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Apr
21
A Sense of Urgency
Filed Under Leadership, Reading Room
We are much too complacent. And we don’t even know it.
—John P. Kotter
Although familiar with John P. Kotter and his best-selling books Leading Change and Our Iceberg Is Melting, I am finally getting around to immersing myself in some of his genius. Kotter’s latest book, A Sense of Urgency, is both accessible and actionable, even if I can’t relate to all of his big biz stories and examples. After all, he is a professor of leadership at that place.
If you don’t have time to read A Sense of Urgency, it’s definitely worth skimming. Everything, says Kotter, must start with a true sense of urgency. Like most wisdom, the big idea here is not breathtaking. It’s the implementation of such wisdom that separates the wise from the weary.
The Strategy
Create action that is exceptionally alert, externally oriented, relentlessly aimed at winning, making some progress each and every day, and constantly purging low value-added activities—all by always focusing on the heart and not just the mind.
Kotter suggests four tactics to increase a true sense of urgency:
1. Bring the Outside in
Reconnect internal reality with external opportunities and hazards. Bring in emotionally compelling data, people, video, sites, and sounds.
2. Behave with Urgency Every Day
Never act content, anxious, or angry. Demonstrate your own sense of urgency always in meetings, one-on-one interactions, memos, and email and do so as visible as possible to as many people as possible.
3. Find Opportunity in Crises
Always be alert to see if crises can be a friends, not just a dreadful enemy, in order to destroy complacency. Proceed with caution, and never be naïve, since crises can be deadly.
4. Deal with the NoNos
Remove or neutralize all the relentless urgency-killers, people who are not skeptics but are determined to keep a group complacent or, if needed, to create destructive urgency.
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2 Responses to “A Sense of Urgency”
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Good post, Brad – you’ve sold me on checking out the book! I particularly like the first point about using emotionally compelling data, imagery, etc to inspire the necessary action towards the end goal.
Brad,
Kotter’s stuff is great! I read “Leading Change” while I was in seminary, but re-discovered him when I picked up “Our Iceberg is Melting” while stuck in an airport with a weather delay. I
finished reading it and was convinced he was describing my church! His counsel is right on.
The role of the leader (pastor) is to be a broker of reality, and part of that is helping folk see reality as it really is, and sometimes you have to generate some urgency to make that happen.
The one dimension in leadership within the church that must be factored in that Kotter does not discuss (for obvious reasons) is the leadership of the Holy Spirit. We should not be creating urgency for urgency’s sake. But when the Spirit creates urgency, then it’s His time to reveal the next necessary step to be taken as we seek to follow the God who is on mission in the world.