I often hear from people, at all levels within a business, about how the focus always seems to be on the here and now - the immediate problems, the next fire - and how they wished they 'knew what the plan was'. A short term plan would be great, and knowing the longer term plan would be even better. It strikes me that this is not really just about plans. It is about how decisions are made, every day, inside organisations.
The reality of working life is that the short term is relentless. Requests arrive unexpectedly. Problems need solving. Customers need answers. Deadlines compress thinking. The here and now demands attention, and rightly so. The short term cannot be ignored. It is where the work happens.
But there is a subtle trap. When the pressure of the present becomes overwhelming, decisions begin to optimise purely for immediate relief. Solve the problem. Clear the inbox. Move on to the next issue. Each action feels necessary and justified in isolation. But something important can quietly be lost in the process. Direction - direction towards the future that you actually want, not one that you just happen to arrive in with a load more unexpected issues to deal with.
The short term and the long term are often spoken about as if they are separate, even competing priorities. In reality, they are inseparable. The long term is not something that exists independently of today. It is created by what happens today. Every decision made and every action taken in the present either moves things slightly closer to where you ultimately want to be, slightly further away, or nowhere in particular. The future does not arrive all at once. It arrives one decision or action at a time.
From an employee’s perspective, constant activity and pressure are not necessarily the problem. Most people expect work to be demanding. They expect urgency. They expect challenges. And quite often they enjoy that.
What they hope, often without consciously articulating it, is that all this effort is contributing to something. That the activity is not random, that it's adding value to the future of the company, and to them personally as they invest themselves in the effort. They hope there is some direction, some intent, some sense that the work of today is helping to build something that will exist tomorrow.
When people can see that connection, even imperfectly, work feels purposeful, the difficulties feel worthwhile, and the effort makes sense. But when that connection is absent, something changes. Work can begin to feel mechanical as tasks arrive, are completed, and disappear, with no visible relationship to any larger narrative.
People do notice inefficiencies, they see structural problems, and they often have ideas about how to improve things. They may even ask questions or make suggestions. Unfortunately, all too often, explicitly or implicitly, they are told to focus only on the task in front of them - to deliver - to execute - to leave the thinking to someone else. There's a prevailing cultural element in many organisations of 'you're paid to do - not think'.
This is very wasteful, not just operationally, but psychologically too, because people are not simply resources that execute instructions. They are living observers of the system and they see and feel its strengths and its weaknesses. When their ability to contribute insight is suppressed, the organisation loses access to one of its most important sources of learning and improvement.
The Toyota Production System, famed for high volume - high quality car manufacture, was not built on forcing compliance by its employees. It was built on enabling contribution; it recognised that the people closest to the work are often closest to the truth. When people are allowed to think, systems improve. When they are not, systems stagnate, even as activity continues.
It would be easy to attribute this entirely to the management team and the leadership they provide, but the reality is not quite so simple. Managers themselves are often under pressure, and requests arrive from above with urgency. Expectations cascade downward and consequently time horizons compress at every level.
Without deliberate effort, managers can become conduits for pressure rather than connectors of meaning. They pass urgency downwards without having had the opportunity, or perhaps without feeling the permission, to step back and reconnect that urgency to an understanding of the longer-term intent.
And yet this is one of the most important roles of management - not to just push back, but to gain clarity. They don't need perfect foresight, or to produce detailed plans for every possible future, but they do need to be able to connect today’s work to tomorrow’s intent. To help people understand, in broad terms, where things are going, and how what they are doing today contributes to that direction. This is not managerial idealism; it's a practical necessity for sustainable organisational efficiency and health.
Because without that connection, the organisation gradually becomes optimised for responsiveness - or sheer reaction - rather than progress. It becomes highly capable of dealing with the present, but less capable of shaping the future.
There is a deeper human dimension to this. Research in psychology and neuroscience has consistently shown that individuals who are able to connect present actions with future consequences tend to make better decisions, persist longer, and achieve more meaningful outcomes. They experience the present and the future not as separate domains, but as parts of the same continuum. This ability is not about prediction, it's about orientation, and understanding that what is done today shapes what becomes possible tomorrow.
Organisations are no different. When the connection between present action and future intent is clear, decision-making improves. Trade-offs become easier to evaluate, priorities become clearer, and all effort moves in a consistent direction. But when that connection is absent, decisions may still be sensible in isolation, but collectively they lack coherence. Energy is expended, motion exists, but direction and progress are limited.
There is a simple question that can help restore this continuity between present and future: 'Does this decision make the future easier or harder?'
Of course there is a balance to be struck. Taking the easier option now can cause difficulties further down the road. But also, not every decision now can make the future easier; sometimes immediate realities will demand compromise. And if the answer to the question is "I don't know", then that should be an invitation to find out. But when this question is asked consistently, it changes the nature of decision-making. It shifts thinking from reactive to intentional and ensures that short-term action is taken in the context of longer-term direction.
Because ultimately, the short term and the long term do not compete with each other. There is a line of consequence between every decision you make and action you take now, and how the future will look. The short term is the mechanism through which the long term is built. And the future isn't something that arrives unexpectedly, rather it is something that emerges, gradually and predictably, from the decisions made in the present.
The question is not whether the short term and long term should co-exist; they already do.
The question is whether they are connected.
Ad Futurum
Graham
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