Urgency is important for long term survival in a rapidly changing environment. Complacency is the enemy of urgency. Leaders must help organizations embrace urgency through recognizing opportunities for change, bringing external perspectives inside, and maintaining urgency even after successes to prevent complacency from setting in. Without sustained urgency, companies will struggle to adapt and remain competitive.

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The Importance of Urgency
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD8xKv2ur_s

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John P Kotter
 Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School
 Authority on Leadership and Change
 Authored 18 books (12 are best sellers)
 Empower broad-based action
 Develop a guiding coalition
 Develop a vision for change
 Make it stick in the organizational culture

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A Sense of Urgency
 Published 2008
 9 Chapters
 It all starts with a sense of urgency
 Complacency and false urgency
 Increasing true urgency
 Tactic one, two, three, four
 Keeping urgency up
 The future

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Main Purpose of Video
 Discussion of the importance of urgency in an organization and
how managers can create and sustain it to enable meaningful
change

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The Key Question
 Why is urgency important to a company’s long term survival?

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The Most Important Information
 Urgency= A combination of thoughts feelings and the actual
behavior
 Thoughts= Opportunities
 Feelings= Gut level determination to succeed
 Behavior= Hyper alertness and coming to work each day with a
commitment to make an impact on the important issues
 Determination that is smart and wins
 Why urgency: Because of the rate of change

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The Most Important Information
 Where does urgency come from?
 It is not natural because organizations tend to stabilize while people
are the actual creators of urgency
 Most of the time urgency comes from the top but there are many
stories where it came from anywhere in the organization

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Example/Story
 26 year old hero
 Smart enough to see the complacency
 Seeks out a senior level leader who will listen
 Sr leader investigate further and sees what she’s telling him
 Momentum builds and CEO continues to champion the
urgency.

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The Most Important Information
 How do we embrace and recognize the need for urgency?
 You need to “See It”: Understand the rate of change, recognize
complacency, and activity is not equal to urgency
 Bring the outside in: the disconnect between what is happening
outside the company (opportunities and threats) and what is seen
and felt inside can cause complacency

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The Most Important Information
 How do you maintain urgency?
 Success can be an urgency killer
 We won- lets reap the reward
 Complacency becomes the culture
 Even small successes can kill off urgency
 You need to work at urgency.

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Main Inferences/Conclusions
 Without urgency a company will struggle to maintain
competitiveness given the rate of change
 Rigor and processes that enable a culture of urgency are
needed