Jamie's Blog

Kotter presents a compelling case about the need for a sense of urgency in competitive and high-performance organizations. In creating this sense of urgency, when it does not occur naturally, it’s critical to distinguish true urgency from complacency and false urgency. True urgency has distinguishing characteristics that make it different from complacency and false urgency. While complacency is easier to detect, false urgency and true urgency often get mixed up. The easiest way to discover false urgency is in the morale and organizational effects which are present. False urgency tends to create more negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, and fear.

Assuming you agree with the arguments for the need of a sense of urgency, steps to produce and nurture that sense are also included. The steps include: increasing external awareness, behaving with urgency, leveraging crises, and removing irrational opposition. One of the points stressed again and again is the need to affect hearts as well as minds. Indeed, Kotter recommends focusing at least as much on morale as on other intellectual considerations.

Lastly, Kotter warns of the dangers of success to maintaining urgency. Successes, especially resounding ones, naturally beget complacency. Rather than allowing this to happen, the leadership must be proactive in setting new goals and targets. The momentum that urgency creates is important to cultivate and preserve.

This book is a quick read, and is instructive for those in leadership positions (and even those who are not). It is especially useful for organizations going through or considering organizational changes, and considers organizational morale as a key aspect to change.

Chapter 8: Keeping Urgency Up

• high urgency has potential for high-performance
• sustained urgency must be constantly recreated
• must be conscious effort or deeply ingrained in culture
• unambiguous success yields complacency
• urgency up, success; urgency down, a mess
  • people can become frustrated, “why won’t they let up?”
• the problem with short term successes
  • example of getting passengers to push a bus once, then twice
• anticipate the problem, use the strategy, choose the right tactics
  • mix things up
  • bring in external stakeholders
  • avoid anger, fear, and anxiety
• keeping urgency up: a success cost
• drive it into the culture
  • keeping urgency up after a success (186)
    • anticipate possible downturn in urgency
    • plan for solution
    • when urgency starts to dip
      • bring outside in
      • act urgently in new and fresh ways
      • create crisis
      • deal with NoNos

Purchase From Amazon: A Sense of Urgency

Chapter 7: Tactic 4, Dealing with NoNos

• NoNo from Our Iceberg Is Melting
• the NoNo problem
  • NoNos are not skeptics
  • very dangerous to change
  • Comparison table NoNo v Skeptic (148-149)
    • past experiences
    • desired data
    • use of data
    • how active or passive
    • bottom line
• Don’t waste time trying to co-opt a NoNo
  • they will hem and haw and stall the process
  • they will refute all data while appearing to be a part of the process
• Never ignore the NoNos
  • will use indirect personal channels to stall process
  • will introduce opposition covertly
• Distract the NoNos
  • Give them other projects
  • Move them away from the action
  • Assign a loyal person to keep them busy
  • flowchart including danger of NoNos (p. 160)
• Get Rid of Them
  • Fire, ask for resignation, demote, reassign, reorganize
• Immobilize them through social pressures
  • Stuffed penguin
  • Acknowledge and make public NoNo behavior

Purchase From Amazon: A Sense of Urgency

Chapter 6: Tactic Three, Find Opportunity in Crises

• many want to avoid crises, but may be opportunity
• “burning platform” (120)
• avoid and control crises but watch out
  • damage control impt but tends to remove opp for creating urgency
• use a crisis to create urgency, but watch out
  • crises provide opp to affect organizational morale, heart and head
  • Example, Irene Goodwin, mkt mgr, used crisis to affect departmental change
    • Plan for the crisis, including reactions and effects
• create a crisis–maybe
  • write-down of airline balance sheet holdings
  • charismatic CEO
  • stretch goals
  • change needed to resolve it must not be simple
  • crisis yields real business problems
• know and avoid 4 dangerous mistakes
  • assuming crises will create sense of urgency
  • angry backlash due to feelings of manipulation
  • passively awaiting crises
  • underestimating consequences of disaster
• the bottom line
  • principles to create true urgency
    • crises as opportunities
    • crises do not automaticall reduce complacency
    • crises reducing complacency must be “visible, unambiguous, related to real business problems, ” and not easily solvable.
    • be proactive in reaction, plans for action, and swift implementation
    • focus on hearts at least as much as minds
    • don’t passively wait for crises
    • careful losing control and being manipulative
    • work with people higher in the org

