Success and Survival: The Need For Urgency
The original Dow Jones Industrial comprised 12 companies, including American Cotton Oil; American Sugar; American Tobaccos; Chicago Gas; Distilling & Cattle Feeding; General Electric (GE); North American; Tennessee Coal Iron and RR; U.S. Leather; and United States Rubber. Other than GE, all the original companies selected as top in the world by Charles Dow in 1896 are extinct.
According to one Harvard professor, it is the lack of urgency that continues to kill some of the largest (and smallest) companies in the world. A modest pace or full-out complacency can create an Ice Age for many, if not most businesses. In his book Urgency, Harvard Business School Professor John P. Kotter states: “Urgent behavior is not driven by a belief that all is well or that everything is a mess, but instead that the world contains great opportunities and great hazard.” Urgency is a determination to get moving and start winning now (actually yesterday).
Look at Apple. They have won the technology race of this millennium by urgent innovation. While you are still happy with your current iPhone, they are urgently working on the next innovation so that before anyone can come up behind them and eat their cookie or before you have time to get even slightly bored, here comes the new iPhone or Apple product.
Urgency is not “stressful” or “rushed” – it’s structural. One of the first elements of success I teach my clients is setting up an urgent structure. This is a system of procedures that by their very nature creates urgency in the staff, patients or customers, and the leadership.
Urgently moving forward is also not a frenetic activity. In one of my most successful businesses, it became clear the team had grown complacent. We were very busy, so just getting through the day seemed like a noble effort worthy of great reward. However, I could smell the downturn. If you’re not innovating, automating, creating, and creating momentum, there is an odor. That odor is the scent of your coming Ice Age—your extinction. Creating and keeping momentum requires urgency.
To help paint a picture of this for my staff, I began a team meeting by stacking five chairs, unstacking them, stacking them, unstacking them, and then stacking and unstacking them one more time for good measure. I shared with them that I was busy and working very hard, yet in the end, the chairs were sitting right where they were when I started. It was frenetic, hard work—but it was not getting me anywhere. Urgency is not a crazy expenditure of effort; it is a well-thought-out plan, executed in a very timely manner.
Harvard professor Kotter also observes that “change efforts most often fail when change agents do not create a high enough sense of urgency among enough people to set the stage for making a challenging leap in some new direction.” It’s good work done yesterday—despite what are often imperfect conditions.
Have Fun Saving the World!
Dr. Ben Lerner
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