Creating Sense of Urgency

7/31/2019 Creating Sense of Urgency

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In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high

esteem. One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, "Do

you know what I just heard about your friend?"

"Hold on a minute," Socrates replied. "Before telling me anything I'd like you

to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."

"Triple filter?"

"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my friend, it

might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you're going to say.

That's why I call it the triple filter test. The first filter is Truth. Have you made

absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"



"No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and…."

"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now

let's try the second filter, the filter of goodness. Is what you are about to tell

me about my friend; something good?"

"No, on the contrary..."

"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him,

but you're not certain it's true. You may still pass the test though, because

there's one filter left: the filter of usefulness. Is what you want to tell me

about my friend going to be useful to me?"



"No not really …”

"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you

want to tell me is neither true nor good noreven useful, why tell it to me at all?"

This is why Socrates was a greatphilosopher & held in such high esteem.



A global pharmaceutical company has had a more than its shareof challenges over the past few years

Sales are down, has got bad press, stock is down, complaintsabout products are up and one major customer has become verynegative

The company had a proud history Since company is in bad shape, it is expected that its HQs would

look like an army HQ in war But it shows nothing of the sort; instead of aiming at enemy

lethal weapons are aimed inwards: worker at managers,

managers at workers, sales at manufacturing etc In one on one conversations, employees admit there areproblems. Then comes the ‘Buts’

But the whole industry is having these problems. But we reallyare making some progress. But the problem is not here, its overthere in that department. But there is nothing else I can dobecause of my thickheaded boss



Typical management meeting befools all your dataregarding revenues, income, stock price, customercomplaint and morale

Reference is rarely made to any indexes of unacceptable

performances. Issues discussed are of marginal importance.Energy level is rarely high. Discussions become heated onlywhen one manager tries to grab resources from another.And every once in a while you hear someone sincerely make

a speech about how good things are. In this complacency filled organization, change initiative is

dead on arrival. Even if someone tries to discuss newapproach, within few minutes the discussion shifts to somenew amiable subject

These conditions can be found everywhere!



1. No highly visible crisis existed . The firm was not losing money. Noone had threatened a big layoff. Bankruptcy was not an issue.Employees saw no tornado-like threat.

2. The meeting was taking place in a room which screamed

“success” . The corporate HQ was the same way: marble, richwoods, deep carpets and oil paintings. The subliminal messagewas clear: we are rich, we are winners, we must be doingsomething right. So relax

3. The standards against which these managers measured themselves were far from high. It was a common saying “ profitsare up 10 percent over last year”. What was not said was thatprofits were down 30 percent from five years before and industrywide profits were nearly up 20 percent over previous one year



4. The organizational structure focused most people’sattention on narrow functional goals instead of broad business performance. Marketing had its indexes,manufacturing had a different set, personnel yet another.

Only the CEO was responsible for overall sales, net incomeand return on equity 5. Various internal planning and control systems were

rigged to make it easy for everyone to meet theirfunctional goals

6. Whatever performance feedback people received camealmost entirely from faulty internal systems. Data fromexternal stakeholders rarely went to anyone

7. When enterprising young employees went out of their wayto collect external performance feedback, they were often

treated like lepers



8. Complacency was supported by the very human tendencyto deny that which we do not want to hear

9. Those who were relatively unaffected by complacencysources mentioned above went into a false sense of

security by senior management’s “ happy talk”.

Much of the problem here is related to historical victories-for the firm, departments and individuals. Past success

reduces sense of urgency and encourages us to turninwards. For individuals it creates an ego problem and forfirms cultural.Never underestimate the magnitude of the forces that reinforce complacency and that help maintain the status quo



Increasing urgency demands removal of complacency or minimize their impact: likeeliminating signs of excess, setting higherstandards both formally in the planning andinformally in daily meetings, changinginternal measurement systems that focus on

wrong indexes; increasing the externalfeedback; rewarding honest talk and honestworkers; and stopping baseless happy talkfrom the top



1. Create a crisis by allowing a financial loss, exposingmanagers to major weaknesses vis-à-viscompetitors, or allowing errors to blow up instead of

correcting at the last minute2. Eliminate obvious examples of excess

3. Set revenue, income, productivity, customersatisfaction, and cycle-time targets so high that theycannot be reached by conducting business as usual

4. Stop measuring subunit performance based only onnarrow functional goals. Insist that more people beheld accountable for broader measures of businessperformance



5. Send more data about customers satisfaction andfinancial performance to more employees, especiallythat demonstrates weaknesses vis-à-vis thecompetition

6. Insist that people talk regularly to unsatisfiedcustomers, unhappy suppliers, and disgruntledshareholders

7. Use consultants and other means to force morerelevant data and honest discussion into

management meetings8. Put more honest discussions of the firms problemsin company newspapers and senior managementspeeches

9. Bombard people with information on future

opportunities



Visible crises can be enormously helpful in catchingpeople’s attention and pushing up urgency levels.

A Japanese entrepreneur regularly stopped his

management from becoming complacent. Just whenpeople would celebrate their achievements, he wouldset new standards which on the face of it lookeddifficult but people trusted his vision. His five yeargoals became little bombs which periodically blew uppockets of complacency.

Real leaders often create artificial crises rather thanwaiting for one to happen.

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Creating Sense of Urgency