Bad Urgency vs. Good Urgency: The Calendar Test
Harvard Business School professor John Kotter's recent book A Sense of Urgency has been one of the more popular business tomes in recent memory. Managers seem to identify with his message that complacency can most effectively be overcome when organizations develop a mindset that the time for action is now.
But there is bad urgency as well as good urgency. Here is how Kotter explains the difference in an interview with Inc.com.
- Bad Urgency. "There are lots of signs of false urgency. Frenetic activity. Everyone is exhausted, working 14-hour days. One red flag is how difficult it is to schedule a meeting. With true urgency, people leave lots of white space on their calendars, because they recognize that the important stuff -- the stuff they need to deal with immediately -- is going to happen. If you're overbooked, you can't manage pressing problems or even recognize they're pressing until too late."
- Good Urgency. "The leader should be telling them to do just the opposite. He should say, 'I want everyone to look at your calendars. What's on there that doesn't clearly move us forward? Get rid of it!' True urgency is the most important precursor of real change."
Does your company have the right sense of urgency? Does your calendar pass Kotter's white space test?
Related Reading: A book excerpt from A Sense of Urgency
(Emergency image by Ian Muttoo, CC 2.0)