In Search of ... Vision

There is plenty of blame to go around when you examine the current financial crisis. There are the banks – anxious to collect interest revenue, giving loans to people that can’t afford it, believing, hell, if they default, we’ll just take the house and sell it to a higher bidder. There are homebuyers – needing more than they can afford, being swindled by mortgage brokers and real estate agents to get in over their heads – not having an ounce of common sense in signing the deal – and no accountability after the fact.

But there is another culprit, less obvious, but one that threatens the very fiber of American business and our ability to climb out of this recession (and avoid future ones).

I have worked for many of the world’s greatest companies during my career. Companies like AIG, Ziff Davis, and Time Inc. were once considered among the elite American corporations. So what happened?

We all fell prey to Wall Street mentality. We started thinking in terms of quarterly results instead of long-term strategy. After all, it is the quarterly and annual results that determine bonus numbers, not whether or not you position your company to succeed long-term. So – the hell with strategy, the hell with long-term thinking – make the numbers NOW or you’re out.

But America wasn’t built thinking 3 months at a time. People and companies used to have vision and a desire to fulfill that vision. But now, it’s all about quarterly results, insane bonuses based on those results, and very unfortunate short-term thinking. Even in the current recession, a recent quote from a well-respected executive at a very large company was “revenue now, future later”.

The most unfortunate thing about the current downturn is that nobody seems to have learned from past mistakes. Companies have their hands out, but still have the same people making the decisions on how the bailout dollars will be spent. Many top executives are still trying to figure out how to come out of this crisis with the most dollars in their own pockets instead of how to get American workers back to work and make our economy productive again.

We must ask ourselves – where is the creativity? Where is the American spirit? When will we stop falling prey to greediness and start making sure that every American that wants to work and contribute to the betterment of the greatest country on earth be given that opportunity?

There is more than enough to go around if we just re-assess our values and re-assess our reasons for going to work every day. Is it really about just making more and more money, or is it to provide great products, great services, and fulfilling employment to ALL Americans, not just the top .1%? We need to stop the short-term, vision-less thinking that has dominated American business for the past 20 years and get back to the quest for excellence that made this country great.

I’m not being naïve – I understand that companies need to be profitable to stay in business. But there has to be a balance. Some decisions may mean a bit less profit now to have a more successful business down the road. Knee-jerk decision making based on Wall Street demands have driven some of our greatest companies to the brink of ruin. Is anyone out there learning this lesson, or are we going to keep having more of the same and face recessions and layoffs every few years for the rest of our lives?