Your team is focused on short-term gains. How do you ensure they align with long-term strategic goals?

The vision needs to be actionable. The classic case of short term over long term is with customer acquisition and sales revenue. The ideal long term approach would be to only work with ideal customers who are the right fit and will pay. Often what happens is the drive for revenue overrides this resulting in unprofitable and unsuitable customers being taken on board that require too much time and service.

Visions should be long-term in nature (min. 3 years out) and inspiring. I have heard and helped shape CEO Visions that have had their people inspired and raring to go. One of the biggest challenges is for their team members to be crystal clear on how to get to the vision. Great leaders we see, are able to both articulate the vision in lay terms, and help their people map out the critical milestones to get there. These milestones that underpin the Vision, must ensure that there are clear accountabilities as to WHO is delivering that milestone, what the key measures of success are for those milestones, and what are the dependencies on the other critical milestones. 3 years out warrants a quarterly check-in on those milestones. Grow well!

Short-term efforts and goals are part of a longer-term continuum. Focusing on short-term goals is expected at the team level but calls for applying a few guardrails: - A sense of balance between short and longer-term focus - A relevant time management for short-term horizon (ideally no more than 75%, depending on your context) - Articulation of short-term goals of any nature and longer-term value creation for customers, organization, financials The crucial point here is to articulate by design of decisions, short-term focus with longer-term perspective goals. A holistic Performance Management Framework with broad dimensions of focus, time horizons, and relevant measurements helps build a comprehensive vision.

Incentive a participação da equipe na definição dos objetivos de curto prazo. Considere as sugestões e ideias da equipe. Dê autonomia à equipe para tomar decisões dentro dos limites dos objetivos. Reconheça e recompense as contribuições da equipe para o alinhamento estratégico.

To align short-term goals with long-term objectives, communicate the organization’s vision and how their tasks contribute to it. Break down strategic goals into actionable milestones tied to daily work. Regularly review progress, adjust as needed, and use metrics that reflect both short- and long-term success. Encourage collaboration to provide broader perspectives and show how individual efforts impact the bigger picture. Celebrate milestones to maintain motivation and reinforce alignment with strategic goals.

Define your goal. Set milestones. Individual work. Team work. Achieve your goal. Appreciate. Celebrate. Give feedback. Work again. Repeat. :)

In our customer centric approach, we ensure that every short-term success leads us towards our long-term goals by setting clear milestones. For instance, when starting a new project for a client, we set targets for how quickly we can deliver results and how satisfied the client is within the first few weeks. At the same time, we prioritize ongoing support and feedback from the client. This helps us achieve immediate goals and build strong, lasting relationships and provide excellent ongoing service.

Whilst the vision for the organisation MUST be out 3 plus years, we find with our clients that running quarterly rhythms has been the most effective approach. Each we are asking what key activities must be targeted this quarter to best progress us towards our vision. Once these are set, the leadership team and the rest of the business focuses on executing the next quarter's priorities. These are then cascaded down through the business with each person effectively synchronising the bulk of their focus and efforts towards what the most important quarterly milestones are for the business. The orientation of these quarterly milestones towards the business is critical if you want to scale effectively and sustain your growth. Grow well

Insight: Adaptability is often seen as a reactive quality, but it can also be proactive. Encouraging teams to regularly "future-proof" their current projects by anticipating potential changes and proposing preemptive adaptations can turn adaptability into a forward-thinking strategy. Engagement Strategy: Host regular "Future-Proof Workshops" where teams are tasked with identifying possible future scenarios that could impact their projects and brainstorming adaptations. These workshops can help embed a proactive adaptability mindset and prepare teams to pivot efficiently as realities change.

Every small step leads to a bigger goal. Similarly, achieving small milestones will help your team reach the higher goal. However, this is only possible with regular conversations, motivational calls, doubt-clearing sessions, and a group session to explain their ultimate aim. Additionally, it's important that your team knows achieving the goal will contribute to organizational growth, which, in turn, will benefit them in the long run.