A Sense of Urgency - John Kotter

Lay Keng lent me this book, which she got after attending Kotter's seminar. (The book actually has Kotter's autograph within! So dun play play!)

As I was telling xm, this book came at a very serendipitous time. I was finding difficulty at work getting things to move, and now I realise that alot of it boiled down to my own lack of a strong sense of urgency. In many ways, I was practicing what Kotter described as a false sense of urgency - much activity but focused on the wrong things and running in circles.

Here's the main takeaways that I got from the book:

1. A true sense of urgency is needed to help corporations (and I'll, for the rest of this summary, extend this to the running of my own life) accomplish change.
   
2. To accomplish this, the leader will have to speak to the heart of the audience, based on solid logical arguments. The latter is often not sufficient.
3. There are four tactics that a leader can tap on:

• Bring the outside in - i.e. the organisation has to be very well clued into what is going on in the external environment. To do this, managers should connect with the frontline or even customers directly. One can also bring in external experts or second your people to learn from outside. Data, both good and bad, should be allowed to enter your organisation freely and quickly in a readable way.
• Behave with urgency everyday. The leader has to set the pace for the entire organisation and convey the sense of urgency in everything he does.
  
• Find opportunities in crisis. I can't say I understand this tactic fully, but one has to leverage on crisises to egender change. Kotter even suggests trying to create some crisises through stretch goals.
  
• Deal with the Nonos. These are essentially the naysayers and are stumbling blocks to change. We often find them within ourselves as well. Kotter suggests to deal with them by distracting them. Incorporating them into one's team or completely ignoring them both do not work. In the worst case scenario, they have to be let go.

For the tactic to behave with true urgency, Kotter raises the following points, which are all excellent:

• Purge and delegate aggressively - clear up one's schedules (less meetings) and do not allow subordinates to delegate up to you
  
• Move with speed - respond immediately to top-tier issues - each step has to be clear and fast
  
• Speak with passion - talk with feeling and infectiousness
• Match words with deeds - walk the talk!
  
• Let everyone see - as far as possible, show to everyone in the organisation how you are doing it

Overall, this is an excellent book. Short and sweet and to the point.