How strong is the medium term thinking in your business? It’s not a phrase that you hear often though it probably ought to be.
Truly great businesses give genuine focus to the medium term. They ensure that what they do today is tangibly connected to their long term vision for success and is quantifiable in stages. These stages are the medium term.
Each of us can identify choices made that appear to serve only the immediate, the short term. Businesses are constantly juggling evolving demands against available resource. It’s a tough balancing act.
One solution is to have in-built capacity to spare though this can lead to inefficiency and hamper competitiveness. Back to the balancing act, then. Harder solutions lie in rigorous project profiling allied to brave decision making, to intelligently deploy resources and offer the business its best potential outcomes.
Long term thinking is abundant if we are to believe websites and annual reports as they describe visions, strategies and goals. These always seem clear on the future they envisage. There appears no doubt over where they will be in 2025, 2030 and beyond. But can they lay out the path to that future? If not then, despite all the mission statements, they could be merely short term thinkers with great PR.
The real nut to crack is in the medium term. What will progress look like at the end of the first year? Where on the calendar is the mid-point to the long term vision described? What will the world look like then? How can we quantify that we are on course? What is measured is managed. This essential measurement exists in the medium term – the gateways and checkpoints that define the journey.
The needs of the team are also essential. You may have to work differently to create the alternative future that your vision demands. How are you supporting your team? They must understand the new journey, the plan that delivers it and how that plan is measured.
As leaders we can dream futures. To create them we need a plan. Our people need to have bought into the plan. It’s all achievable when we plan with clarity for all parts of the journey. Because without medium term focus our long term thinking could be actually be short term, in disguise.
