March 2009 Deep Insights

Urgency is everyone’s best friend in turbulent environments. People are stripped of stalling tactics; they cannot discuss the subject long into the night, postpone the discussion seeking more information, or build a pilot program to test tactical theory. Forward thinking must be embraced to make decisions with the information at hand allocating resources, people to serve customers, and tactics to produce immediate results.

People who are students of urgency in turbulent environments have learned to initiate active waiting through dashboards giving immediate feedback. They watch components of the strategy that influence results, preparing audibles if necessary for the organization to follow on an as needed basis. They rise to this challenge by activating the minds of all personnel who are executing the plan. They build an army of flexible, insightful, and result orientated people who can deliver information to them and execute by calling audibles without hesitation. This process builds urgency into the life of active waiting processes; assisting minds to be alert to customer, component change, and their influence on strategy.

Organizations cannot assume tomorrow will be yesterday or today. They are faced with urgent challenges that surface from around the world, day and night, from rich and poor economies, free or enslaved peoples. Asia, South America, Africa, Europe, Canada are all competitors. The world has shrunk, competition has grown, information is free and instant partnerships are formed cross country borders to deliver products in a market where there is urgent need. What is one nation’s trash is another’s diamond. The internet has made small and nimble entrepreneurial people or companies, capable of building partnerships with team orientation to be big efficient and powerful marketers; “IT.” IT provides a consumer experience that is seamless, noteworthy and therefore marketable to customers on the internet driven by an urgent need to purchase. Customer desires are tracked on dashboards preparing IT to return with another product to meet new customer desires and the process begins again.

IT creates urgency, knows products are becoming universal, markets are global, and being there first is success. The urgency is “if you aren’t, IT will be.”