Get shit done: the secret story of “urgent”
Do you ever use the little “urgent” flag in your email? Do other people send you emails marked urgent? Do you go to urgent meetings?
They’re a rude interruption, aren’t they. And when you read those emails and go to those meetings, are they actually urgent?
Let me tell you a little secret.
The word “urgent” really means, “I failed”.
I’ll explain…
Every action in business fits into one of four categories:
Low importance, low urgency
Do them later
Low importance, high urgency
Delegate them to be done now
High importance, low urgency
Work on them now so they’re not urgent later
High importance, high urgency
Stop everything, do them now
Think about this while I discuss the value of things over time.
Software engineers will tell you that changes made to new software at the end of the project cost six times as much as changes made in the planning stage. Your travel agent will tell you that flying now is more expensive than flying later – or that you should have bought your ticket last month, when it was cheaper. At the fruit shop, avocados that you can eat today cost more than the hard green ones.
The answer to the urgent problem and the cost over time problem is the same answer.
Planning and structure.
Put simply, as leaders, it is our job to ensure our teams are supported by a working environment, structure and plans that move our enterprise towards fulfilling its goals. That includes us prioritising things that are important, rather than leaving them to the last minute so that they become urgent.
This means we must design our business processes to:
- Identify the important things
- Allocate time and resources to them well ahead of deadlines
- Monitor performance
- Ring alarm bells if we go off track
If we fail to deal with issues at the important, but not urgent stage, we have failed. If we put structures in place to manage these issues, we can provide timely leadership in a non-stressful environment.
We achieve a kind of grace once we start living like this inside our business.
I’ll help you with step one. Critical things you need to look after always include:
- Sales
- Budgeting
- People management and culture
- Succession planning
And the first thing you need to do about all those things is to have conversations with the people involved.
What conversations do you need to have this week?
Jennifer Elliott is the founder and CEO of Integrity and Values, a leadership development organisation that empowers leaders to build responsible teams that produce extraordinary results.
Recognised as one of Australia’s leading executive leadership and behavioural change consultants, Jennifer has worked with teams and individuals across Australia for over 30 years..
Jennifer’s impressive sales and management history is supported by her own experience owning and running successful multi-million dollar companies and through building and leading her own effective teams. She has first-hand knowledge on the business building process, the payroll struggle, confronting management issues and dealing with cash-flow problems.