Sense of urgency by John Kotter

According to Kotter, "Urgency is a combination of thoughts, feelings, and actual behavior". Thoughts are opportunities. Feelings are the gut-level determination of maybe success or victory before implementing a change. Behavior is the hyper-alertness to what’s going on. It’s a sense that you give to other people that we are in this together because it’s important. It’s the determination and movement that is smart and wins.

Why do we need urgency?

The fundamental reason is that the rate of change is speeding up. And the faster the world moves or faster the disruptions come in, the more you need to change. This is not only needed to strive but also thrive for the organizations to keep up with the pace of change. Organizations have a general tendency of wanting to stabilize and remain stagnant in one place, there’s a need for wanting to create it because you want to see what’s in it for me, the organization and the society at large. Then convince the leadership to make it happen.

How to create urgency?

This sense of urgency can come from anywhere irrespective of the position in the hierarchy. There’s a disconnect almost everywhere between what’s happening outside an organization and what people perceive and feel inside. And this disconnect creates complacency. If complacency goes up, urgency goes down. They are inversely proportional to each other. The more you create a connection, the urgency goes up. As a remedy to this, more data can be brought in the form of maybe the best consultants. There are certain ways to create a sense of urgency in the team:

• Showing the seriousness and magnitude of leadership commitment to the coming change.

• Communicating the current scenario of despair to the organization.

• Making managers and employees maintain regular communication with the unsatisfied customers to understand their concerns.

• Sharing the facts and data with the organization that supports the claim that change is necessary. 

• Ensuring organizational decisions and management actions are in agreement with the change communications.

How to maintain urgency?

If success goes up, urgency goes down.  A lot of efforts are invested to maintain it. It may lead to perception in people that they are doing good, they have achieved the goals and everything is going great. There are instances of organizations where complacency just became the culture and then slowly degraded with all sorts of implications on stakeholders. It can be maintained by having an early sense-check and avoiding situations leading to a complacent organization.