Long Term Thinking
Whenever you start a business idea, do please, please I encourage you sincerely: think very far away ahead from where you stand.
A business must base its plans and resilient strategy on long-term growth so it can grow.
It is as when you are planning your family. When you think of having children, you are not planning to leave them with other people after three years, don´t you? Your children will raise with you and will grow within your family. And you hope your children can stay on this planet for at least 70 to 80 years.
Well, that is a number of years you should plan ahead whenever you think of making prosperous businesses.
Any idea, either for the public sector development or for privately held companies must be envisioned to last for at least 70 or 80 years from now.
A company or business project is a human being. It is born, it has infancy, it also has teenager crazy years, but with time it will emerge as a mature human being. And also the company will have a declining stage. It is wise to think ahead, many many years ahead.
In consequence, take your time to convert your business ideas into good value propositions, then into excellently detailed business plans and implement those plans to create integral value to society. Developing a good value proposition takes time.
Also, it is imperative to have patience. Any long-term thinker must develop the virtue of patience. And above else, that patience only comes from Jesus-Christ, no matter how hard, God will give us the holy strength when our own doubts will arise. No matter how hard the circumstances, long-term thinkers always have faith in their business projects.
I have seen so many bad projects in Central America. In the public sector particularly, this region lacks long-term thinkers. It is not their fault. No one taught them to see ahead for 70 years. But it is time to do it. It is time to start to do things right. I have seen a lot of infrastructure projects (such as roads, bridges, residences, malls, buildings, parks, tunnels, water irrigation projects, transportation systems, etc.) which were conceived thinking only in 10 years maximum to fulfill an invented demand, or what is worst, projects which were conceived just to win the next election… Wrong concept. Wrong value proposition. Wrong strategy.
Long-term thinking takes a time to be developed. It is an art. If you consider making decisions as a founder or business owner, or as a leader of a public organization, please take your time to learn to develop patience. Any leader must know how to create and build value propositions, and as a result to create a strategy. Many people compromise their principles just because they wanted to cash out for short-term profits. Short-term thinkers end up being defeated, poor and sometimes they lose everything, just because they did not challenge themselves to develop patience.
If you learn to refuse to build businesses with a short-sighted view… with time, believe me, you will be rewarded.
Long term thinking is the key to build successful and prosperous businesses of 70 or 80 years old… But it is not easy to have faith or believe in the unseen, particularly in this disruptive world, with plenty of vulnerabilities. Only Jesus Christ can help you to keep you moving forward when everyone else doesn’t believe in you.
Without long-term thinking, all your dreams will not reach success. Next week I will dedicate several days to help you to understand what is a “value proposition”. My business as a corporate strategic advisor is to help you to build businesses with ethics, and long-term thinking in order to create prosperity. It is not going to be easy. But it will be worth it.
NOTE: As a businesswoman living in Central America, I do not get involved in politics. I simply love my business career as an investor and strategist and I do not want to criticize any political party of any country. My blog will keep its neutrality. In case you wonder what is my political view, I consider myself a moderate. Never from the right. Never from the left. I do not mingle with politicians of any kind. I am neutral in my own land. I had the blessing to live in Switzerland, and maybe I got an epidemic neutrality flag since then. Cheers! Have a beautiful and lovely weekend.
Eleonora Escalante Strategy 