From the very young age we are involved in a powerful system of short -term rewards. We need to eat from the very first day of life to get a reward in the form of quenching hunger. Such a direct satisfaction of needs teaches us to take food always when we are hungry. When we start studying, we get a reward for studying in the form of assessments. And the assessments, as we soon realize, give way to the award in the form of approval (and love) of parents, teachers and peers. We need to constantly study to pass exams. When we enter the labor market, daily work is rewarded with a monthly salary. In many cases, for each sale, a percentage of each sale or a total bonus is expected at the end of the year. Everything that we do is under the control of remuneration systems, and the most powerful of them is a short -term. Short -term rewards stimulate the full functioning of society and are designed to maintain the existing state of things. Short -term rewards do not act in the process of embodiment of extraordinary goals. So that the most daring ideas are embodied in life, short -term rewards should turn into long -term. This is called foresight. Large companies are founded by people who abandoned their stable work and donated many for this. Great organizations and societies have been built for a long time on the basis of long -term forecasting and devotion of their participants. When there are no short -term benefits, foresight should be a bridge on which we will move on to long -term reward. However, it turns out that the foresight is not a sufficiently powerful incentive to overcome our habit of short -term benefits. It is not surprising that long -term benefits are so great and so rare. Society makes us think shortly. Forces such as risk and reputation become the reason that we are mistaken in relation to short -term. Who are we to hope to avoid such an influence? Great leaders and true sears found a way to control the system of rewards for themselves and those with whom they work. Their strategy? Create a complex structure of short -term rewards – the one that will create a motivation for making decisions focused on a long -term result, but will satisfy our short -term needs. Creative leaders fail when they admit that they can work in an indefinite direction without any reward structure. In fact, they deceive themselves. Long -term rewards are most effective when they are divided into parts and presented in the form of short -term. Sometimes this means fixing the key stages – even if they are not financial achievements – in the process of implementing a long -term project. In other cases, this means the search for mentors or leaders who can support you in the framework of achieving the goals that you set for yourself. Many leaders who have achieved certain long -term results admit that they had partners who accompanied them all the way. The key solution is a powerful system of short -term remuneration in ourselves, which will provide us with a sense of comfort in short -term implementation and contribute to the achievement of long -term goals. As soon as you realize this, you can start managing it.
