If a manager does not take care of the next hundred days, there will be no next hundred years. Whatever the manager does should be sound in expediency as well as in basic long-range objective and principle. And where he cannot harmonize the two time dimensions, he must at least balance them.
He must calculate the sacrifice he imposes on the long term future of the enterprise to protect his immediate interests, or the sacrifice he makes today for the sake of tomorrow. He must limit either sacrifice as much as possible. And he must repair as soon as possible the damage it inflicts. He lives and acts in two time dimensions, and is responsible for the performance of the whole enterprise and of his own component in it.
Peter Drucker – Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices in The Daily Drucker
See also: Lasting Solutions