The Cost of Short-Termism

In today’s fast-paced world, it is becoming increasingly common for individuals and organizations to focus on short-term gains and immediate success, sometimes at the cost of long-term value creation.

Like in everything in life, gathering and processing information and then analyzing leading possibilities is work, and it takes time.

A survey of CFOs of publicly traded companies revealed that 78% of them would cut investments in the future to hit quarterly targets. However, it is crucial to look further ahead, anticipate the consequences of our actions or lack of actions, and incorporate future implications to your present-day decision-making.

Your brain may not like to absorb this, but to be successful in the Future(s), it is essential to take a farseeing, slower approach in one’s career and business.

One easy trick is to use your imagination and actively seek out reasons NOT to do things. It is not always clear whether these new directions even make sense for your goals, and it is vital to find out if it is worthwhile.

You may find it extremely boring or discover that the post-pandemic universe brought about so many changes, both positive and negative and you and your significant other and your team are now processing words and concepts such as, “inflection point,” “punctuated equilibrium,” “unthinkable scale,” “exponential process,” “massive disruption” and “unprecedented challenge”, and realize that you may be well positioned to make a course correction or need to make a fundamental change just to stay marketable or the business has outgrown you or you it.

That’s why its Future(s) with an S.

Additionally, the knee jerk strategy is far too common. Rushing the process can result in a rushed job negating any creative advantage, which than can be matched by your competition with the same obvious path fueled by the similarly rushed effort.

When dealing with stressors, human programing defaults to the Fight or Flight response. However, most either forget or never taught about the other F-word and primary response of Freeze. Current self-protecting attitudes can lead us to freezing in place or worst, self-induced death blows essentially sabotaging their own success.

It seems to me that individuals stay focused on the potential negative consequences, which due to your humanity, frozenness turns to slothfulness or the general lack of willingness to invest any time and efforts that in reality keeps you on the possible path to the positive and successful Future(s).

People who are lacking in strategic patience and just want to "get to the answer" may lead to everyone coming up with the same basic ideas or miscue of current trends, which could limit the effectiveness of all the work and potential for real and actionable innovations.

Now to ease any stress or panic, I would like to suggest that you or your organization highly consider my Future(s) Thinking workshop, as it will introduce basic concepts and provide a foundation for building models, such as strategic patience into the sphere of control. These workshops will be tailored to the specific needs and challenges of the organization to ensure maximum value.

Supplemental workshops focus on specific areas such as demographics, culture, and technology, and are designed to help organizations develop mental flexibility, confidence, and concrete actions for the Future(s).

In summary, it’s your thought process that highlights the importance of investing time and effort into training to develop skills and knowledge that can lead to innovation and success. With imaginative and future(s) forward guidance, you can emphasize the need for tailored pursuits that address specific challenges and concerns and encourages you and your people to take a proactive approach to building for the Future(s).