Birth of the five minute thinker

Short term thinking  in a long term world is killing many businesses.  In a hierarchal sense, most business are structured to have their strategists at the top of the pyramid and those managing the path of the decisions following below.  Many smaller companies today are utilizing their managers as strategists. While on a personal level, there may be many managers capable of developing strategic plans, the companies are many times either not set up, or are wary of providing the essential information needed to make an effective strategic decision.  The result of this is the Five Minute Thinker.

The Five Minute Thinker has only either enough time or information (and many times less of both) to take a snapshot of the recent past and an estimate of the company’s future.  This type of thinking has the unfortunate consequence of relying on those decisions to mold the future and pad the balance sheet.  A business cannot survive long term when the decisions that shape it’s future are being made by Five Minute Thinkers.

Strategy has to come from someone who has three equally important powers:

The power of accountability – They are being held accountable for the decisions they are making.  Someone, or a group of people, is taking the time and energy to review the decisions and the effect they will have on the business.  This is the check and balance necessary to ensure long term survivability.

The power of authority – They have the authority to enact any changes or actions that a process will bring with them.  They can institute and hold others accountable for ensuring that their decisions are being followed through and any issues that arise are being dealt with accordingly. 

The power of information – They have access and to a certain extent, control, of any information necessary to make both short and long term decisions. 

If these powers are intact, only then can a realistic and intelligent strategy be presented.  Excluding or limiting one of these mutually exclusive powers will only serve to the detriment of the company.  A true leader can persevere having any one of these powers be limited, but trying to grow and deepen a company’s talent pool in a similar scenario will lead to frustration and degradation of the company’s infrastructure and effectiveness.

Five minute thinking needs to be pushed out of today’s business environment.  Strong businesses, especially those with plans to remain in business for the long term, need to either give the power of strategy to a designated strategist, or need to give their current strategy oriented employees the three powers listed above. 

Long term commitments are something businesses make on a daily basis to their customers, landlords, lending institutions, etc.  As easy as a long term commitment seems to be with those outside of the company, more of them need to be made within the company.  If a company really wants to stick around, they need to commit to it, starting from the top.  Companies need to commit to their own future by taking the ability and necessity of making strategic, long term decisions serious enough to provide those with the function of making them enough accountability, authority and information to get it done.