Foster a sense of purpose

For most of us, there always seems to be an urgent project that demands our attention. Emergencies seem to pop up out of nowhere and force their way to the top of our priority lists. Despite that reality, this article by Kimber Lockhart in Medium discusses a different way to approach the issue that may achieve more lasting results.

Here is how she opens her piece:

I lead software teams. Part of the territory is people (CEOs, stakeholders, customers) wishing we could go faster. I’m often asked — “do you think the team has a strong enough sense of urgency?” or the direct “can you make the team feel a stronger sense of urgency?” More often, the request is more subtle, but just the same — “I’d really like to get this one project done, but it’s not a top priority. Can you hustle to make it happen?”

So, to all those out there wondering, no. I am not going to try to create a stronger sense of urgency on the team. And you shouldn’t either. A sense of urgency isn’t the goal. Trying to create urgency reflects the age-old confusion of hurrying with speed — the misguided notion that if you’re not always hurrying, you’re already behind.

If you’re not working on the product every day (and frankly, even if you are), it’s easy to believe progress should be faster. After all, we all want fast. There’s always more to do than we could ever accomplish, and moving faster would get us there. If the team just hurried a little more, we wouldn’t have to make tough choices.

As anyone who has ever forgotten their keys in an effort to get out of the house on time knows, hurry often backfires. The panicked, frantic pace values action over results and has consequences.

She goes on to point out the many flaws in rushing--shortcuts, sloppiness, lack of creativity. Most of all, she notes that this type of effort is not sustainable in the long run. 

Let’s retire sense of urgency and instead look for sense of purpose. A sense of purpose is a deep understanding of the reasons behind our efforts and a desire to pour in time and energy because that purpose resonates with the impact we’d like to make on the world.

A sense of purpose is immersion in our cause, and allowing that exposure to motivate action. A sense of purpose is about going faster and smarter toward a mission we all see clearly. It’s about using good judgment because we all understand the short and long term implications of our actions on what we’re creating together.

A strong sense of purpose manifests when a software engineer watches a potential customer struggle with a workflow and stays late to make the changes that make it easier. It shows itself when a designer spends their weekend on a few extra iterations because they felt engaged with the problem at hand and want to produce a better solution.

Turns out when you stop looking to create urgency, the passion and purpose latent in your team might just cause the right things to get done at just the right pace.

This one paragraph seems to encapsulate her philosophy:

Your primary job as a leader is to hire the right team, and then to spend time inspiring this sense of purpose. Help people understand the impact of their work, and speed will follow.

Here is the link to the full article:  https://medium.com/@kimber_lockhart/don-t-create-a-sense-of-urgency-foster-a-sense-of-purpose-724e309ecdb0#.9do5qcftc 

The fierce urgency of now

Original post:  Mar. 14, 2012

Patience has never been a strength for me. I certainly wouldn't classify myself as having no patience, but I have a hard time waiting for things. Idling in heavy traffic drives me bonkers. I feel as if I am constantly calculating all the other things I could do with the time that is slowly wasting away.

I try to check these impulses as much as I can with my boys. Last night, they had set up a battle scene with their Lego minifigures in our upstairs hallway. I asked them to clear a path since it was time for bedtime stories. After first arguing that they had not had enough time to play, we agreed that they could stage a strategic retreat of the figures to defend their home base near the wall. This had the double advantage of clearing a passageway for normal foot traffic. It might have been easier to insist that they immediately put everything away, but I thought that we could work out a compromise that still accomplished the mission.

It's interesting when the roles are reversed. One strategy we often use with the boys is to defer gratification. We don't say no. We simply say that they can't have it now. If they would like to read one more story but it's bedtime, we let them know that they have to wait until tomorrow. After the ritual of begging and pleading, we eventually hold firm. That wait can seem like an eternity to a young boy. I can also report that they almost never forget to collect the following day!

I often forget that for a child a day is a much greater share of their young life. Twenty-four hours seems so long to them. In our high activity world of business, it almost seems as if it is over before it has begun.

I am working to try to temper my impulses while still retaining a proper sense of urgency in my work life. There is a story associated with that, but it will have to wait for tomorrow.