Balancing Urgency and Overdrive

It is finally spring here in the Rocky Mountains.   Back in the east, spring unfolds slowly.  The forsythia blooms in February.  You start to see crocus and daffodils in March.  By April the fruit trees are flowering and by Mother’s Day, the dogwoods and azaleas are in full bloom.

Spring is very different at an altitude of 8700 feet in Colorado.  Two weeks ago our aspens and lilacs barely had buds.  Today everything is gloriously green and the lilacs are literally unfolding their flowers right before our eyes.

The difference in the two springs has me thinking about speed and urgency.  The trees and flowers here know that they only have a few weeks to execute so they make the most of every minute.

Earlier this spring, I volunteered on a committee that organized a large community event in less than 6 weeks.  Initially, I and others in the group felt stressed and overwhelmed with the short time frame.  In the end, not only did we pull off a great event, but I learned that the short time frame actually helped.  We knew would couldn’t just meet and talk endlessly – we actually had to act . . . fast.  We kept meetings short and focused. We each committed to action items and we followed through.  We acted with urgency.

Change expert John Kotter has written extensively about how leaders need to instill a similar sense of urgency in order to lead change successfully. Urgency is a sense of pressing importance.  As Kotter writes, “A real sense of urgency is a highly positive and highly focused force.”

The challenge, I believe, is finding the right balance between urgency and overdrive.

As I’ve written about previously, overdrive is the state of dysfunctional momentum caused when leaders put extreme pressure on their people to get things done faster and with fewer resources.  Researchers have found that overdrive ultimately causes individual and company performance to suffer.  In my work on change initiatives, I find that overdrive causes leaders to miss or ignore key problems, to skip the critical communication and engagement phases, and to plow over resistance.

So how do you create a sense of urgency without pushing your organization into overdrive?  Kotter provides many specific guidelines and suggestions in his book, A Sense of Urgency.  It’s a quick and enjoyable read and one I highly recommend for all leaders.

But if you don’t have the time to read the book just yet, start by staying focused on no more than one to three specific and clear goals.  Every day communicate the importance of the goals, ask what progress is being made, reward progress and proactively investigate problems, listen, and address barriers.

In addition, I recommend having explicit conversations with your people about the speed with which you and they are operating.  One technique that works well is to draw a long line on whiteboard.  Label the far left with the word, “complacency”.  Label a middle/right point with the word “urgency” and the far right with the word “overdrive”.  Invite people to place a dot or an X with where they feel the team or organization is.  Talk openly about the results.  Doing so will help you and your team and/or organization operate in a state of energized alignment.

For more on this topic, see my previous posts on Avoiding Overdrive and Is Your Team Psyched Up and In Sync?

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