Urgent Tactics: 1 & 2

I've been trying very hard to finish Kotter's A Sense of Urgency this week. That ain't gonna happen.

Instead, I'll talk about his first two tactics: Bring the Outside In and Behave with Urgency Every Day.

Tactic One: Bring the Outside In

On page 60, Kotter highlights two points of this tactic. One is, "Reconnect internal reality with external opportunities and hazards," and two, "Bring in emotionally compelling data, people, video, sites, and sounds."

His first point seems incredibly relevant to libraries today. In this chapter Kotter warns that an internal focus kills urgency which leads to complacency and eventually an organization's demise. According to Kotter, the thing that turns the focus inward is historical success. Libraries have been historically successful as knowledge storehouses and the places people turned to when they needed to find pieces of information.

I'm suggesting that, as a profession, libraries and librarians rested on our laurels for far too long. Our long-term complacency has many of us questioning our relevance in light of external entities who do things better and faster than we ever did. And therein lies Kotter's point as I see it. We've got to start looking at what's going on outside the library world. What opportunities are out there of which we're not taking full advantage?

Tactic Two: Behave with Urgency Every Day

Again on page 60, the two points of this tactic are identified as: "Never act content, anxious, or angry," and "Demonstrate your own sense of urgency always in meetings, one-on-one interactions, memos, and e-mails and do so as visibly as possible to as many people as possible."

The part of the chapter I found most applicable to my own situation as a manager is that of "Urgent Patience." This refers to "acting each day with a sense of urgency but having a realistic view of time" (118).

Libraries can't be changed overnight. Making sure staff have the skills they need to be successful takes time. Consistently encouraging people, prioritizing goals and acting on them can go a long way to keep the sense of urgency up in the organization. How do you maintain that sense of urgency in your daily work?