Continuous Urgency
Today I finished reading A Sense of Urgency by John P. Kotter, which makes the case that urgency is the single most important factor in any change initiative. While you may or may not like Kotter's writing — I thought it was concise and easily understood, some colleagues found it too dry — the book has excellent information that is worthwhile for anyone trying to bring about change in a group. For me, the most thought-provoking chapter was about sustaining urgency in an organization over time. It was also the part of the book that raised the most danger signals for me as information that could bring about a lot of damage without a more holistic view than the book presents.
Most of the book complements Mavenspire's fundamental tenets of transformation well. Kotter discusses the need for urgency, the desire and will for change, to lead the charge. While it isn't explicitly stated as such, major change is again and again portrayed in the book as a series of small changes all addressing the same end goal, leading to a final, significant transformation. Kotter stresses the personnel aspect, understanding how each person will react and planning how to channel that effectively. He also emphasizes that any person at any level in an organization can be a driving force of urgency and help raise the urgency in an organization to a level that can lead to real change.
When Kotter addresses the need to continue urgency after a major success and the difficulty in avoiding complacency, I began to get some uncomfortable twinges. That isn't to say he isn't absolutely correct — the natural tendency is to relax, celebrate, and regroup after success. People and groups generally feel a sense of relief, and they begin to settle into comfortable complacency about what they've accomplished. That complacency translates into a reluctance to upset the status quo again and an increasing inward focus. All of this can be, if not disastrous, certainly limiting for an organization. Hitting a major goal can end up derailing the path of transformation that leads from that goal on to the next, and then the next, and still the next after that.
What Kotter doesn't address, for the very good reason that it isn't central to the point he is making in the book, is that people need to have breaks from change. When people or organizations continue to change and change and change, they become unbalanced. The best description I know of for this need to alternate change with stability is in Dr. David Schnarch's book Passionate Marriage (another excellent book to read, although on a totally different topic). Schnarch describes the cycle of change and rest as the inner and outer circle. When moved to do so by internal or external pressures, people spend time on the outer circle, pushing boundaries and trying new things; the outer circle is equivalent to Kotter's urgency. However, after time on the outer circle, it is equally important that people spend time on the inner circle. This is where you consolidate your gains, enjoy the rewards of change, and restore your equilibrium. This is a necessary part of the cycle of change, not an unfortunate and ill-timed departure from it. This behavior is healthy, natural, and beneficial, to the individual as well as the organization. Change must be sought, found, and assimilated.
The question left is, of course, how does an organization follow Kotter's prescription for success — developed from his undeniably vast experience — without sacrificing the human need for cessation of change, for rest from transformation and urgency? Kotter himself states more than once that there aren't really continuously urgent organizations out there now, always on the lookout for change and constantly sounding the battle cry of urgency. The only way I can imagine this working is to raise the level of urgency high across the entire breadth and width of the organization. This won't happen at exactly the same level at exactly the same time; the urgency will likely peak in one group or department before it does in others. After a victory, someone will need to look for and find another cause for urgency, something worth energy and focus and devotion. This will also ripple through the organization, peaking in different groups at different times. Over time, a pattern would develop of waxing and waning urgency in any single department or group while the organization as a whole remains urgent throughout. This gives everyone time in the inner circle, to celebrate and consolidate, and maintains a higher level of energy and outer circle focus overall.
Any framework, particularly one that is reasonably simple, will have holes in the details that can undermine it in real-world application. This doesn't mean the framework is bad. Kotter's framework is excellent and I'm working hard to use it in my life and company every day. It does mean what we probably all know, at least on some level, already — simple answers are never as simple when you really apply them.