JOHN P.

KOTTER
 Urgency means “of pressing importance”.

 People have a true sense or urgency when they

think that action on critical issues is needed now
and not eventually, when it fits easily into schedule.

Now means making real progress every single day.

Critically important means challenges that are central to
success or survival, winning or losing.
 Eg: A sense of urgency is not an attitude that I must
have the project team meeting today, but that the
meeting must accomplish something important
today.
 A real sense of urgency is a highly positive
and highly focused force.

 It is believed people cannot maintain a high sense

of urgency over a prolonged period of time, without
burnout.
 But true urgency doesn’t produce stress, because it
motivates people to look for ways to get rid of
irrelevant activities.
 Complacency is “ a feeling of contentment or
self satisfaction, especially when coupled with an
unawareness of danger or trouble”.

Feeling : Complacency is less a matter of
conscious, rational analysis than unconscious emotion.


Self: It is possible to see problems and be complacent
because you do not feel that the problems require
changes in your actions.
 They never think they are complacent.
 Content with the status quo; irrationally afraid
of the personal consequences of change.
 Do not alertly look for new opportunities
or hazards facing their organization.
 They do what has worked for them in the past.
 Who can be complacent? You, me, any one!
 Result of failures or some form of intense pressure that is
put on a group.
 Those with a false sense of urgency do not think that all
is well; they think the situation they are in is a mess.
 Tend to be very anxious, angry, frustrated and tired.
 Behave in ways that can easily be mistaken for people
with a real sense of urgency because they are very active.

But the action is much more activity than productivity.

 Who can have a false sense of urgency? You, me

or anyone!!
 Just as with people who are
complacent, those with a false sense
of urgency often don’t see it!!
Example 1:

A technology enterprise company with products in

the general arena called data warehousing. The firm
had been very successful, but margins and market
share were slipping. The enterprise had lost its
industry leadership in technological breakthroughs,
especially in the application of emerging
nanotechnologies to its products.
 The executive committee asked consulting companies to
submit proposals, 4 months later a consultant was
chosen and 9 months later, consultant submitted a draft
of new strategy for the enterprise.

 The CEO created a task force of which only 2 out of the

top 10 people were members. CEO was not a member.

 The members of the task force met for the first time 4 weeks
after they were constituted.
 At the first meeting, the discussion was on whether the strategy
was the right one rather than on how to implement it. No one said
they didn’t understand why they were in the committee or they
didn’t understand the 100-page document submitted by the
consultant.

 No decision was made at the first task force meeting except that
it must have another meeting. They set a time in 4 weeks to meet
again.
st nd
 Between the 1 and 2 meeting, very little happened except
behind-the-scene chatter about why those on the task force were
selected and why the specific consulting firm was chosen. Nobody
acted, only complained.
 nd
 At the 2 meeting, a sub-task force was created for
communication of the new strategy, no discussion was
there on what should be communicated.

nd
 6 months after the 2 task force meeting, margins
and market share continued to slip.
Example 2

Caroline works for a smaller version of the data warehousing
company. Her firm recently faced a challenge equally as
difficult as the one faced by the other larger firm.

At Caroline’s level in the company, there was an odd
mixture of frustration, arrogance and a tendency to blame
other departments or senior management for any perceived
problems.

Caroline met the Chief Administrative Officer(CAO) who was the
most open minded and least status conscious.
 Over the next 3 weeks, CAO met with people at Caroline’s
level over informal lunches.
 He frequently visited other buildings and asked for recent
written reports with outside data.
 He then cancelled a trip to Europe and had a long dinner with
the CEO.
 An alarmed CEO rearranged his schedule to allow for a series of
lunches, meetings and examination of reports which would
never have reached his level in the firm.
 The rest is history, as they say, coming from CEO and CAO, a
sense of urgency began to rise with surprising speed.
“Great leaders win over the hearts and minds of others”

Aim for the heart

The winning strategy combines an analytically

sound, ambitious, but logical goals with methods that
help people experience those goals as exciting,
meaningful and uplifting.
Tactics that aim for the heart, and successfully increase urgency, have
5 characteristics:

Thoughtfully created human experiences.

Not only told, but shown.

Designed to make change-weary, cynical people believe that a
crisis might be a blessing in disguise.

Don’t need to be explicit.

