John P Kotter is generally regarded as the authority on  leadership. In his book a sense of urgency he spouses the importance of urgency to effective leadership and discusses what he sees as the two principal obstacles: (i) Complacency defined by the dictionary as 'a feeling of contentment or self-satisfaction, especially when coupled with an unawareness of danger or trouble.' He concentrates on the feeling about the self. Initiative can only change when complacency is properly identified and overcome.

                              (ii) False Urgency which is what happens when frenetic activity and energy drop-everything action hide legitimate performance and progress. It is important that false urgency not hide the real urgency. A leader should not spend all his/her time 'putting out fires.'

Kotter is concerned with urgency because he sees change becoming a continuous process and he sees the development of a proactive attitude and commitment as critical to achieving excellence. The real sense of urgency, therefore, is critical to sustaining excellence.

He then discusses what I like to call the 'fish bowl effect'the ability to look at our organizations from outside and look at the surrounding environment. Opportunities and perils come from competitors, customers and changes in our regulatory environment. If we can properly identify these, we will develop an appropriate sense of urgency and will be able to continuously change to achieve excellence.

We need to listen to our teams, our customers, prospects and competitors to identify these critical opportunities and risks.We must also be able to communicate news, events and what is going on effectively through our organization. Only then an we truly achieve excellence.

'It's better to light a candle, than to curse the darkness.'        Chinese Proverb