Long-term thinking becoming more popular

American companies have always focused on short-term profits, unlike the Japanese who began long ago to think in terms of decades.

I'll never forget the time when I briefly worked at a Honda used car lot (yes, I was a used-car salesman for six months--and that's another interesting post for some other time). One day, two representative from Honda in Japan came politely inquiring at our lot whether they could see the two older (at the time that meant 1982) Hondas we had. We rushed to help them out, of course. And when we got the chance to ask the boss what it was all about, we learned that the Honda reps wanted to see what had gone wrong with the cars--they even wanted to see where the bodies had rusted!--so they could manufacture their new cars so as to better avoid those things. Can you imagine GM doing that?

As an entrepreneur you might be thinking, hey, that's only for big companies. But the truth is, it applies to all of us, so you might as well begin as you mean to go on. Here's a CFO.com article on this subject that compares the corporation to the human body--in terms of its ability to run fast now versus its stamina and strength over the long haul. In other words, sacrificing quality or customer service for short-term profits can threaten the long-term health--even the existence--of your organization.