Effective Decision-Making

“Decision Making vs. Long-Range Planning”

The future will not just happen if one wishes hard enough.

The future requires decisions —now.

It imposes risk —now. It requires action —now.

It demands allocation of resources, and above all, of human resources —now.

It requires work —now.

The idea of long-range planning —and much of its reality —rests on a number of misunderstandings.

The long range is largely made by short-run decisions.

Unless the long range is built into, and based on, short-range plans and decisions,

the most elaborate long-range plan will be an exercise in futility.

And conversely, unless the short-range plans —that is, the decisions on the here and now —

are integrated into one unified plan of action, they will be expedient, guess, and misdirection.

“Short range” and “long range” are not determined by any given time span.

A decision is not short range because it takes only a few months to carry it out.

What matters is the time span over which it is effective.

Long-range planning should prevent managers from uncritically extending present trends into the future,

from assuming that today’s products, services, markets,

and technologies will be the products, services, markets, and technologies of tomorrow,

and, above all, from dedicating their resources and energies to the defense of yesterday.

Everything that is “planned” becomes immediate work and commitment.

(Adapted from “The Daily Drucker”, 9 November – P.343)