A Sense of Urgency

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3 Sentence Summary

John Kotter believes that effective change within any organization begins with a true sense of urgency. Leaders in today’s rapidly evolving economy need to be equipped with the strategies and tools to combat complacency and mediocrity. This book teaches us how to cultivate a culture that is poised to adapt and react quickly to changes in the market.

A Sense of Urgency Summary

The world economy is changing faster today than ever before. Each year the pace of change increases as new technology is introduced and more competitors flood the market. Organizations big and small must have the capability to constantly reinvent themselves and move quickly to respond to market conditions.

The thesis John Kotter presents in his book, A Sense of Urgency, is a simple and straightforward message: Change begins with a sense of urgency. The key to leading a world-class organization through today’s turbulent economy is understanding what it takes to maintain a true sense of urgency.

Urgency Requires Effort

An organization will always default into complacency if leadership does nothing. Complacency is our natural state. And complacency is an organization’s single greatest threat in a world that is in constant flux.

As a senior leader, it is your job to identify the sources of complacency. You have direct authority and responsibility to take whatever action necessary to spur urgency and purge mediocrity. And if you’re a younger leader in the organization, it is still your imperative to act as an agent of urgency and raise your voice against complacent behavior.

Kotter describes four tactics that we can employ to combat complacency and instill our culture with a true sense of urgency:

1. Make external hazards and opportunities visible
2. Behave with urgency every day
3. Find opportunities in crisis
4. Deal with the No-Nos

Make External Hazards and Opportunities Visible

Left unattended over time, organizations will become complacent and blind towards external threats. Therefore, leaders must always be proactive in shedding light on their surroundings.

Whenever there is a problem, wise advice says that it’s best to go as see for yourself. Get troops on the ground and talk to the people who are closest to the action.

• Listen closely when you interact with lower-level personnel. They are closest to, and sometimes interact with, the customer. They may not understand the big picture, but they are a window to the outside that must not be ignored.
• Send out “scouts” on special assignment to collect outside data. Benchmark the competition. Go talk to the customers. Put boots on the ground and collect data firsthand.
• Bring outsiders in. Invite consultants, vendors, and customers into the company to talk and share what they know with your organization. Take advantage of their perspective and wisdom.
• Gather data from other sources. Condense relevant data into bite-sized packets easy for your organization to digest. And then spread the news.

Collecting information is just the first step. But it’s not enough to spark a sense of urgency unless you decide to share it.

• Tell a compelling story. It’s not enough to just present the facts. That’s lazy. You need to appeal not only to the minds, but also the hearts, of the people in your organization. A great tactic for spreading outside information in a meaningful way is to leverage the power of video and that of storytelling.
• Don’t shield people from the data. Spread the word.
• Redecorate. The visuals your employees see every day send a message whether you realize it or not. Create a message of outside awareness and urgency. Make your position within the market clearly visible. Show what the competition is doing and the progress of your ongoing projects.

Behave with Urgency Every Day

Urgency will not be sustained without intentional effort. It is a feeling that must be created and then recreated. Every day.

Acting with urgency has nothing to do with running around being busy, and everything to do with acting with clarity and purpose. In everything you do, be specific. Do not leave a meeting with clarifying and assigning the next action. Hold yourself and your colleagues to accomplishing what they said they would do.

It’s important to always be present and project this sense of urgency in all your interactions. Conduct your business in public. Do this not to show off how hard you work, but rather to be an example of what focused and urgent work looks like.

Fatigue and clutter undermine true urgency. When you get distracted by too many open projects, it becomes easy to fall into the trap of false urgency – a flurry of activity that does not effectively move the needle forward.

Acting with urgency has nothing to do with running around being busy, and everything to do with acting with clarity and purpose.

In order to operate with a true sense of urgency, you must be relentless in eliminating low priority items from your planner and calendar. Cancel projects that have become distractions. Delegate, delegate, and delegate some more.

Find Opportunities in Crisis

Great leaders recognize that a crisis presents the possibility of creating an atmosphere ripe to adopt a true sense of urgency. A crisis can be a useful opportunity to dispense with the status quo and wake people out of their lethargic routines.

To coerce a crisis into an urgency stimulant, it is imperative that you make the crisis visible, unambiguous, and big enough that it cannot be solved with simple and easy actions. Be proactive in assessing how your organization is reacting to the crisis. Watch what plans are being developed and how quickly that are implemented. 

But we can’t be naive. Leadership must be prudent during both intentional and unintentional crises. Without careful attention, a burning platform can rage out of control. But when used with caution and pragmatism, leadership can turn the threat of a crisis into a culture-changing gift. 

Deal With No-Nos

Kotter describes a NoNo as someone who is “always ready with ten reasons why the current situation is fine, why the problems and challenges others see don’t exist, or why you need more data before acting.” 

A NoNo is different from a skeptic. A skeptic can be a healthy counter to poorly thought-out ideas. They are a necessary faction in a system of checks and balances. Upon being convinced that their opinion is wrong, a skeptic can become one of the idea’s biggest champions. 

NoNos are very different. NoNos will do almost anything to maintain the status quo. They will discredit people who are trying to create a sense of urgency and they will resist any attempt at change. They are the most dangerous people in our organization and it is critical that we deal with them appropriately. 

Their capacity to disrupt conversations and delay action is formidable.

There are two mistakes you must avoid when dealing with NoNos. The first is an attempt at co-optation. While it may seem like either the best or the only realistic thing to do, we must recognize that it is nearly impossible to convert a NoNo into accepting the new consenting opinion. Their capacity to disrupt conversations and delay action is formidable. 

NoNos are not skeptics. They will not examine the data or listen to others with an open mind. They will not accept the majority’s opinion. The time wasted in trying to co-opt a NoNo will almost certainly end in frustrating regret. 

The second mistake is to ignore a NoNo. Without your knowing, a NoNo can, and often do, organize an active resistance movement against your initiative. They work in the margins, slowly building an army of supporters that can effectively disrupt or derail plans of urgent change. 

It’s important to understand the mindset behind a NoNo. They rarely act with rational motives. If they did, they would listen to the data and think clearly about why there may be good reasons for change. Instead, NoNos typically act based on their own insecurities and anxieties. Or they act on motives of anger. They may believe that they should be in charge and will do what they can to see that people in positions of power above them fail to succeed. 

There are three effective ways to deal with NoNos. Distract them, eliminate them, or use social pressure to call them out on their behavior. 

You can distract NoNos with extra work. Put them on special assignment at a remote location. Unfortunately, you may have no choice but to walk a NoNo out the door. It may seem like a harsh sentence, but NoNos will never change. For the future health of the organization, you may be forced to make an uncomfortable short term decision to avoid long term disaster. And finally, you may find creative ways to immobilize a NoNo’s influence using peer pressure. If you can create an opportunity to call out a NoNo’s behavior out in front a group of his/her peers, then you can effectively create an environment that disables a NoNos disruptive power. 

A NoNo is a unique breed that exists in all organizations. They are not impossible barriers to creating a true sense of urgency as the preceding paragraph illustrates. But Kotter reminds us again of an unfortunate but accurate rule: “Never underestimate the damage that a hard-core NoNo can do in undermining efforts to reduce complacency, increase urgency, make smart action happen rapidly, and help an organization to survive and prosper.”