Near-Term Pain, Long-Term Gain

If we constantly focus on maximizing near-term success, we'll find ourselves stuck in an endless scramble of responding to the most pressing needs in front of us.

If, instead, we aspire to create a more sustainable and higher-performing future, we need to play the long game. Sometimes, short-term pain is necessary to achieve long-term gain.

• Read the video transcript

  My daughter's soccer coach does something regularly that just makes me cringe every single time, and that something is, in the middle of the game when the ball is still in motion, he will call one of the players over to the sideline for a little chat for some calm, gentle coaching real time while the game is still going on.

  Now I am very competitive and so of course in my head I'm like, ah, we need that player out on the field. But guess what? Coach Tom is wiser than I am and he's playing the long game. He's sacrificing potential short-term gains in order to develop these girls. In order to give them the coaching they need real time knowing in the long run it will pay off.

  Maybe at work there are situations where you have been sacrificing the long game in order to secure some short-term gains. Maybe you have an employee who should be taking on some opportunity where there could be some stumbles along the way where they may make some mistakes, but in the end, sacrificing some of those near-term challenges in order to see long-term growth could be worth it.

  Where at work, whether for your team or for yourself, do you have opportunity to exercise some more patience, some more vision, and to look at the long-term gains? Sacrifice maybe a little bit in the near-term in order to pursue that longer term growth.