So we advise setting aside TalkTalk's medium term aims, and focussing instead on its near term prospects.
The medium-term aim is to revive economic activity.
Thierry's medium-term aim is to develop an all-English version of his web TV.
With the Conservatives underlining their medium-term aim to cut taxes, Labour will also be under pressure to keep the lid on income-tax rate rises.
But if the medium-term aim is successful, there is no way 10-year Treasury bonds should yield 2.5%, as they did yesterday.
While pursuing a medium-term aim of withdrawing from Afghanistan, the US will direct its short-term energies to a troop "surge", sending 17,000 more US soldiers to try to thwart an expected Taliban offensive this spring and summer.
The Abu Dhabi experiment — for that is what it is — has pumped almost a third of a billion dollars into City with a medium-term aim of qualifying for the Champions League and a longer-term ambition of winning it.
Though the League's leader, Umberto Bossi, would no doubt ultimately be happy to see the south and centre of Italy lopped off from the rich north, his medium-term aim is "fiscal federalism", a still ill-defined project for handing more power to regional governments to collect and spend taxes.
He has to combine his medium-term aims and beliefs with a short-term focus on results.
Second, one of the medium-term aims is to move towards a single research strategy for the whole partnership with alignment of individual organisations' research strategies.
Taylor has done it all for medium-term gain, aiming to peak for the World Championship, but he cannot have expected so much trouble in the short term.
