“One thing I’ve come to realize is that urgency is overrated. In fact, I’ve come to believe urgency is poisonous. Urgency may get things done a few days sooner, but what does it cost in morale? Few things burn morale like urgency. Urgency is acidic. Emergency is the only urgency. Almost anything else can wait … Continue reading “Someone else’s urgency”
“One thing I’ve come to realize is that urgency is overrated. In fact, I’ve come to believe urgency is poisonous. Urgency may get things done a few days sooner, but what does it cost in morale? Few things burn morale like urgency. Urgency is acidic.
Emergency is the only urgency. Almost anything else can wait a few days. It’s OK. There are exceptions (a trade show, a conference), but those are rare.”
Jason at Signal versus Noise
I’ve been very harsh about $BIG_COMPANY in the past but this is one thing they get right. Emergencies are all about response time and everything else happens when there’s time to do it. This means that if the business starts to lose production/manufacturing time then it’s all hands on deck. Conversely if it’s not going to have a direct effect on production/manufacturing (like getting a password reset) then it’ll happen at some point that’s otherwise hard to predict.
So while I agree that urgency is a demotivator – mostly because it’s always someone else’s urgency and they’re in your face about it – I don’t think I can agree either way.
Emergencies aside, the concept that urgency is poisonous only covers one half of the exchange. What you perceive as non-urgent might be an urgency for another person, a source of frustration and pain for their day, the start of a bad day which eventually will lead to a dinner eaten in silence. Been there, done that.
Try and make a positive difference to other people’s days. I take this theory seriously even when just driving to work: there’s no harm in slowing and letting people out in front of you or being a caring and courteous driver so you’re not causing other people stress first thing in the morning. I don’t speed, I overtake only when I need to and I’m pretty good at letting people out. As the day wears on, however, you can see the effect of a few hours of frustration. I can’t wait to get onto the main road and on the way home. I frown at people who drive carelessly and there’s a greatly reduced chance that I’ll wave you on. I just want to get home. And for the most part it’s because my priorities for the day have already been relegated to ‘non-urgent’ by someone else.
I used to get endlessly frustrated when commissioning a new building and finding that the builders were late, the sparks and plumbers late, the plasterers were slow and the painters delayed…which delayed the furniture and meant that the Technology installation would also be delayed. It caused issues with other projects but mostly the frustration was that the deadline for finishing hadn’t moved. All of these other people treated their work as non-urgent and it always seemed to be my technology team that had to recoup this difference. And every time we delivered, nomatter the personal costs.
I see this in software development as well. The software engineers are delayed because they don’t have the hardware or compilers. This delays the testing and QA. But the release date never slips. You just end up having inadequate QA and testing. And you thought there was a mystery about why most software sucks?
In my own company I understand the urgencies of the customer. Which is why we bought extra equipment for customers who needed a loaner machine due to a pending deadline. But getting access to it required staying calm, dispelling of hyperbole and as little self-entitlement and whining as possible.
Take ownership of urgency. Especially the urgency of others.