{"id":1675,"date":"2013-04-11T10:00:17","date_gmt":"2013-04-11T17:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=1675"},"modified":"2013-04-09T14:50:46","modified_gmt":"2013-04-09T21:50:46","slug":"hone-your-sense-of-urgency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=1675","title":{"rendered":"Hone your sense of urgency!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is an unfortunate truism that most of us become a bit stale in our jobs after some time, even if we are most successful at it and appreciated by all who work for or with us.\u00a0 It is human nature to start in a new position with enthusiasm, lofty goals, new ideas, and a heightened awareness of those around us and their ideas for the business.<\/p>\n

And it is equally human for anyone to become complacent to some degree after an initial flurry of effort, ideas, reorganizations, brilliant decisions, and early successes.\u00a0 Complacency is relative.\u00a0 There is no direct measure to determine when a manager, even the CEO, has run out of new ideas and that sense of heightened awareness.\u00a0 Usually this is masked by our having a better grip on the real drivers of the business, able to quickly see when things are not going right or people not performing to their peak.<\/p>\n

But think back to those first days on the job.\u00a0 You were ready and willing to effect change, to listen to anyone, to take in ideas, and share yours with your peers.\u00a0 You spent extra hours more often in creative efforts, encouraged discourse, and delved into new ideas and projects with enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

You exhibited a sense of urgency that charged your direct reports, made you want to come to work every day refreshed, and demonstrated to all that something special was happening in their world.<\/p>\n

[Email readers, continue here…]<\/em><\/span> Can you honestly state that your sense of urgency remains today at the same level as when you first started at this position?\u00a0 Few of us could, and that is the reason why investors often feel that turnover in executive ranks is not so bad after all.\u00a0 The average life of a CEO in the position is shorter today than ever before, partly because investors expect continual acceleration, \"Advanced<\/a>and partly because a person seems to have only so much new material to offer.\u00a0 If each of us could maintain that same sense of urgency that drove us to succeed early on, our peers, direct reports, investors, and stakeholders would all notice and respond accordingly.<\/p>\n

Challenging your peers and reports to come up with new ideas, solutions, projects, and improvement in processes \u2013 all are signs of a good manager still in control of his or her sense of urgency.\u00a0 It is hard for those around you to slack off with such a whirlwind adjacent.<\/p>\n

I have previously told the story of the successful CEO who drove to work each Monday morning asking himself, \u201cWhat if this were my first day on the job as CEO?\u00a0 What would I do?\u201d\u00a0 He kept his company and his peers always thinking ahead, if nothing else to prevent his surprising them with ideas and solutions to problems that should have been uncovered and acted upon earlier.<\/p>\n

It is not an easy task – reinventing yourself to be that person you were on the first day, but with the knowledge and experience since gained.\u00a0 But it is an important part of being a great manager and retaining the focus upon excellence that certainly drove you to succeed back then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is an unfortunate truism that most of us become a bit stale in our jobs after some time, even if we are most successful at it and appreciated by all who work for or with us.\u00a0 It is human … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-growth","category-surrounding-yourself-with-talent"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}