This item continues our series on so-called classic business rules that can become corrupted in practice by poor leadership.
Another classic says “develop a sense of urgency.”
Yes. Everyone is in favor of cutting through imbedded bureaucratic delays. But if EVERY day is filled with meetings in which everyone seems to be flapping around, it’s not a sense of urgency you are seeing, it’s a sense of chaos. The urgent will always get in the way of the important and only a steadfast leader can prevent the “urgent” from winning this struggle day after day, to the detriment of the careful thought process needed for making key decisions.
If you see:
- Many people always walking way too rapidly through the halls, always in some helter-skelter rush to get somewhere else from which they can hurry away again
- Leaders consistently arriving late to meetings and staying distracted even after the meeting finally gets underway
- Leaders insisting that meetings end right on time (to allow time to hurry to the NEXT meeting), even though another five minutes of discussion might have produced a good decision
- People looking past individuals trying to speak to them because the other place they are looking seems urgent
…then you are seeing symptoms of an overdose on urgency.
Watch your hours spent at the job too. If you are arriving early and staying late day after day after day, you are messing up your work-life balance and you WILL eventually pay the price with your spouse and your kids and maybe your health. Nor should you think you are necessarily doing good work. Indeed, consultants tell CEOs that one of the sure signs of a leader who cannot set priorities is the person who always comes early and stays late. Who are you fooling?
Some cures? A deep breath. A laptop lid left closed. A cell phone turned off. And, especially, an unyielding respect for the person to whom you are talking NOW.