There is a trend in business management right now. Business leaders sacrifice the long-term health of the company for quick results. They do this by making shortsighted decisions. These decisions may bring in early wins but will impact the future of the company in a negative way.

This makes sense when you study today’s business environment. Board members seem more and more impatient. They tend to look at the CEO with a “what have you done for me lately?” mindset.

Shortsighted Goals

But I don’t feel this is only an issue in business. It happens everywhere. Those of us who watch sports know that the team’s recent success determines its relevance. Win now and everyone pays attention. Lose and you are quickly forgotten.

We even do this for our personal goals. We want instant results to justify the increase in effort. So, we set outcome goals and we work hard to be able to see the goal met as soon as possible.

But this actually sets us up for failure. It sacrifices long term success to have it now. Reaching a goal now requires extreme effort. But that extreme effort isn’t likely to remain after we hit the goal. In most situations we end up going back to our old habits and routines. This means we move away from the growth we experienced.

Quick, Easy, or Effective

When we are striving to hit a goal, there are three factors that come into play. The three factors are quick, easy, and effective. In working towards a goal, it can quick, or it can be easy, or it can be effective. We can combine two, but we can’t have all three together.

So, if we work hard for a short time frame, we can be effective. If we decide we want to take it easy and also have it quick, then it won’t be effective. This is why most of the time we fail. We want it now, but we don’t understand that having it now and being effective means it won’t be easy.

But there is another way. We can shift our thinking from short-term success to long-term success. We can do this by focusing on systematic solutions. Improving the systems and habits around a goal we can create small, easy improvements. Then we can build and grow those improvements after they become automatic. This is effective and easy, by eliminating quick.

Small Improvements to be Effective and Easy

The way this process works is to find very, very small improvements and then work to ingrain them in our lives. We do this over and over. After a while we realize that we are doing these great things and moving in the direction that we want. We do this without more focus or effort. It just happens automatically.

People are using this method today. They work towards their goals and it takes a long time. In business it tends to be focusing on improving the processes and procedures of the company. In sports it is usually around a focus on the fundamentals. But the reality is that nobody pays any attention during the formative period.

We ignore everything. Until we start to see their success. Then everyone takes notice. But we don’t understand the long journey, we only see the results.

The Journey Gets Ignored

Right now, there are a lot of small businesses doing exactly this. They are improving and growing and getting better. They are setting themselves up for future success. But we don’t hear about them until they reach a high level of success.

The same thing happens in sports. The amateur golfer who is improving and working daily to get better isn’t winning major tournaments. But if she keeps doing the things necessary to improve, we may pay attention after a few major wins. But the process of how she got there is completely ignored.

Work Harder Without Extra Effort by Continuously Improving the Process

By focusing on building and growing the right habits we start to work harder. We do this without feeling as though we are increasing our effort. Instead it feels like we are making a few small adjustments.

Dr. W. Edwards Deming is one of history's greatest systems thinkers. He is credited for getting Japan's manufacturing on track after WWII. His processes of using statistical analysis and continuous improvement is still used today.

Andrea Gabor wrote a book about Deming called The Man Who Discovered Quality. It outlines his approach to improvement. Japanese companies in the 1980’s were using his principles and thriving. But this was largely ignored until Toyota started to gain huge market share in the United States. Then, everyone took notice.

In the book, Gabor talks about problems with management that Deming identified. Then he worked to remove them by addressing the systems and processes. Gabor writes, “The problem with management by objective (MBO), as it is generally practiced, is that an organization can usually achieve almost any objective it wishes to, in the short term, by paying a high enough price, including, in extreme cases, destroying the system itself. By definition, MBO focuses on the end goal rather than the process. For example, almost any company that is losing money can show a profit if it juggles the books and sells off its healthiest operations. Long-term, however, that company has probably made its situation worse.”

Many times, we take this same approach to personal improvement. We want to see short-term wins and sacrifice long-term success in to get these wins. But shifting our mindset to be on improving the systems and habits in our lives we can start to build for the future. Just as Deming advised throughout his career, this is how we reach the highest levels of success.

So, we need to learn to ignore the immediate win. We need to shift to focusing on doing the work that will benefit us more in the future. This is how we ignore quick to be easy and effective.