Sense of urgency - Hollow to Halo

Sense of urgency is the impetus to winning while false
sense of urgency is the pebble in the shoe. – Dr. V. V. Rao.

It is human tendency to look for comfort- both physical and mental.

In this process, we always want to make sure that our new situation does not hurt us.

Thus almost all our decisions have a status-quo choice—a choice that means maintaining and keeping our current status.

The stark reality is that most of us prefer to make that choice—even if it no longer helps our genuine interests. This phenomena of ‘Keeping-status’ plays a pivotal role in stopping us from making the right new decision or choice. Under this status-quo situation we choose to make the choice which in turn is least likely to cause a change and cause any pinch of pain.

In our constant push for the ‘comfort zone’ we will ensure that the new circumstances does not upset us and we do not want to bite the bullet; sometimes to such great extent that it is hard to tell whether the change has even taken place. This inability to be flexible creates a lot of stress; in colloquial terms ‘emotional melodrama’ explodes when a situation forces us to make a choice.

Ultimately, we may choose to close our eyes to any new opportunities in this flat ride of ‘keeping the status-quo’ as a first choice.

The belief is that ‘longevity is excellent’. On the contrary, longevity and tradition are not always accurate predictors of excellence inertia. Habits, marketing prowess, market monopoly and the fear of change can all be the real reasons why we have not tried something new.

In one study, people who saw a painting described as having been painted in 1905 found it far more pleasing to look at than people who saw the same painting described as created in 2013. Every decision we make leads us to face pain and/or pleasure at some point of time.

To give a simple example, we want the benefits of innovation and change, without having to go through the hurdles of the change process. We expect other to draw our dream path, thus that irrevocable desire for an ideal rather picture perfect situation. In this process, we sabotage the purpose of our lives. Our desire to change must exceed the desire to maintain our status-quo. There is no other way out except moving from ‘Hollow to Halo’.

WalMarthas grown three times faster than the retail discount industry as a whole [Competing against TIME by George Stalk, JR. Thomas M. Hout ]. It has a return on capital that is more than twice of the industry.

Atlas Doorcan fill an order out-of-stock door in three to four weeks, one-third the industry average. Customers reward Atlas Door’s representative by buying doors often at 20 percent premium. Atlas Door grown three times faster than industry. Wilson Art decorative laminates grown three times faster than overall demand, and the profitability four times greater than the average competitor because of the responsiveness and sense of urgency they practice with their customers.

Thomasvillefurniture has a quick-ship program. The average industry response for an out-of-stock delivery is 30 days and the closest competitor’s average delivery time is more than 90 days, Thomasville grown four times faster than the industry.

Average loan disbursement require 90 to 120 days while HDFC and ICICI take 15 days and the demand for home loans has grown 100 percent year on year because of the responsiveness and sense of urgency they practice with their processes. 

In a nutshell companies and people are obtaining remarkable results by focusing on their sense of urgency.

Your Forced realism and solid execution shall keep you up there in elite class

Bla Bla will not work

A brilliant idea, excellent product and/or service can put you on the excellent map of the competitive world, but only solid execution can keep you up there in elite class.

You have to be able to deliver on your dream and plan. Unfortunately majority of us are not very good at execution and you will agree with me.

You want to stay in execution; you do every bit of business that comes along. You want to keep your dream afloat, you do not care what the neighbors and friends have to say about what you do. You must face the reality and forced realism for that one idea, that one product or service which is going to make your dream into a reality. If we do not work with realism and facts we will realize that still waters run deep.

“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.” - Peter F. Drucker

 “It is no use saying ‘we are doing our best.’ You have to succeed in doing what is necessary.” - Winston Churchill

Throughout history, people have had difficulty in distinguishing reality from illusion. Reality is what happens, whereas illusion is what we would like to happen. Wishful thinking is a well-worn expression. Momentum is still another element: we tend to assume that things keep moving the same direction and pace but reality is different for example. The world now faces a discontinuity of historic proportions, as Nature shows her hand by imposing a new energy and/or environment reality.

Toyota Recall – Cars:The recalls, which span cars manufactured over the last decade, also raise the question of how widespread Toyota’s quality control problems had become in a period of breakneck growth for the company. From 2000 to 2008, its global unit sales grew by more than 50 percent, helping Toyota overtake General Motors as the world’s largest automaker. But even Toyota’s own executives admit the rapid growth may have come at the expense of the company’s once-stellar reputation for quality.

Three separate but related recalls of automobiles by Toyota Motor Corporation occurred at the end of 2009 and start of 2010. The first recall, on November 2, 2009, was to correct a possible incursion of an incorrect or out-of-place front driver's side floor mat into the foot pedal well, which can cause pedal entrapment. The second recall in January 21, 2010, began after some crashes were shown not to have been caused by floor mat incursion. The original action was initiated by Toyota in their Defect Information Report, dated October 5, 2009, amended January 27, 2010. Following the floor mat and accelerator pedal recalls, Toyota also issued a separate recall for hybrid anti-lock brake software in February 2010.

