The Wrap: Read This Column Right Now. It's Urgent.
Richard Warner
August 25, 2008
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I
n almost 30 years of interviewing CEOs of big companies, I have an observation about
something that keeps many of them up at night.
Take John Rice. Rice was running GE Energy when he was a guest on our show and said something that sounded awfully familiar to CEOs of much smaller companies. “I want my people to operate like they might not make payroll next week. I focus on creating a culture of urgency.”
Of course Rice, who is mentioned as a potential heir to Chairman Jeff Immelt at GE, was never in danger of missing payroll. But he was right: urgency is one of the most pressing issues facing every company, particularly during a slowdown.
What does “urgency” involve? It’s not just about dressing down your team because they missed a deadline or scheduling an early morning meeting tomorrow because your account execs missed last month’s numbers. Those are symptoms.
Urgency must exist across the organization. It’s proactive and customer-focused. It must be sustained. It requires measurement, and above all, it requires consequences.
Urgency starts with the CEO being clear about where the company is going, setting performance targets and timeframes. But a CEO’s proclamations aren’t enough. A culture of urgency is fostered and maintained among teams that do the work.
They must have the knowledge about why urgency is required and they must be rewarded for delivering it.
Transparency is a vital component of urgency. Managers have to give and take clear, honest feedback, and employees have to give that kind of feedback to each other.
Interviewing the winners of last year’s Catalyst Awards for fastest growing privately held Atlanta companies, I was struck by how many use peer pressure to maintain a culture of urgency. Employees take the lead role in policing the performance of their colleagues.
Yes, sometimes fear can be used to jump start a culture of urgency, but fear will only take you so far. Working in a complacent Atlanta TV newsroom some years ago, I watched as management brought in a harsh new news director who promised to “drop a bomb” on the place.
For his first few months on the job, he created that sense of urgency — even panic — among reporters and editors by using threats and intimidation. The sign over his desk read, “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”
But his approach didn’t work for long and in less than a year he was gone, off to drop bombs elsewhere.
Urgency must be pervasive at your company. It has to exist more often than just the last few days of the month when you’re trying to make your sales quota.
It’s sad to pass by a retailer that’s shutting its doors; read about a once-mighty car company that’s ending the health care benefits it promised to retirees; or have friends who are caught in rounds of layoffs.
Chances are pretty good, though, none of them worked for John Rice. Because over there at GE Energy, they’re urgent.
Richard Warner hosts “Georgia’s Business” on GPTV and is CEO of What’s Up Interactive.
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