A True Sense of Urgency

Yesterday, the Growth Facilitators team tuned into a webinar by leadership guru retired Prof. John Kotter. Anyone who has studied anything at all about leadership and management will know his name. His work has stood the test of time, and his articles and books are as relevant today as they were decades ago when first written.

The topic of the webinar was "Urgency: How to make real change your company's top priority". This topic resonated with us immediately, as so many of our clients struggle with the issue of change. Indeed, now more than ever, all organizations, whether in the public, private or not-for-profit sector, MUST turn their collective minds to the issue of change – not just for change sake, but for relevance and survival.

Prof. Kotter listed 8 reasons why transformation efforts fail. His article: "Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail" which was first published in 1995, is now one of the Best of Harvard Business Review article series. It is a classic. Reading it again, I recognised many issues that we help our clients through as they try to transform their organizations. I also recognised many of the insights that our team has had, and that our solutions have not been far off the mark.

The webinar focused on the first error which is "Not establishing a great enough sense of urgency". Prof. Kotter made the distinction between false and true urgency. False urgency is when people recognise that there is a problem, but are not willing to take personal responsibility for the solution. A sense of "what I am doing is OK, it's what the others are doing that needs to change" sets in. False urgency is characterised by busyness and freneticism making it seem that one is dealing with the problem. It is characterised by a plethora of meetings, presentations, studies, reports, committees, task forces - sound familiar? False urgency is unsustainable as people soon burn out from the busyness for busyness sake, it is the breeding ground of cynicism and does not, indeed cannot, beget real change.

True urgency is when "people come to work every day determined to exploit real opportunities and mitigate real hazards". It is uncannily similar to GF's statement to our clients that "The only thing that people come to work everyday to do is to flawlessly execute strategy". What a difference! And what a difference in behaviour this approach generates! People now become focused on what’s important, they are flexible and adaptable, always searching for opportunities and solutions and most importantly they are passionate and excited about what they are doing. The role of leadership in creating and sustaining this sense of true urgency is paramount - encompassed in what the leadership says, but even more so what the leadership does. In even the most minute act of the leadership is a message to the followers of what's important and how important it is.

When we see that transformation is not taking place, we need to first look at the extent to which there is a sense of true urgency. Complacency, frenetic behaviour, rampant cynicism, prevalent and overriding negativism signal false, or no urgency at all. Today, take an honest look at your organization, and at yourself - is there a sense of true urgency? To what extent have you created a sense of true urgency? And to what extent are you sustaining it? If you are not seized with your own responses to these questions, go back to the drawing board and study Prof. Kotter’s article, and then take a critical look at yourself, and your own leadership. That's where the answer lies