Last week, I spent some time with some senior campus and military ministry leaders from the mid-Atlantic region of Campus Crusade for Christ. I found myself arguing for an increase in “urgency,” for the need to challenge the organizational status quo while expanding the role we play in Campus Crusade in proclaiming the gospel and bringing world change among the marginalized of society. Over the afternoon, I increasingly recognized the “rising frustration” the more I beat the drum of urgency.
“You’re asking us to make more bricks with less straw. You expect us to bring or incorporate lasting change, to work with greater urgency, to more boldly proclaim the gospel, while lovingly demonstrating the gospel among the marginalize, to cross over ethnic and socio- economic barriers, to build healthy overseas partnerships while reaching huge numbers of faculty and students, etc, etc.”
So, how do I as a leader respond to this frustration?
John Kotter, Professor of Leadership Emeritus at Harvard Business School, has argued that the first step to bringing significant change to an organization is “creating a sense of urgency among leaders and managers.” In his latest book, A Sense of Urgency, he says:
If a sense of urgency is not high enough and complacency is not low enough, everything else becomes so much more difficult. Success easily produces complacency. It doesn’t even have to be recent success. A sense of urgency is moving from an essential element in big change programs to an essential asset in general.
Kotter argues that “true urgency” is never content with the status quo, is always driven by a deep determination to move, and win, now.
Urgency is an essential asset that must be created and re-created in the organization.
In a blog post, Michael Hyatt the CEO of Thomas Nelson makes the case that urgency as a organizational value is what keeps Thomas Nelson growing, responsive, lean and mean — even as it has grown institutionally over the last 20 years. He comments:
More often than not, small companies have a sense of urgency. Why? Because their very survival is at stake. If they don’t move quickly, they get squashed by larger, more established competitors.
On the other hand, it is rare to find large companies that truly have a sense of urgency. Their circumstances rarely demand it. They can continue with business-as-usual and do pretty well. Nothing has to be done today or even this week. Nothing is really at stake—or so they think. Often, by the time they wake up, it’s too late.
And in today’s environment, he contends, no one can drift along with the status quo, assuming that growth or even survival is guaranteed. As a result, Hyatt wants “urgency” to permeate every aspect of the culture at Thomas Nelson. Such pressure to shift from the slower pace of business-as-usual to urgency is not felt only by for-profit organizations. Many of us in non-profit, kingdom enterprises and movements feel the same pressure to, as Jesus said, to “work while it is still day, for the night is coming.”
How do I as a leader “create the urgency needed to challenge the status quo” while at the same time not fueling feelings of stress and burn-out? Stress can kill a organization’s motivation and creativity, sapping the energy needed to bring change. At the same time, given that we’re interested in both organizational change and our larger kingdom call to “change the world,” is it even possible to maintain a sense of urgency over the long haul?
I’m playing with some ideas that combine Kotter’s research with Hyatt’s suggestions and then throwing those ideas up against the backdrop of the abolition of the slave trade in England (1787-1807). In that movement, the Clapham Circle successfully handled the urgency to end the slave trade, the process of gradual, hard-fought change and the long haul of cultural transformation.
See if any of these ideas help.
1. Biblical or true urgency is different than false urgency and/or complacency.
A false sense of urgency mistakes activity for productivity, it occupies itself with chores that add little value to the organizations and merely clog our calendars and thus slow down needed action. Rooted in anxiety and anger, such false urgency drives one to energetic behavior that is primarily defensive or for show. According to Kotter, it collapses after a few successes.
At the opposite end of urgency (false or true) is complacency. Complacency is a feeling of false contentment or self-satisfaction, especially in the face of trouble or danger. People are complacent or content, when they see everything as someone else’s problem, that nothing is required in their own behavior.
Biblical urgency, on the other hand, is rooted in faith, hope and love. It seeks to serve, while refusing to feel “content” with the status quo. It is always working toward making God’s future a present reality. It seeks to make the invisible visible, the far way near, and the future present.
2. True urgency occurs when the “rational cause directed toward the mind” is made experiential and a matter of the heart. Intellectual commitment is never enough, we must aim at the heart. Kotter suggests that leaders create emotionally compelling experiences–experiences that work on all the senses, not just the ears. When we engage people personally in the “sights, smells, tastes, and touches” of real engagement in our intellectually compelling cause, we capture people’s hearts, their motivations, their imagination. Such experiences make people feel that they can accomplish what is needed, that each crisis can be an opportunity.
