I’ve been thinking a lot about urgency lately and how it’s a wonderful diagnostic tool for assessing the quality of human dynamics in an organization. Sometimes, it’s important to respond quickly to an unexpected issue or problem; that’s the nature of urgency, right?
That’s not the urgency I’m talking about here, though. Urgency is often triggered in an organization for many reasons. Over time, it becomes clear that the issue isn’t really urgent! As we all know, this can cause a host of problems. Fortunately, there are some questions to help us identify the patterns around the “crisis.”
What’s the source of urgency?
Urgency often comes from outside the organization, triggered by a dynamically changing external environment. However, urgency also emerges from inside the organization. When it comes from an internal source, I often ask a few key questions:
- How often do last-minute requests come from this individual or department?
- Is it a regular occurrence based on particular timing or seasonality?
- Does the problem reflect a capacity issue?
Often, urgency reflects a lack of planning or overwork that leads to last-minute execution. Sometimes, it’s created by a lack of systemic thinking in the department or organization.
The answers to these questions help me see specific patterns around urgency. From there, I can assess where the organization needs to strengthen its capacity. There are always some points of urgency that occur. However, urgency often happens as part of a pattern created by two or three key areas of the organization. Often, it’s a symptom of other issues under the surface, creating problems for the organization.
What is the impact on our people?
A crisis comes with a tremendously high cost to an organization. When something urgent gets inserted into an already-packed schedule, it has a huge impact. Our people are pulled off their primary focus (and purpose) for hours, days, weeks, or even months, depending on the issue and its complexity.
Urgency disrupts workflow and creates higher stress for people as they seek to respond to and resolve the issue. Sadly, this can create a “long tail” effect on an employee. They might lose sleep over it. They might tire as they work longer hours as part of their response. They could be forced to bring in more team members to help, spreading the problem’s short—and long-term impacts throughout the department.
What does a false sense of urgency cost?
I pay close attention when I suspect an individual or department is creating a false sense of urgency. Perhaps regular requests with constricted deadlines are impacting the team’s regular work. Maybe the requests are unclear, requiring more time to clarify them. There could be a lot of drama and/or dysfunction around specific issues that create additional stress in addition to time.
When I see these kinds of dynamics, I again turn to questions to help reveal the true source of the issue.
- Is this about the individual triggering the problem? Does someone want to wield power in an organization? One way to assert power and control is to attach directives with an urgent timeline or send a time-consuming request.
- Is the urgent request designed to disrupt and add chaos to the organization? A specific pattern of urgent requests is often designed to slow change or even resist the larger organization’s evolution.
- How is the situation distracting the team and wasting resources? False crises can majorly impact an organization’s focus on purpose and attainment of strategic goals.
Unfortunately, people’s egos can play a massive role in patterns where false urgency is generated regularly (even constantly!). Understanding how these fake crises serve others and their departments is essential.
The definition of false urgency
A coaching client of mine once shared her definition of urgency. It resonated deeply with me, and I’ll paraphrase it here:
False urgency is when the people creating the urgency are very calm and centered while everyone else in the organization is tearing their hair out.
If this describes your organizational dynamic, use the questions here to investigate further. Try to determine if the urgency is a symptom of a deeper issue. Doing so could prevent your organization from missing crucial opportunities or becoming incredibly distracted from its strategic goals and core purpose.
