Reflective Urgency

Jesse Sostrin coined and defines Reflective Urgency as: the ability to bring conscious, rapid reflection to the priorities of the moment - to align your best thinking with the swiftest course of action."

I have translated this to mean - don't be an idiot and overanalyze something; and don't be an idiot and make a split-second decision. 

Oh Jesse, what sane advice. 

I have been in both arenas - I'm sure you have too. 

I have absolutely made the super-quick-act-now-and-think-later decision.  Most of the time, it's because the solution sounds somewhat logical and my workload is falling in all around me and the last thing I need is something else to think about.  Which is also what happens every time my husband asks me what I want for dinner.

And there are the other times when a problem sticks; the solution is neither more right or more wrong - everything seems stuck clear down the middle.  These are the ones that have kept me staring at a screen, or at a piece of paper with my pen frozen in mid-air.  I just can't commit to a decision either way - or someone brings something to my attention which completely curtails my thinking and I just pause defeated, not really knowing which way to go. 

In his piece for Harvard Business Review, Sostrin points out ways to achieve reflective urgency when you're in the thick of everything:

1) Diagnose Your Urgency Trap.  The idea behind this is to identify the things that keep you in triage mode - running from one meeting to another without clear directives, trying to multi-task projects that need 100% focus, and saying yes to projects that you really don't have time to do. 

In fact, research has shown that multi-tasking for the most part is counter-productive -it's something I used to pride myself on and have now realized is a gigantic lie.  There would be days when I would work out a little, work a little, study a little, clean a little and then rinse and repeat....only to end the day realizing I got a little bit of everything done and 100,000 loose ends now needing tying.  

My urgency trap tends to be back-to-back meetings that each need follow up - without me giving the pause needed in between each meeting to truly review, absorb, and begin to action what was discussed.  Most times, I look back on a page full of to-do's and the last thing I want to do is action anything...leading to point #2

2) Bring Focus to the Right Priorities.  Picking up on the earlier paragraphs, by getting stuck in my urgency trap and feeling overwhelmed with the deluge of projects and strategies discussed, I fall into this second trap; instead of working on what I SHOULD be, I work on what I am COMFORTABLE with.  And most of the time, what makes me feel the best after staring at a daunting list is to dive into email and feel accomplished by replying, deleting, and filing away.  Watching the Inbox count backwards makes most of us feel rewarded - there is a quantitative ticker tape telling us we are kicking ass today.

But it's a lie.  We all know by tomorrow it will be filled back up - it's like laundry when you're married with a son.  What will move the needle, change the company, create the catalyst in your career, is to focus on the top priorities that need to be done every day - the ones that will get you the biggest wins, the largest movements - and most of the time, the things we procrastinate around.  The small things...they are small and they are mighty but most of the time, they can either wait or be delegated out to your team.

3) Avoid Extreme Tilts.  Sostrin describes this trap as applying one rule to everything and the consequences that can have - nothing is black or white - everything is a gray type of mentality.  However, the way I take it in, is the idea that when something doesn't work, we tend to swing the pendulum WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY to the other side...and then that doesn't work....so we do it again...and again....and (get it)?

A perfect example would be inventory.  No matter what, it's practically impossible to buy correctly - the customer tends to change just when you think you have her down.  The seasons where we are panicking due to high inventory levels and season end - we obsess over the excess, figure out Plans C-H on how to move it and free up capital, and hindsight exactly what went wrong so we can learn and move on.  But the wound is still fresh as we head into the next buying cycle so what do we inevitably do?  Buy so conservatively we have sold out before deadline.  We cut ourselves off at the knees, and panic again - this time because we are selling through and leaving money on the table, our inventory is so tight even if we sold 100% of the product we STILL wouldn't hit goal AND the quickest turnaround on any recut opportunity is four months out.  So we obsess over the lack, figure out Plans C-H on how to get more and how soon, and hindsight exactly what went wrong so we can learn and move on.  And during the next buying cycle we.....(I'm hoping you're catching onto this).  

My take on Trap #3 - don't swing the pendulum.  The crux of it all is in finding the harmony.  

Cheers to Sostrin.  And to being reflectively urgent.