BORROWED TIME – By NIRANJAN GIDWANI

 

Over decades, the corporate world has seen almost every enterprise in the world transform. Manufacturing has become digital, supply chains have become predictive, finance has become instantaneous, marketing has become algorithmic, and legal departments have learnt to speak in the language of platforms, data, and risk.

Yet one ritual remains strangely untouched.

The quarterly obsession, the relentless demand that every business prove its worth every ninety days. That habit persists even though research and governance commentary increasingly argue that quarterly pressure can push managers toward short-term decisions that weaken long-term competitiveness, and that many companies have already moved away from quarterly EPS guidance without harming total returns.

Chasing quarterly targets also cultivates an environment where optics begin to matter more than operations. Executives under relentless time pressure often feel compelled to smooth results, delay the recognition of costs, or accelerate revenue through aggressive accounting choices, actions that thin the difference between optimistic forecasting and deliberate whitewashing.

The temptation to nudge data, omit inconvenient information, or frame metrics misleadingly grows, and over time such practices can morph into institutionalized misinformation culture designed to placate markets rather than inform stakeholders.

One can compare this ritual to a patient with a known heart condition being sent back to the treadmill every three months, not to heal, but to satisfy the calendar. In the patient’s eyes, the test is no longer a measure of health. It becomes a source of anxiety, weakness, and distortion. So too with organisations that are forced to spend too much energy explaining one quarter, defending one number, and pleasing one audience. The pressure can tempt leaders to cut training, defer maintenance, delay innovation, or polish earnings instead of building resilience, which is exactly the kind of trade-off researchers have observed under earnings pressure.

One can recall a global airline story that explains this. Under intense quarterly scrutiny, the airline had focused on near-term optics, shaving costs in ways that looked efficient on paper but slowly damaged service quality and employee morale. The market applauded the quarter, but passengers noticed the decline, staff felt the strain, and competitors found openings. That pattern reflects a wider truth.

When boards and executives are judged too narrowly, they may preserve the appearance of strength while eroding the foundations of future value. The quarter can be won, but the franchise can still be lost.

One can also recall an Indian industrial family that has survived generations not by sprinting at every market cycle, but by treating reputation as capital and continuity as strategy. In India as well as in the Gulf countries, many enduring businesses have been built on patient ownership, visible stewardship, and an instinct that trust, once lost, is far harder to rebuild than revenue. Their strongest leaders understand that growth is not only about expansion. It is also about stamina, succession, ethics, and the ability to absorb shocks without sacrificing identity.

That view echoes modern stewardship thinking, which frames directors as responsible for assets and institutions they do not own outright but are entrusted to protect for others.

Let us turn to Japan, where the lesson becomes almost philosophical. Toyota’s governance philosophy explicitly links corporate structure to sustainable growth, long-term value enhancement, stakeholder relationships, and integrity in conduct, while its guiding principles also emphasize stable long-term growth and mutual benefit. This is where the Zen influence feels most visible. Do the work properly, respect the process, and let durability matter more than dramatic noise. A Japanese executive described business as a garden rather than a racetrack.

The gardener does not shout at the seed for failing to become a tree in one season. He waters it, protects it, and trusts time.

China offers a different but equally relevant lesson. Family-owned and stewardship-oriented firms there have increasingly been studied for their ability to balance tradition with innovation, and for their emphasis on long-term stewardship over quick gain. In such firms, continuity is often treated as a moral duty, not merely a financial preference. This reflects a deeper boardroom truth. Businesses are not quarterly events. They are living institutions. The question is not whether they should grow, but whether they can grow without becoming spiritually and operationally hollow in the process.

From a board-development perspective, the first lesson would be to stop confusing visibility with value. Boards should insist on longer-horizon reporting that includes the real drivers of performance, not only the latest earnings beat or miss, because guidance focused on fundamentals and multi-year milestones is more useful than ritualistic quarter-chasing. The second lesson is to align incentives with durable outcomes, so executives are rewarded for resilience, innovation, customer trust, talent health, and capital discipline rather than merely for near-term numbers. The third lesson is to treat risk, compliance, culture, and succession as strategic matters, not side conversations, because the board’s duty is to oversee the enterprise’s future, not just its present.

Finally, boards themselves must be held accountable in a major way. Stewardship without accountability becomes sentiment. Accountability without stewardship becomes fear. Directors should therefore be assessed not only on attendance and approvals, but on whether they challenge management appropriately, protect long-term value, demand honest disclosures, and resist performative governance. Where boards encourage short-termism, they should not be allowed to hide behind the excuse that “the market demands it.” The market may speak loudly, but boards are still the interpreters, and interpretation is responsibility.

The world has modernized almost everything except the courage to rethink what success should look like over time. The old quarterly ritual is not evil, but it is incomplete. It can measure pulse, yet it may fail to measure health. And that is why the real task of governance is not to abolish growth, but to civilize it.

In the final analysis, A company can borrow time from the quarter, but it can only earn the future through stewardship.