A Sense of Urgency

Have you ever come up against collective inertia with respect to a change project? Or conversely, have you ever experienced a frenzy of action that still doesn’t manage to produce the desired results? According to John P. Kotter, these two classic challenges are two sides of the same coin, namely, the lack of a real “sense of urgency,” i.e., the feeling that drives people to act now with determination but without undue haste. In this book, which is somewhere between a research study and a management book, the author uses stories and anecdotes to forcefully demonstrate that one of the most rare and essential managerial skills is the ability to generate a real sense of urgency. He describes a strategy and four tactics to execute it, that is, bring the outside world into employees’ day-to-day existences, personally behave with a sense of urgency every day, find opportunities in times of crisis, and manage the skeptics. A book worth reading, without wasting another minute!