A Sense of Urgency by Kotter, Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Keeping Urgency Up

high urgency has potential for high-performance
sustained urgency must be constantly recreated
must be conscious effort or deeply ingrained in culture
unambiguous success yields complacency
urgency up, success; urgency down, a mess
- people can become frustrated, “why won’t they let up?”
the problem with short term successes
- example of getting passengers to push a bus once, then twice
anticipate the problem, use the strategy, choose the right tactics
- mix things up
- bring in external stakeholders
- avoid anger, fear, and anxiety
keeping urgency up: a success cost
drive it into the culture
- keeping urgency up after a success (186)
  - anticipate possible downturn in urgency
  - plan for solution
  - when urgency starts to dip
    - bring outside in
    - act urgently in new and fresh ways
    - create crisis
    - deal with NoNos

Jamie