Don't Lose Sight of the Long Term Plan

I find myself drawn to yet another headline announcing the record setting pace at which we are amassing debt. Don’t worry, I have no plans of straying too far into political commentary, this is a marketing blog after all. I was struck, however, by the similarities I see between the government and individual budget decisions that landed us in this mess and decisions that business owners are making on a daily basis.

What got us in this predicament? I am sure there are enough opinions for me to fill this page with… and probably a couple more pages, but when it comes right down to it there has been a serious lack of long term planning and well thought out budgetary decisions. The lack of long term planning is actually pretty understandable. For our elected officials this is their job and like the rest of us they would like to have as much job security as possible. They make decisions every day knowing that these decisions will be the basis for which we decide whether they should continue representing us.

This inherently inspires them to make decisions that are short sighted. What will get them elected to a next term? A decision that will bring positive results in the short term (before the next election) but have potentially catastrophic results in the long term or a decision that will bring negative results in the short term, but will make us a stronger country in the long term? I know which answer they feel will be better received and it’s not the long term decision designed to make us a stronger country into the future.

As business owners or business managers we are dealing with these same types of decisions every day, and like with the government, they have become much more pronounced during the faltering economy. It is sometimes easier to make decisions that don’t have the negative short term impact when times are tough. How much should I be investing in new technology, R&D, marketing, CRM and the list could go on forever.

As a manager, you may feel pressured to make decisions that will result in increased revenue at the end of a quarter, but you know is not a strong decision for the future of the company.

There are also cases where the short term decision is the best, so don’t take this as a catch all answer to tough decisions, but I just wanted to make sure business owners and managers are keeping this in mind when they are going through the decision making process. You don’t want to survive the recession only to find that your company is not well enough to compete or grow as your competitors take off.