Message of the Day - A Sense of Urgency

Good Morning,

 

Yesterday I dropped my current read to start John Kotter’s newest book ‘A Sense of Urgency’ (http://www.johnkotter.com/). Why all of a sudden did I need to read this book? Why drop something I had been looking forward to read to grab this new book that I saw on a shelf at Borders on Monday? Simply because it was time. The subject hit a nerve, A Sense of Urgency.

 

I have read several time management books, but they often do not teach a sense of urgency, mostly prioritizing your workload and controlling the flow of work items coming in and out and how you manage them. They are useful tools and have helped me and many others. Unfortunately, they often lack the simple, yet elegant, sense of urgency. And then I saw the name of the Author, John Kotter. And I knew this book was a good book. I have read two of this other books, ‘Leading Change’ and ‘Our Iceberg is Melting’. John Kotter, beyond being a Harvard Professor, is considered the pre-eminent Change Guru in the business world. In other words, I respect what he has to say.

 

A sense of urgency is something that has not been fully present in any company I worked at over the last decade. Sure there were those who had the sense of urgency, the passion, the heart to get the job done, and others well, did not seem to care. Some of those who seemed to get it were really not getting it, they knew what needed to be done, but did not feel it in their hearts. They were working frantically, and a lot was getting done, or seemed to be getting done, but our overall progress toward our goals did not always improve as you would expect with all of the activity. It seems our society has accepted doing a lot of work, no matter what it is, as having a sense of urgency. These people would often roll up their sleeves and dive into work and a few days or weeks later would get burned out and frustrated and sometimes even quit for feeling like their work was unappreciated. Your heart has to be in it as well as your mind.

 

Sadly a lot of this frantic work is not so much unappreciated, but unnecessary and at times, damaging to your organization. A true sense of urgency combines the knowledge of what is needed, and the best ways to get it accomplished and a feeling in your gut and heart that it needs to be done. While it involves the desire to ‘act now’ it does NOT mean on everything that comes to your inbox or bin. Sure there is the four quadrants of Important and Urgent, and we are to act on all the urgent and important items first, then, important items, and ignore the not important and not urgent, etc., but this is only part of puzzle.

 

A true sense of urgency is conveyed in all communications, urgent or otherwise. The message must be intelligent and passionate. Not a frantic scramble, but making sure the weight of all actions is known. Acting like you know what’s on the line for your organization, your customers, your stakeholders. A sense of urgency means being aware of what is important, not only to you, but to your customers, your bosses, you stakeholders and working to respect these feelings.

 

Yes, it is time for a Sense of Urgency.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net

http://www.berenberg.net

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/

502-533-9336

 

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