I was thinking about a particular issue, and I realized it’s symptomatic of a bigger problem. The issue is that too often I see folks indulging in short term thinking versus long term benefits. I understand, but I think it’s problematic, regardless. Of course, making a change is also liable to be a struggle. Still, it’s worth talking about.

The problem is that organizations have a structure that is largely to meet short-term needs. For instance, there are pressures to return short-term shareholder benefits, at least in publicly traded companies. Even private organizations are liable to want to reward the founder. There are few enough examples of folks that are taking a bigger perspective.

And, to be clear, I’m not denying the need for efficiencies. That’s a given. The issue instead, to me, is one of whether those efficiencies generate short-term returns, or instead will yield long-term benefits.

For example, when the pandemic hit, lots of orgs were struggling to find ways to continue operations when suddenly everyone had to stay remote. I argued that if you’re going through a digital transformation, you should start with an organizational transformation. My reasoning was that digitizing an old way of doing things was only going to be a short-term fix. What I saw was that this big upheaval was an opportunity for redesign. Not surprisingly, this wasn’t an effective pitch. People needed to fix things now! Yet, the orgs that survived the pandemic best were the ones that had a good culture to survive the enforced digital operation.

Similarly, I see many orgs focusing on ‘leadership development. That’s not a bad thing, mind you. Well, if you get past the Leadership BS (thought I’d written about this, but I can’t find it ;). Yet, most of what we see is expensive and highly interactive. Which sounds great, but it doesn’t scale. Our colleague JD Dillon is starting a book for frontline workers, which I laud. Yet there’s an intermediate level we’re guilty of neglecting. Again, a short term perspective.

Managers, data says, are the biggest reason people leave. Als0, most managers are promoted from the front line, and yet pretty much all of them are novices when it comes to management. Yet, our management training is idiosyncratic. More, our colleague Will Thalheimer recently suggested in an LDA event, that little in leadership development covers how to facilitate learning for your folks. Yet, hat’s one of the best things to help employees think their managers actually care for them (c.f. Self-Determination Theory). Moreover, there are so many managers that can benefit from training (and increasingly, leadership is viewed as something that needs to be present throughout the organization).

There are problems trying to deliver manager training at scale. We see demand, but it’s hard to deliver, particularly cost-effectively. Technology is part of the solution, but to make it work takes (wait for it) a long term perspective. These are only two examples, from the area of learning and development that I largely work and play in.  I’d argue that, for instance, the shift to a learning organization would be one of the best investments you could make. Well, for the long term ;). That’s the type of transformation that would be greatly augmented by a subsequent digital enablement. But without that initial refocus, the digitization will continue to support hierarchy, lack of transparency, and other factors that interfere with ongoing innovation and success.

I’d welcome hearing that most organizations are working on both the short- and long-term, but I’m skeptical. And more than willing to be wrong!  I’ll merely reiterate the point the late Jay Cross would make; investing in your people’s ability to learn is probably the best one you can make. In the tradeoff of short term thinking versus long term benefits, it seems obvious to me that playing the long game is the right way. That, at least, makes sense to me. What am I missing?

Besides Kahnemann’s Fast & Slow book, I’ve also talked about fast and slow innovation. Fast is where you have a specific problem to solve, or product to design, or thing to research, and you do so. Slow is the innovation that happens because you create opportunities for new ideas to flourish: making it safe, keeping the ‘adjacent possible’ open, facilitating creative friction, etc. Similarly, in my writing, I use both marathons and sprints. What do I mean?

So, I tend to have reasonably long time-frames for writing. I now blog once a week, and I tend to queue these up a week or two in advance. My books, of course, when I’m working on them, have deadlines months ahead. Presentations, too, are a form of communication. Overall, I tend to have months between proposals and when I have to deliver them. Occasionally, I’m asked for something on a short time frame, but even that’s several days.

And, in my life, I tend to have time (typically, in the morning) to respond to short term requirements, and also time to nick away at the longer term requirements. I’ve become relatively good at leaving projects open to contribute to them as I can. So, largely, this is the ‘marathon’ life. That is, I take care of details, and then take time to polish off the bigger projects. Which, I acknowledge, is a luxury. The tradeoff is that I haven’t had a secure income for most of the past 2.5 decades ;).

What also happens is that, at some point in my nicking away at a project, it comes together. The picture that’s been gestating finally emerges. Then, I tend to suddenly find myself grinding it out. It could be a chapter, a book, a presentation, or just an article, but ultimately it takes shape. That said, for my most recent tome, an iterative process emerged. I kept sending out the latest version to someone else, and rearranging it based upon their feedback. That is, until I realized that the latest rearrangement felt truly right, and I was done!

This varies, of course. Sometimes I’m asked for something short term, and then I tend to fall back on things I’ve already thought through. This blog, as I’ve mentioned in many ways, forces me to think through things (looking to keep it fed and not repeat myself too much). I don’t mind this, as it still forces me to rearticulate, which often forces me to rethink, which is a good thing! In my reprocessing, I’m not only cementing my understanding, but frequently deepening it!

Overall, however, this cycle of marathons and sprints works. The longer term processing provides the basis for the short-term sprints. As it is, I’m usually as productive as anyone else (possibly more), yet it seems like there’s a lot of time of me just musing. Percolation (fermentation, incubation, pick your metaphor) is a good thing! As a reflection, this strikes me as right. It also strikes me as a prescription: break things up, ensure you have enough time for the big things, and take time to reflect. It works for me! And, I realize, it’s contrary to much of organizational life, which to me says more about organizational life than how you (should) think.

(BTW, in real life, I was always better the longer I had to run; I was usually the slowest person in my phys ed classes in sprints! At least on land…)