Beware of the targets you set for yourself.

“If you achieve just above median performance year in year out, you will be number one over five to ten years. If you seek to be number one year in and year out, you will do things that wreck the business. People get this wrong all the time” Jim Kikts, Former CEO of Gillette.

Review your targets and metrics!! Are they sustainable over a long period of time?

The power of medium-term thinking in easing tension behind short term and long term thinking.

“The short term focuses minds on the results that will build a track record with investors and the long term on where you want to participate and the portfolio options you are prepared to defend. It turned out that the medium-term themes for us centred on creating value for customers” John Varley, Former CEO of Barclays.

The power of disaggregating things.

“The problem was when I first saw the numbers, everything looked profitable. The charts came back with everything over the line. So I told them to keep going until they found something negative. We found some real opportunities that way” Matt Barrett, Former CEO Of Barclays.

How many times have you looked at a top-level metric and it looked great only to realise five years later that the metric is gone? For example profitability? Beware of negative inputs. One way to approach this is to break down every input and ask yourself if this is a positive, neutral or negative effect.

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Targets, Medium Term Thinking and…