I have worked for and/or with a number of Fortune 100 companies, and there’s a commonality across all of them: the incentive structures for the employees. I don’t mean discount gym memberships or on-site child care; I mean the way in which different kinds of thinking and approaches to doing business are rewarded. There are significantly fewer rewards for corporate employees to act in a manner that is in the best interest of the corporation’s long-term value versus acting in a manner that’s good for this month’s numbers.

I know the street and its analysts like to think that they plug and chug long-term growth considerations into their equity valuations. Sure. I won’t dispute that this is the attempt and won’t even argue whether this pans out. But on the ground floor of a corporation, even enlightened companies who pretend to make decisions with some proxy for net present value as a factor will, when push comes to shove, make the decision to hit their raw numbers in terms of units sold, ad impressions bought, prescriptions written, whatever.

“Wait, but if we invest $1,000 of your $5,000 budget on strategically planning your marketing spend, the budget you have next quarter will be that much more intelligently deployed.”

“Nope. Don’t care. Just throw it all at media.”

Ah, how very responsible you are to … now. And how very irresponsible you are to tomorrow.

And this is how publicly traded companies behave a bit like teenage delinquents: the calculus operating in the minds of most corporate bees is, “I need to hit my numbers this month!” not “I need to maximize NPV over a five year period.” When one is optimizing over a timeline the length of one’s arm, they’ll tend to make very different decisions than if they are optimizing over a timeline the length of their ken (notable exceptions being someone who is visually impaired, but I’m hoping you get my drift here).

Similarly, teenage delinquents could really care less if stealing that old lady’s handbag is going to hurt their chances at getting into college. Applying to college is three years away; $20 and a crusty tube of lip balm is three seconds away: “I need to get some cash right now!” not “I need to maximize lifetime earning potential.” The timeframe over which mental calculus is conducted is significantly shorter for the teenage delinquent and their behaviors and actions crescendo accordingly.

In some ways, corporate bees are stealing old ladies’ handbags every day, if the old lady is the future and the handbag contains the incremental monies that the firm could have earned if a smarter, more strategic decision had been made at t=0. In the corporate world, when surrounded by other like-minded thugs whose decks, motivational posters, quarterly town halls and paintball-games-if-you-hit-your-numbers, act, in the aggregate, not unlike teenage hoodlums conspiring in the park (”There! There’s an old lady! She got nice shoes so I bet she has loot!”), it can be hard to make the difficult decision to choose long-term value or short-term gain (”Oh, wow, snap, you’re not gonna do it? What, you think you’re better than us?”)

Most of us don’t make the difficult decision. Most of roam corridors of softly-padded cubicle walls stealing old ladies’ handbags.

“Hey, team! We hit our numbers this month. Let’s go get some drinks!”