conserved were resources saved.
The highest form of efficiency was therefore reduction.
Their leader, Bishop Prudence Leanwell, famously declared:
"The most efficient activity is the one that never occurs."
This proposition generated considerable admiration.
And several practical difficulties.
The conflict intensified.
Outputists produced larger numbers.
Inputists produced smaller numbers.
Each regarded their evidence as decisive.
Neither found the other persuasive.
A third faction soon emerged.
As often happens during periods of doctrinal instability, they claimed to transcend the disagreement.
They called themselves the Metricians.
The Metricians argued that efficiency should not be defined philosophically at all.
Instead, it should be determined empirically.
Specifically:
Efficiency is whatever the dashboard indicates.
This position proved remarkably popular.
For the first time, efficiency could be identified without reference to outcomes, inputs, purposes, or definitions.
One merely consulted the metrics.
Several organisations adopted the approach immediately.
The movement entered what historians call The Age of Dashboard Authority.
During this period, disputes became increasingly sophisticated.
Outputists argued that dashboards should emphasise growth.
Inputists argued that dashboards should emphasise restraint.
Metricians argued that dashboard architecture itself was the central question.
This led to a series of increasingly technical controversies.
The Great Indicator Dispute.
The KPI Controversy.
The Traffic-Light Schism.
And, most famously, the Benchmark Wars.
The Benchmark Wars lasted seven years.
Several careers were lost.
One conference required mediation.
An entire special issue of a management journal was devoted to the question:
"What exactly constitutes improvement?"
The issue remains unresolved.
The most dramatic moment occurred at the Third International Symposium on Organisational Excellence.
Representatives of all three factions gathered to debate efficiency before a packed audience.
The proceedings began cordially.
They did not remain so.
An Outputist presented evidence demonstrating record productivity.
An Inputist responded with evidence demonstrating record savings.
A Metrician then revealed that both organisations had declined according to the latest composite performance index.
The audience gasped.
The moderator called for calm.
Several participants requested methodological clarification.
One attendee demanded a dashboard audit.
The symposium never fully recovered.
In the aftermath, a Commission on Efficiency Harmonisation was established.
Its mandate was ambitious:
To provide a universal definition of efficiency acceptable to all parties.
The Commission worked for four years.
Consultations were extensive.
Research was comprehensive.
Stakeholder engagement exceeded expectations.
The final report ran to six hundred pages.
Its concluding recommendation stated:
"Efficiency should be understood as the achievement of optimised performance outcomes relative to contextually appropriate resource configurations."
The report was praised for its balance.
Its practical meaning remained uncertain.
This uncertainty proved advantageous.
Each faction interpreted the definition as support for its own position.
The conflict subsided.
Not because agreement had been reached.
But because everyone had successfully recognised themselves in the ambiguity.
Historians now regard this compromise as a masterpiece of institutional theology.
For the first time, the Church had confronted a genuinely difficult question.
What makes something better?
The answer, after decades of debate, was elegant in its simplicity:
It depends.
This conclusion was widely celebrated.
Several awards were presented.
A commemorative dashboard was commissioned.
It performed exceptionally well.
No one was entirely certain what it measured.
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