All of the above, please

Is it just me, or is this just way too obvious? It's obvious, but also amazing how many highly paid executive-types are idiots, and just don't get it. It's a balance -- and not just a focus on shareholders. Any executive that focuses entirely on shareholders, to the detriment of customers and employees, should thrown out the window -- the door would be just too polite. Focusing exclusively on the shareholders is short-term, selfish thinking -- one motivated just to please the market, generate short-term shareholder value, to the detriment of sustainable value. An executive that focuses their company solely on shareholders does a disservice to shareholders. It is customers and employees who generate shareholder value. Focusing equally on customers and employees, and in cumulative, more than shareholders, is the only way to get your employees to give more; to innovate more; to be inspired to deliver greater value -- and similarly, to get your customers to buy more from you, give you trust and forgive you the lapses that will inevitably happen.

This is obvious to me.

in reference to:

"A firm’s share price on any given day, needless to say, can be a very poor guide to long-term shareholder value. Yet bosses typically had their pay linked to short-term movements in share prices, which encouraged them to take measures to push the share price up quickly, rather than to maximise shareholder value in the long run (by when they would probably have departed)."
- Shareholders v stakeholders: A new idolatry | The Economist (view on Google Sidewiki)