BOOK REVIEW
A Sense of Urgency is a very practical guide for any employee, at any level, who feels the need to effect positive change in her or his organization. John P. Kotter, the author of this book is well known on his writing on leadership and change. This is one of his book which is highlighted about the importance of having sense of urgency at first place considering the unexpected atmosphere or situation that happen nowadays, be it in organization or society at large. Complacency or a feeling of calm satisfaction is the cause that prevents someone from trying harder and being stagnant in fast moving world will lead to great harm.
According to Kotter at earlier part of the book, the biggest mistake is the failure to create a high enough sense of urgency among enough people to create sufficient momentum to bring the change. The biggest enemies to create a sense of urgency are complacency and false urgency, which happens when people act fast without being productive.
True urgency can be increase by creating action that is exceptionally alert, externally oriented, and making some progress each and every day. It is necessary to win the heart of the people apart from their mind and this can be done by sending people outside such as sending them to join conferences or seminars, gathering data about the external world, behaving with urgency by way of example, finding opportunities in crisis, and removing or neutralizing opponents of change.
Align with that, in chapter 4, the author share with readers about the story of Sam Walton, who is the owner of Wal-Mart. He is a successful entrepreneur by using an approach of visiting a frontline employee or to the lower level personnel who interface with customers and he asks questions about customer and their reaction or feedback to their products or services.
Based on John Kotter's extensive experience with companies and their leaders, the book provides the reasons why very smart people can become complacent, slow down change or sabotage efforts to bring about necessary changes. The book also provides a list of actions one can take to counter these negative forces, while also providing guidance on being alert of "false urgency" where people undertake non-productive activities in the hope that their actions will be seen by others as productive.
In page 58 & 59 of this book, Kotter provides four core tactics for driving urgency into an organization.
- Bring the outside in
- Behave with urgency every day
- Find opportunity in crisis
- Deal with NoNo's
Based on his writing, his ideas apply more to governments, but his examples are all from the commercial world. He spends some time pitching his other books like ‘Leading Change’ and ‘Our Iceberg is Melting’.
The author suggests that we should take a more aggressive approach with our thought processes, instead of worrying about crisis, we should embrace it. Urgency is the highly positive and focused forces that give people the determination to move and win now.
People on the board or senior leadership of a company or organization are highly recommended to read this book.