Almost inevitably raise our sights to emotionally embrace goals
beyond status quo and coping with a difficult situation.
At the annual top management meeting of a well-
known company, 2 division managers were both on
the agenda to make speeches. The audience was
about 150 of their peers, their subordinates, as well
as their boss.
Manager 1 walked to the podium with his notes. He asked for
the lights to go down and he began his speech. A new
information-rich power point appeared every 30 to 60
seconds. Many slides were filed with numbers and charts. He
rd
looked at his notes for 1/3 of the time, the slides another
third and what he could see of the audience the final third.
Manager 2 was noticeably more nervous. He put his notes
down and stood beside the podium. When the lights went
down, he made a joke out of it and received a chuckle out
of the audience. He asked the lights to be turned up and
then went on to speak for an hour with very little, almost
10% of data of previous presentation.

He talked about markets, what a customer recently told him

which left him upset and about how he thought of early
retirement but dropped the idea because he wanted to retire
a winner, which he damned well planned on doing. He ended
and received the longest applause heard at the meeting.
The best data-backed plan may raise little urgency in a
company whose very successes have left it complacent that
most people are not looking for, and are not inclined to
listen to, a new plan.
 Tactic based on the observation that organizations of any
size or age tend to be too internally oriented. A disconnect
between what insiders see, feel and think and external
opportunities and hazards, reduces an organization’s
sense of urgency. Complacency grows.
 Recognize the pervasive problem of internal focus.

Past successes.

 Listen to customer-interfacing employees.


Faith in them.

Treat them with respect.

Asking questions and listening closely to answers and
never giving up.
 Use the power of video.

 Don’t always shield people from troubling data


Top management may try to initiate significant changes based
on the data they have but others may not have.

 Redecorate (example)

 Send people out.

 Bring people in
 Bring “data” in, but in the right way.

“Clipping service” sending relevant information in decent
volumes in the most interesting manner to as many
people as possible.

 Watch out that you don’t create a false sense

of urgency.
 Respond fast, move now!

Example:
Ninan runs 3 small offices in India.His firm’s business is
outsourcing. The co’s competitive advantage in the
global market place is that it has a relatively inexpensive
and yet educated young workforce that speaks English.
 Ninan sees new competition emerging constantly and fears that
complacency is a looming problem. In conversations, meetings
and e-mails, Ninan constantly demonstrates his own sense of
urgency.

 Some one calls to ask for info on a critical issue and Ninan says
he’ll send by the end of working day tomorrow, even though the
other person did not request that speed.

 At the conclusion of a meeting which seems to fly by, he tells the

others what he will be doing over the next 7 days to implement
their decisions. He is very concrete. Then he asks each of the
others in the meeting what they will do over the next 7 days.
 He tags onto e-mail after e-mail some comment, perhaps
only a sentence, about how the competition is trying to offer
better service.

 If some one asks “ when can we talk about” an important

subject, more often than not he says “ how about now?”

 People who dare to open their appointment books and say

there’s no possibility to meet any time soon receive a
glaring look from their boss.

 He’s not mean; he praises, speaks of opportunities

and emphasizes pride.
 Be visibly urgent

 Urgent patience
 Always think of crises as potential opportunities, and
not only dreadful problems that automatically must be
delegated to the damage control specialists.
 Avoid the following mistakes:

Assume that the crises will inevitably create a sense of
urgency to perform better.

Going over the line with a strategy that creates an angry
backlash because people feel manipulated.

Passively sitting and waiting for a crisis which may never
come; act with urgency every day.

Underestimating what the people who would avoid
crises at all costs correctly appreciate: that crises can
bring disaster.
NoNos are highly skilled urgency killers. If they can’t do that,
they create anxiety or anger and the flurry of useless activity
associated with a false sense of urgency.

Wrong Approach:

Don’t waste time trying to co-opt a NoNo.

Never ignore the NoNos.
What can be done:

Distract the NoNos.

Get rid of them.

Immobilize them with social pressures.
Case Study

A healthcare company.


When they began, nearly everyone in the company
was willing to change because of the threat of being
closed down.


As they became more and more successful, they kept
the momentum from slowing by comparing themselves
with similar health care companies.
 When they started to lead the field, things started
getting complacent.

 Now they have started the idea of looking at themselves

“from the investors’ point of view”
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