Don't Waste Your Company's Future On Short-Term Strategies

Consider this scenario.

You have decades of experience and you know how to get results. You are deservedly considered a top expert in your field. Based on what you know about the market and about how to get things done, you’ve set a precise target for your employees to meet – a number to hit. It’s a stretch, but a reasonable stretch. You’ve made the expectation clear, and you’ve provided all the necessary resources and training.

One person hits your number, even exceeds it a bit. Another person comes in at 92% of that number, plus the gall to suggest that she missed the number on purpose: she saw a potential threat or opportunity on the horizon and made the decision to allocate resources to prepare for that. She wasn’t trying to miss the number, but she did knowingly shift her approach.

She followed your proven strategy to a point. She followed it until she saw something that made her think it wouldn’t be enough based on what the future holds. You could look at that and say, See? You deviated from my strategy and failed as a result. You could choose to see that as more proof that you know best.

Or, you could choose to see that as evidence that your strategy needs an update. This view would require some investigating. Was she right? Is there a looming threat or an intriguing opportunity that requires a new approach? And has she already started making progress toward getting the organization ready for it? If that’s the case, will you change the metric by which you’ll judge her success? She still only came in at 92%, after all.

What do you do?

We would all like to think that we’re insightful and flexible enough to reward people for taking risks, and for seeing and seizing opportunity. But most are not. Why? Because it takes a massive amount of propulsion to change our trajectory:

• This leader would have to acknowledge that he didn’t see that threat or opportunity on his own.
• He would have to admit that his own expertise (while valuable) is not sufficient in the face of a fast-changing society.
• For any of us, that admission would feel like a blow to our own relevance and would challenge our feeling of security in our identity.
• This leader also would have to explain to the first employee (and to his own bosses) why he is suddenly changing his own definition of success.
• This leader would have to convince others (who are wedded to their own old ways) to change course – and that is always a heavy lift.

Instead, what I hear from people time and again is that even if their boss agrees with them, the old metric is what matters because that is what everyone is using to judge success.

It’s up to the visionary to defend the new idea against the 6,000-pound boulder of “old ways” rolling down the hill. The boulder has the weight and the momentum.

Nik Modi is a Wall Street analyst and managing director at RBC Capital Markets. At the 2019 Leadership in the Age of Personalization Summit, he talked about the risks to companies whose leaders put too much focus on near-term results and not enough focus on the future.

He said: “Most companies are not prepared for what is about to hit them. Making change is tough because sometimes it compromises you in the near term. We all know that sometimes companies make silly choices because they have to hit their near-term numbers.”

The Loss of Future Possibility is Exponential

Consider again the two employees from the opening scenario. Whatever business they’re in, they have an opportunity to be transactional (sell stuff to customers) or to be consultative (help customers understand what stuff they actually need and why, and then sell stuff to customers, probably more stuff than before):

• Employee No. 1 is transactional, with a solid process for hitting those numbers.
• Employee No. 2 is consultative, offering something even more useful: insight about the future, ideas for preparing for it, and an opportunity to become much more valuable to her customers and to her employer.

She is in a position to see what customers might actually need in the future and why, and to help them prepare just as she has been preparing. That might mean they buy more stuff from her. Or it might mean that she envisions something entirely new to offer them, expanding the company’s foothold in the market or creating new markets altogether.

On paper, very few would disagree with that: everyone talks about anticipating the future and being agile. In reality, leaders choose to reward those who hit their numbers.

Here are 3 ways to move from the safety of the transactional approach to the possibilities of the consultative approach:

1. Be courageous enough to let go of the death-grip you have on those short-term targets.

I won’t lie: this is hard to do. Whether it’s your bosses or your clients demanding that you hit certain numbers, there’s a risk if you don’t meet expectations – even expectations that you’ve already determined are in fact not in anyone’s best interest.

2. Shift your perspective about what “your job” is.

This is a common refrain: “My job is to give them what they want. If I don’t, then I can't make my numbers, the company will underperform, and I’ll be out of a job." What if it’s actually your job to give clients what they need? If you’ve done the research and determined that they’d be better off with a different approach, it’s your job to tell them, to advise them, to help them create a new future.

3. Change what you’re afraid of.

There’s always fear. I’m not going to advise you to not be afraid. But I will advise you to stop fearing your clients or your bosses. Start fearing what happens if you don’t adapt to the realities around you.

Ignoring Reality is a Losing Strategy

Imagine getting a troubling health diagnosis. You’re suddenly facing a life that looks nothing like you’d planned it. Your treatments will disrupt your routines. You won’t feel as energetic as you used to. You might not even be able to continue doing the work you’ve done for years.

Some people in this situation will tackle the new challenge with urgency. They’ll do the treatments, make the changes and adapt to their new realities. Other people will deny the diagnosis and won’t be willing to fight the disease because they don’t want to disrupt the life they’ve become comfortable with. They continue as-is, thinking they’re maintaining a status quo that they find acceptable.

But what they don’t see is that the disease is already changing that status quo for them. Rather than taking the opportunity to shape their new reality themselves, they are surrendering influence over their future by not accepting, facing and adapting to what’s really happening.

This is where we are today in our businesses. You can keep hitting those short-term targets and maintain a false sense of control. Until reality catches up to you.

Or, you can risk those short-term targets and get yourself, your organization and your clients ready to shape the future rather than surrender to it.

To learn more about how to win in the long term without compromising the short term, register free to the virtual version of the 2022 Leadership in the Age of Personalization Summit hosted by Clemson University’s Wilbur O. and Ann Powers College of Business on October 14th.