I’ve just about had it with short-term thinking.
Earlier this week I was listening to a podcast conversation between two friends, and toward the end of the episode (right around 23:12 if you want to drop in) Skot asks Jennifer about what she would say to leaders who essentially say: “But these DEI efforts aren’t making me money this quarter!”
I listened politely to Jennifer’s answer (which of course was brilliant) while feeling my body getting more and more agitated — I wanted to inject my thoughts on this topic so badly I was practically on the verge of yelling at my dashboard or jumping out of the seat of my car.
I restrained myself and instead pulled out my phone instead to dictate my thoughts, which I will share with you now.
Can you take this approach?
Can you prioritize short-term thinking?
Yes of course you can! Many “leaders” do.
But there’s a reason the word “shortsighted” is a pejorative term.
It’s not a good thing to be shortsighted.
You can do it, but should you?
I think you know better.
The “leaders” who do this, it’s like they’re going into some sort of make-believe world — something like Mr. Rogers’s Land of Make-Believe, only without the basic morality and goodness. Because this make-believe land prioritizes immediate gain over everything else, and this approach usually contains very little morality or goodness.
I think it’s time to call out short-term decision making for what it is — it’s shortsighted, which means it’s fundamentally poor decision-making.
And I think these “leaders” almost always know it.
They are externalizing costs — they’re pushing the harmful effects of what they’re about to do now into the future.
I don’t entirely blame the leaders, of course. If you read my work, you know I mostly blame the systems — the actual disease, as we’ve talked about before, is that market forces aren’t incentivizing in the right spot yet. This puts people in a real bind.
But there are still individual decisions to make here, and there are opportunities and moments for courage.
And we know the right thing to do, but we override our knowing, and instead do the thing that allows us to keep our job / make the boss happy / please the shareholders / boost the stock market / put a few more dollars in our pockets today.
F*ck tomorrow, you know?
But we KNOW that leadership isn’t actually leadership if it’s only focused on the thing right in front of us.
We even have all sorts of metaphors about this knowing:
- “Not seeing the forest for the trees”
- “Can’t see past their nose”
- “Majoring in the minors”
- “Penny wise, pound foolish”
We get “stuck in the weeds,” “down the rabbit hole,” with a “one-track mind,” and become a “hammer looking for a nail.”
Even the frickin’ war metaphors know this forgoodnesssake: where we “Win the battle but lose the war.”
There’s a better way to do these things, and everybody knows it.
You know it, and I know it.
Nobody wants to follow someone who hasn’t a bloody idea about what might happen next. Leadership is always about the future and where we are GOING.
To focus only on what’s in front of you isn’t leadership, it’s blindness.