Purchase From Amazon: A Sense of Urgency

Chapter 5: Tactic Two, Behave With Urgency Every Day

• Respond fast, move now
  • Ninan, manager in Indian outsourcing firm
    • Discusses market and competition frequenty
    • Shows urgency in actions, not just words
• The norm, un-urgent behavior
  • the norm in hospital administration
  • boss must model behavior
• clear the decks
  • delegation
  • cutting the cruft
  • emphasis on high-value projects/meetings
• be visibly urgent
  • tech plant manager
  • small talk to build rapport
  • 2000 hrs on factory floor
• urgency begets urgency
• behave with true urgency
  • purge and delegate
  • move with speed
  • speak with passion
  • match words and deeds
  • let them all see it
• urgent patience
  • urgency requires focus on now, but some change takes years

Purchase From Amazon: A Sense of Urgency

Chapter 4: tactic one, bring the outside in

• “organizations…tend to be too internally oriented” (63)
• listen to customer facing employees
  • trust that they’re intelligent
  • respect
  • ask questions, listen
• use the power of video
  • shows naked human emotion
  • “show them, don’t tell them”
• don’t always shield people from troubling data
  • reasons for resisting disclosure
    1. believe people are dumb
    2. worry about blame
    3. negative stock effects
    4. worry about hurt morale
• redecorate
• send people out
• bring people in
• bring data in, but in the right way
• watch out that you dont create a false sense of urgency

Purchase From Amazon: A Sense of Urgency

Chapter 3: Increasing True Urgency

• business case
• how and why a business case fails
  • pitfalls in solely intellectual buy-in
• aim for the heart
  • better at affecting behavior
  • MLK used rhetoric to affect hearts
  • Tactics that aim at the heart
    1. human experiences
    2. effective experiences, seeing, feeling
    3. tailored emotional reaction
    4. unexplained experiences
    5. lead to increasing the bar
• an example of the basic strategy
  • keep the lights on
  • don’t use a podium
  • no spotlight (keep lights on)
  • minimize the powerpoint
  • humor
  • ingratiate yourself with audience
  • use anecdotes
  • don’t be too perfect in speaking ability
  • importance of capturing emotion often understated in class
• the tactics
  • bring the outside in “dramatically bring outside reality into groups” too introspective (58)
  • “behave with true urgency…every day” (58)
  • “find opportunity in crises” (61)
  • confront naysayers

Purchase From Amazon: A Sense of Urgency

Chapter 2: Complacency and False Urgency

• Complacency
  • feeling
  • self
  • ignorance
  • origin? perceived success
  • how do they think? do not acknowledge complacency
  • feel? content with status quo?
  • behave? “do not alertly look for new opportunities or hazards facing their organizations” (21)
• false urgency
  • different than complacency
  • driven by anxiety, anger, and fear
  • wasted time
  • passive aggression
  • conflict creation
  • failed change attempts
• look for red flags – how to spot lack of urgency
  1. slow action
  2. lack of executive involvement
  3. failure to make time
  4. apathetic or guarded responses
  5. lack of commitment
  6. lack of action, responsibility
  7. excessive bureaucracy
  8. panic, busy-work, lack of focus
• useful questions list (32)
• help others see the problem, including bosses
• solution to urgency problem can be a single person who sees complanency and is willing to act

Purchase From Amazon: A Sense of Urgency

Chapter 1: It All Starts With a Sense of Urgency

• complacency, false sense of urgency
• cultivating a true sense of urgency
• table comparing complacency, false urgency, and true urgency in following dimensions
  • roots
  • think
  • feel
  • behavior
• constant change in business, and the lack of true urgency
• starting with urgency
  1. a sense of urgency
  2. guiding team
  3. visions and strategies
  4. communication
  5. empowerment
  6. short-term wins
  7. perseverance
  8. making change stick

Purchase From Amazon: A Sense of Urgency