Going from the long ball to the long view

When last did you hear CEOs or chairs speak of five-year or 10-year strategic plans for their companies?

Not that there is as much of an audience for this in today's world as there is for followers of Arsenal and my dearest of football managers, Arsene Wenger.

Let's forget for a minute that fans including myself are a bit uninspired about the team's prospects in some distant utopia. But had we not believed the Frenchman's growth story from the start, would Arsenal be a feature on the global football map - or in a position similar to that of Leeds United?

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After Wenger's early successes, I think that had the club's board followed an easier and debt-fuelled plan to buy the club's way to success there wouldn't be an Emirates Stadium and we'd possibly be playing mid-table football in that grand old Highbury.

In corporate boardrooms, how many executives have been given the space to build a company in the same way as Wenger and even - I must give due credit - Alex Ferguson?

And if, given that space, would a GIBS- or Harvard-educated MBA graduate be able to sell and implement a long-term strategy for a listed vehicle in this day and age?

This week, one of BHP's activist shareholders, Elliot Management, stepped up pressure on the company's management to "review" or, in straight talk, dump its petroleum business.

This is the same business that saved the miner from the worst of the sell-off that the world's leading miners experienced at the end of the Chinese-inspired super-commodity cycle.

While its smaller rival, Anglo American, floundered under the weight of weak metal prices, the Australian miner had a great crutch in its oil business.

Prices of oil, unlike other commodities, buckled under the weight of oversupply only at the end of 2014.

Anglo's stock peaked almost 10 years ago and is still 68% off its record high. In comparison, BHP reached its high only at the tail end of 2014, and now trades about 40% lower.

While prospects for oil remain in rather uncertain and muddy waters, is this really the time for BHP to be reviewing this business? I guess an executive team always has to be kicking the tyres of the business, but a sale? I think not.

Here's the thing, though. Elliot Management has built up a 4.1% stake in the business. The views of the firm, founded by billionaire Paul Singer, simply can't be ignored.

Should they gain favour with all manner of other smaller investors, the years have shown what's likely to happen if management loses the battle.

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Under such a glaring light, in a world where information is spewing out of every nook and cranny, it's becoming nearly impossible to sell a dream of fortunes beyond the next quarter to any investor.

And this goes beyond the world of business - it's in our politics too.

Shaping any future scenario for voters - even a well tested one - also seems to be an impossibility.

A president starts his term, and already we speak of his or her re-election prospects. In the cases of South Africa and the US, the voters can't really be blamed for being preoccupied with the question.

We've been at it since 2009 in our Woody Allen years of anxiety.

In such a highly strung world , one has to wonder if the better leaders in business and in politics will ever get a chance to sell us a long-term view.

Increasingly, I am beginning to think not. So I back Wenger for another 21 years and Steve Khompela for another season.

derbyr@sundaytimes.co.za or follow Ron on twitter @ronderby