No Sense of Urgency

Dan Ciampa wrote a piece for The Conference Board Review on "No Sense of Urgency." It paralleled my thoughts on so many things that I wanted to address.

He talks about lack of urgency from the perspective of a new CEO, but you don't have to be CEO to recognize this feeling in your organization. Ciampa suggests that urgency fades away as people lose confidence about having any impact on the problems they face. Also, he states that success can work against urgency - as the employees without the "entitlement mentality" give up on urging changes and improvements and leave. Innovation slows down as organizational structures expand.

Ciampa points to some fundamental principles underlying any change in organizational urgency:

• Become a student of behavior change - for a new sense of urgency you need a critical mass of people willing to change comfortable habits.
• The top group must be of one mind on the diagnosis and the cure.
• Don't avoid making changes at the top - some senior-level people, who are blocking the ability of the organization to move on, may have to be replaced in order for things to improve.
• Find examples from which to learn. Hold up examples in your own organization.
• Identify learning needs and barriers to learning early in the process.
• Eliminate the fear of making mistakes and encourage experimenting.
• Get the right help and use it wisely. Be discriminating in seeking help and define precisely the types of advice needed and kinds of advisers best suited to these needs.
• Become "That kind of place".
  Make it evident to everyone in the organization that urgency is a real priority. Be prepared to clearly visualize what an "urgent organization" looks like.

Based on my experience I would add a few points:

• Identify the false assumptions on which the complacency is built. Will the funding stream continue indefinitely? Will customers continue to purchase more and more products?
• In education and non-profit organizations it is often impossible to have one culture around urgency that fits every program embedded in the organization. How will you deal with varying demands for urgency from varying programs?
• Funders - taxpayers, grantmakers, customers - have not yet learned how to effectively demand urgency for their investment...but they will.

I believe we are past time for opening a wide discussion on urgency and we should do it now.