In our fast, uber-breakneck world it is essential that we make decisions on the fly and be able to not only keep pace but if at all possible be ahead of the pace around us.

This speed in which we work to keep up with comes with the delicate balance of qualifying what is urgent and what is not.

An urgency by definition are the quality or state of immediate action. These need to be:

• Verified 
• Led by facts and not feelings
• Driven by the organization and not external forces

An urgent matter that is not properly verified and led by the perception of an immediate action can result in these negative impacts:

• Rush to act without qualifying
• Wasted time when it’s importance is revealed to be less
• Bumping truly important matters that yield more impactful, sometimes even immediate, results
• Additional stress to the organization
• Diminished trust in processes or people

If led by an external forces, such as customer demands or market forces, the organization can in effect:

• Give leverage to customers by setting precedents they cannot maintain in the future
• Take the company off its foundations by reacting to the market instead of shaping it
• Forgetting the core values for the sake of the urgency
• Giving more resources to areas that are not mission critical

Urgent matters do arise and need to be attended to regularly. The task leaders have before them is to take the needed time to verify how truly urgent an issue is and if they need to allocate any resources as necessary. When an unqualified urgency arises and leaders make the team go all-in for nothing, credibility or the leaders, the process, and the organization will always come into question.

Taking this time will make you a much more astute business leader and more effective in steering your organization down the right road to success.

(image: pixaby)