Every day, across companies and organizations of every size and kind, decisions are being made.
Big ones. Small ones. Quiet ones behind closed doors. Loud ones on public stages.
Some shape companies, markets, communities—even global dynamics. Others are quiet reactions to those bigger moves.
But no matter the scale or setting, one thing keeps surprising me: How often decisions are made with no visible connection to a long-term goal.
Not because leaders don’t care about the future—most do.
But because the pressures of the present are loud, relentless, and persuasive, forcing decisions to be made in isolation—without checking whether they’re taking us closer to or further from our long-term destination. And that, to me, is a risk, the risk of strategic myopia.
And without strategic clarity, any decision—no matter how smart it seems in the moment—can quietly take us off course.
Why Do We Keep Making Decisions Without Strategy?
If we know how important long-term thinking is… why do we keep making decisions that contradict it?
Cutting costs might improve this quarter’s margins. But did we just weaken our customer experience? Undermine future growth? Lose talent we’ll desperately need a year from now?
Did we just shut down our first store in a new market because it did not perform following our core market trend? Did we give it enough time to allows us to learn and adjust to a new market? Did we forget about our internationalization guideline dictated by our long-term growth aspirations?
Did we just changed our entire organizational typography because we cannot deal with a particular executive who is pushing their own agenda forward? Did we just allowed our org structure to follow our fear of conflict rather than our long-term strategic goals?
I’m not sure there’s one clear answer. Maybe it’s a psychological reflex—maybe it’s just human.
But I do believe this: When we forget what we’re trying to achieve in the long run, and what we want to protect or preserve in the process, clarity disappears.
We drift into a fog where decisions are made for comfort, optics, or survival.
Where we confuse movement with progress. Where we lose the thread.
It’s not always out of fear. Sometimes it’s overconfidence. Sometimes it’s fatigue. Sometimes we genuinely believe we’re doing the right thing.
But if we don’t pause to reconnect with our longer-term ambition, and what we want to protect along the way, we make decisions in isolation—short-sighted, well-intended (or not), but often misaligned.
So what can leaders do to avoid the trap of short-sighted decisions?
It starts with one essential practice: don’t decide in a vacuum. Every meaningful decision should be held up against the long-term ambition you’ve committed to—and the principles you’ve defined to get there.
Here are five practices that can help:
- Anchor your decisions to your long-term ambition.
Always ask: What are we trying to achieve? What must we protect in the process?
If you can’t answer those questions clearly, pause. Work on defining your ambition and the guidelines that will shape your path forward. - Don’t decide alone.
Even if you hold the final say, involve those who share the responsibility.
Socializing decisions with your team or key stakeholders helps expose blind spots, surface risks, and ensure consistency with the strategy you’re collectively building. - Play out the future.
Build simple scenarios to project the possible impact of your choices—financial, operational, organizational.
Discuss these possibilities with peers, advisors, or those affected by the outcome.
Strategic decisions deserve more than instinct; they deserve a few rounds of thoughtful simulation. - Anticipate consequences.
No decision plays out exactly as imagined.
So assess the risks, define your response triggers, and prepare to act with agility if things shift.
Being strategic doesn’t mean being rigid—it means being intentional and prepared. - Track, learn, and adapt.
Define how you’ll measure the success of a decision—not just the outcome, but whether it upheld your long-term direction.
And if it didn’t? Don’t defend it. Correct it.
Strategy is a compass, not a contract. Use it to recalibrate, not just to justify.
We don’t need perfect vision to lead well.
But we do need to look beyond today’s noise, define what truly matters, and let that guide the decisions we make—especially the difficult ones.
Because in the end, clarity beats cleverness. And direction beats speed.
Ximena Jimenez
Founder – Managing Director LITup
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