The opposing forces of every business

"Every business faces the opposing forces of the pull for more growth against the pull for more profitability; the demand to show profit today against the need to invest in the company’s future; and the call for optimizing the whole against the tendency of individual parts to maximize their own performance. The three performance tensions — growth versus profitability, short term versus long term, and whole versus parts — provide fundamental energy that can be harnessed to deliver superior, sustainable results."
(Ken Favaro and Saj-nicole Joni in "Getting Tensions Right" in Strategy+Business 24 Aug, 2010)