Managing for the Short Term The New Rules for Running a Business in a Day-To-Day World

1 The New World of the Short Term Work today is like a perpetual motion machine set on fast forward. A souring economy globally, a U.S. recession, and massive business fallout from the terrorist attacks of September 11 are driving businesses and individuals in those businesses to rethink how they move their organizations and themselves forward. The challenges of this rapidly changing business environment mean that there is more work to do than there are people to do it. The workload and pace can seem overwhelming--that is, if anyone ever has time to stop and think about them. Managers are facing constant change, in a time when there has never been more to do and less time in which to do it. Workers at all levels, from the rank and file to senior executives, are coming in early, leaving late, and often working at home at night and on weekends. Bombarded by requests from above and below in management structure, managers end their days feeling that they didn't get anything done but are completely drained by the effort of putting out fires. Strategies and vision are discussed at off-site meetings, only to take a back seat once everyone returns to the office and the realities of day-to-day life or the latest crisis. Executives and managers dash from meeting to meeting, often coming out with a longer to-do list than the one they went in with. Middle managers have to deliver on higher expectations for performance in a shorter time frame, using a workforce that makes higher demands on the organization. As a result, managers are finding themselves rolling up their sleeves and, in many cases, performing some of the work they are simultaneously supposed to be managing others to do. But middle managers aren't alone in facing tougher expectations. Senior executives are facing more demanding situations outside the company, from shareholders and the capital markets to customers. Executives are being pushed by those external forces to deliver more and more in less and less time. These pressures have been building over several years. They were first felt when the emergence of the Internet created the concept of "Internet time." When the networking of the world began to change business, both start-ups and their larger competitors had a sense that nothing could happen quickly enough. The little guys' mantra was "Get big fast," while the more established competitors were haunted in many cases by the spector of the proverbial "seven guys in a garage" inventing something that would destroy their business. But the need to meet greater expectations in a shorter time with fewer resources really began to be felt in the bones of the business world as a whole with the recession that began in early 2001, when unemployment figures began to head higher. In the months that followed: Between March and December 2001, 1.2 million Americans lost their jobs. For the first time since 1990, more than half of major U.S. companies--5 8 percent--reported layoffs during the 12 months prior to June 30, 2001. The wave of layoffs did not simply affect a person here and a person there. In November 2001, there were 2,699 mass layoffs of 50 people or more, compared to the 1,697 layoffs of the previous November. Those November 2001 layoffs represented 293,074 jobs, compared to the previous November's 216,514. Workers, managers, and senior executives alike watched as their colleagues found themselves hunting for jobs, and worked even harder to try to avoid being the next pink slip out the door. Complicating matters was the disappearance of nearly $5 trillion in market capitalization between March 2000 and October 2001, led by the massive bursting of the Internet bubble. The stocks that figure represented had helped fuel expansion for many companies; whenMartin, Chuck is the author of 'Managing for the Short Term The New Rules for Running a Business in a Day-To-Day World' with ISBN 9780385504355 and ISBN 0385504357.