For example, it’s ennobling to the mind to talk about the poor and the marginalized. I love to challenge people with the “needs” of the marginalized; the Scriptural case is very strong. But what’s needed is the “Experiential Effect.” I’ve read, studied, and taught for years about poverty, the AIDS crisis, etc, but I never “felt” anything until I sat in a Zimbabwean township, holding the hand of a young man dying of AIDs and praying for him. Now, the cause of the marginalized has “captured” me–it’s urgent. I’m aiming to see Christ’s kingdom win there–even if it takes forever.
I spoke to Jason Jensen recently about culture-change. Jason gives leadership to the Intervarsity movements in the western US. He shared that IV’s progress in areas of compassionate ministry only took hold when he and other leaders set time aside to “live and experience the other side of the socio-economic divide.” We can’t underestimate the power of the “Experiential Effect” to bring the changes that we’re committed to.
3. True urgency grows when “those who are inside” observe “what is happening on the outside.” Organizations, by nature, become internally focused, bureaucratic, stuck in their ways. They get disconnected from reality, from the external opportunities and hazards. They become their own little universe, circling not far from their own organizational center. Kotter suggests that organizations must strategically cross their boundaries, send scouts outside, bring in outsiders (experts, consultants, clients) to present and report. Such organizations can then become teachable again to reality, to the external data.
4. Leaders develop urgency when they embrace a real crisis and act to resolve it. A crisis causes one to move, to look, to explore solutions. Rather than “explain away” the crises that exist in the organization, leaders create urgency by opening the doors to the reality that exists while inviting those in the organization to help solve the problem. One must be wise however. The crises must be real and leaders must be open to accepting proffered solutions. Otherwise, people will feel manipulated and cynicism soon sets in.
In the face of reality, bureaucracies tend to over-assess. As Hyatt warns “analysis can easily lead to analysis for analysis sake.” The organization becomes paralyzed. To overcome this, Hyatt suggest that leaders demonstrate courage, they make a decision, they get off the dime, they do something. Urgency is modeled by fast decision-making, by leaders who willingly risk making the wrong decision. Wrong decisions are almost always better than no decision.
5. Leaders develop urgency when they tackle problems that are both external and big. Our organizations/movements must exist for problems worth giving our lives to. As such, leaders must find a way to connect with the “big” issues that are “external” to the organization. If we are not about “changing the world” in some way, we can’t challenge people to anything other than a paycheck.
6. Leaders develop urgency by creating a culture that is outcome-focused rather than task-focused. So often, bureaucracies become self-serving. Hyatt argues that hundreds of impersonal forces conspire to slow down the ability of organizations to get things done. The leader must ruthlessly identify and eliminate those obstacles. By moving toward “outcomes” and not “tasks”, the leader emphasizes the “what” and allows people room to decide the “how.”
In his new book, Linchpins, Seth Godin challenges leaders that the very last people you need on your team are “well-paid bureaucrats, note takers, literalists, manual readers, TGIF laborers, map followers and fearful employees.” Instead of the compliant masses, leaders should value “linchpins” — artists who have a genius for finding a new answer, a new connection, or a new way of getting things done.” Linchpins by nature always exhibit emotional energy and true urgency. (By the way, I just started reading this book….very challenging.)
7. Leaders help develop urgency by arguing that “cultural transformation” will take a long time. It seems counter-intuitive to invite others into give revolutionary-making urgency and energy to a “revolution that takes place in an evolutionary way.” Why is this? Part of the reason is that our “pleas for urgency and action” argue that our kingdom revolution will one day occur in a big bang way. We work hard over time “building our movements” and suddenly “pow!*&^%$*” it happened, it’s done, we’re finished.
But the reality is that our “revolution” takes place slowly, in an evolutionary way, in which 1000s of tiny revolutions take place before we “win.” If this is true, it has lots of implications. First, each tiny revolution can be celebrated and rejoiced in. Second, if it’s a 1000 tiny revolutions, I can also rest enroute. Yet, knowing that each tiny revolution is critical, I can have a sense of true urgency day to day, toward the coming, long haul, revolution. Real world change takes a long long time; it’s a bridge too far for the moment, but not ultimately a bridge too far. Each little movement toward it helps bring it near.
The Clapham Circle’s work at abolishing the slave trade, and ultimately slavery, was a “evolutionary revolution” that illustrated so many of these points.
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