Achievements through sacrifices

Yesterday the temperature difference was especially harsh. I was appropriately dressed, so did not really felt the cold. This fact brought to my mind an interesting thought. I was achieving my short term goal of not catching a cold this day. However, I was tampering my long term objective of strengthening my body through measured dosages of stress. If by some reason I had to bear the cold without my gear, I would be less resilient and perish more easily.

Similarly, to survive an economic crisis, a company should protect itself against the currently harsh conditions (by laying off people, cutting R&D or marketing or HR budget and similar). The important point to keep in mind is the plan how to emerge as a stronger player after the crisis (in this case R&D effectiveness turns out to be a key factor).

This can be summarized as follows:

make a balance between
long term and short term
goals and achievements
and decide which one to sacrifice
(preferably surviving long enough to judge upon viability of our plan)