How to Inspire Your Team to Embrace a Sense of Urgency

Your team needs to move with a sense of urgency. This doesn’t mean moving fast – it means moving with purpose. A group of firefighters can provide great insight into what moving with a sense of urgency means.

Today’s post is by Tom Pandola, author of Light a Fire Under Your Business.

One of the big issues in business today is how to motivate a young workforce. Anyone in a leadership position knows how difficult it can be to instill a certain level of engagement within their employees and associates. This can be a difficult task, but if you are in a leadership position and accountable for accomplishing important work through the efforts of others, you need to start leading as though it matters.

Much of what I have learned to be true about the subject of leadership was learned during my 25 years of firefighting in Los Angeles. The topic of motivating a sense of urgency within a workforce reminds me of one of the first greater alarm fires that I responded to as a rookie fresh out of the fire academy.

Try to picture a large commercial building in flames, with smoke billowing high into the sky. Imagine all of the actions taking place by the multitude of firefighters carrying ladders and hose lines in every direction, fire engines pumping large amounts of water, and the continuous roar caused by the fire consuming everything inside the building, including the structure itself. I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins, and I was certainly taking on every task given to me with what I would consider an enormous sense of urgency!

Running toward the burning building tasked with delivering a piece of important equipment that was needed inside, I was confronted with an obstacle: a large pile of fire hose which resembled spaghetti on a dinner plate. I was moving fast with no time to slow down! So, I attempted to leap over the pile. As I caught my foot on a loop of hose, tripped, and fell face down onto the concrete sidewalk – my helmet along with that important equipment I was carrying all went flying. Everything that I was trying to deliver was now skidding across the ground with such a noisy clatter that it caught the attention of everyone within a hundred feet of me.

Stunned, I looked up and realized I had landed sprawled out at the foot of the deputy fire chief, who was in command of operations. As I quickly picked myself up, feeling like all eyes were suddenly on me, in a very calm voice the Chief said, “Hey kid, if you’d slow down you’d get there.”

This embarrassing incident was one of many defining moments that taught me something about leadership. To have a sense of urgency doesn’t mean that we are always frantically scurrying about. In some situations, the more we rush the less we accomplish. Having a sense of urgency should mean that we believe that our job is important, and why we work hard to do our best is because it always matters to someone.

Believe it or not, I was eventually promoted to battalion chief where I was in command of a 50 square mile region of Los Angeles, with an estimated population of 250,000. I was accountable for providing leadership to nine captains and their crews operating from seven different fire stations. The need to develop my own leadership abilities – to inspire a sense of urgency – was always important. I have also come to realize that when it comes to leadership and organizational culture the only difference between the firefighting and business is perception.

When leaders take the time to define for their workforce what a sense of urgency means, this expectation has the ability to create some amazing accomplishments. For example, over many years one of my station commanders responded to the same intersection for dozens of traffic accidents. He noticed that the roadway was always wet and slippery due to an underground spring that bubbled up there. To make matters worse, it was a blind intersection with a dangerous curve. Due to these drainage issues the roadway was purposely paved to enhance water runoff, but the resulting crown caused vehicles to be thrown out of control whenever traveling above 25 miles per hour.

With the dangerous side of the roadway heading downhill, most vehicles were typically traveling too fast for the conditions. During this captain’s years of service at the nearby fire station, he responded to this intersection many times for traffic accidents. He witnessed the loss of many lives, and serious injuries and property damage from these unsafe conditions. The captain, feeling a sense of urgency, decided to do something. He began a letter writing and phone call campaign to local officials in an attempt to improve the safety of the area by installing better traffic warning signs.

It took him many years, but he finally succeeded. He eventually convinced a state senator to approve a bill to get a large overhead traffic sign that read “SLOW” complete with huge flashing yellow caution lights. After the sign was installed, the accidents nearly vanished! This one concerned captain realized that he might be the only person that truly understood the problem, and he took action to solve it.

When you learn to lead as though it matters, you will inspire your team members to embrace a sense of urgency that can produce the outcomes you are looking for. Sometimes this will even happen when no one is looking.

Include these 5 ingredients into your organization’s culture, and your leadership abilities will improve by having your team responding to their work with the right sense of urgency:

1. Respond as though it matters: Whether dealing with a small problem or a big one, everyone needs to respond as though it matters, because it always matters to someone. Help your team define who it matters to when they do their collective best.
2. Respond to the plan: When working as a team there always needs to be a plan to follow. Make it a cultural expectation for your people to always follow the plan and to always know: What are we trying to do? And, why are we trying to do it? If they don’t know, expect them to find out.
3. Respond with a sense of appreciation: Leaders who show appreciation to the contributions of others will find that appreciation gets passed around. When you instill a culture of appreciation within your team, you will find that people who feel appreciated are happy people, and happy people are successful people.
4. Respond with teamwork: Teams that go the distance always get there together. Nurture the spirit of teamwork. When you do, your people will start working together by holding each other accountable for owning a sense of urgency that is right for each situation.
5. Respond with a “will do!” attitude: With the right leadership and organizational culture working in concert, your teams will want to make a positive difference. I call this a “will do!” attitude because when your people understand the importance of what they do, and why they do it, they are living with a sense of urgency.

When your workforce knows the importance of what they do, and why they do it: you are leading as though it matters. Take the time to let everyone know what a sense of urgency looks like in every situation, and when you do good things will happen, even when no one is looking.

Tom Pandola is a director of communications in the air medical transportation industry. He is the author of Light a Fire under Your Business: How to Build a Class 1 Corporate Culture through Inspirational Leadership (CLICK HERE to get your copy), and cofounder of Third Alarm, a leadership consulting company he started with coauthor Jim Bird. Pandola’s work experience includes 25 years with the Los Angeles City Fire Department where, as a fire captain and battalion chief, he tested inspirational leadership principles while solving problems associated with responding to fires, floods, riots, and earthquakes.

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