As of January 28, 2010, Toyota had announced recalls of approximately 5.2 million vehicles for the pedal entrapment/floor mat problem, and an additional 2.3 million vehicles for the accelerator pedal problem. Approximately 1.7 million vehicles are subject to both. Certain related Lexus and Pontiac models were also affected. The next day, Toyota widened the recall to include 1.8 million vehicles in Europe and 75,000 in China. By then, the worldwide total number of cars recalled by Toyota stood at 9 million. Sales of multiple recalled models were suspended for several weeks as a result of the accelerator pedal recall, with the vehicles awaiting replacement parts. [1. www. nytimes. com, 2011 Jan 27; 2. en. wikipedia. org / wiki / 2009–2011_Toyota_vehicle_recalls]

Toyota realized the reality and took action to stay in business. While executing your dream and making your dream into a reality, you need to become more realistic by accepting the true facts of a situation, facts of your actions, results of your actions and also sharpen and converge on the actual scenarios, situations and issues. You must learn to accept, acknowledge, recognize and act on the consequences of the reality. Mould the situation towards your goals, plans and schedules on a day to day basis improve your capability and bandwidth to deal with the external environment. This is the only way to face reality and to deal with it.

Your intent, chief purpose and leadership has the capacity to frame plans and to carry them out in the face of all difficulties which means ‘knowing what to do’ and ‘getting things done,’ by persuading others to do what is really expected, despite difficulties, discouragements, hard hurdles and show stoppers. If you try to use human influence strategies and tactics of how to get other people to do what you want, to work better, to be more motivated, to like you and each other- while your character is fundamentally flawed, marked by duplicity and insincerity-then in the long run you cannot be successful.

For example,we believe that we do not need to know the laws that apply to the job we do. If I am a supervisor on a project construction site, why should it be my accountability to know all laws and statutory requirements? Is it not what the legal department is being paid for? But the truth is that it should become part of what a project supervisor must have known. It is the only way for me to execute my job better and to protect my colleagues and myself from violations of the law.

Our duplicity will breed distrust, and everything we do-even using the so-called human relations techniques- will be perceived as manipulative. It simply makes no difference how good the rhetoric is or even how good the practices; if there is less or no trust due to our bad habits, there will be no foundation for our permanent success.

A good winner is one whose thoughts are pure and there is complete harmony in actions, words and deeds. A man who says what he thinks, does what he thinks, is always trusted; that indeed is the man who can lead others.

Fear of future: A bird in hand is worth two in the bush

No shoddy short cuts please!

Fear of future and insecurity drive us to do ‘Shoddy Short Cuts’. The future is not real. One of the biggest stumbling blocks to living a full life is to spend a huge amount of time worrying and thinking about the future. We fear an unknown future which makes it impossible to live today. This is especially true for those dreaming for themselves. Fear of the future can be overwhelming; in fact fear can easily push us towards easy shoddy short cuts because all the time we are haunted by

What if - I fail?

What if - no customers show up?

What if I run out of money?

What if I do not have kids?

What if? …

The cure for fear of the future is to keep reminding oneself to live in the present moment as much as possible. To fully focus and keep our senses on what is happening right now. The present moment in our life is a reality and a valuable gift to us from the time we came in to this world and to our existence. The present needs to be appreciated, caressed and cared for. It is possible to break this vicious cycle of fear based on unreal projections, speculation of worst situations and scenarios of things that might happen.

Who can do the thinking of current moment?

That is you!

Be aware what is happening to you.

The fear of future keeps us trapped in time - it dwells on the past or future. As long as our attention is in the past or future, we are not experiencing things as they are, we are seeing them through the results of the past and our fears for the future. At times we can be so caught up in our self imagination about future and the scenarios and skit plays that we fail to even notice the present. We fear the unknown for the dangers it may bring. We fear uncertainty not knowing whether or not we will find what we are after this moment is all that exists. This fleeting instant is the only reality. The past is gone forever the future is not yet born and remains to be seen.

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd. He must first make a solitary decision. He cannot drift along with the crowd, nor can he pay attention to the crowd’s response to his leading. He must remain focused, and be willing to stand alone. He must give himself to the few who are cooperating with him not the masses, who are looking on. Finally, even if he yearns for the crowd’s applause, that cannot be his goal. His goal must be to lead his orchestra without any fear.

It is the inner voice within our heads that comments, often critically, on everything we do. It thinks, ‘I did that well, people will approve of me’, or ‘If only I had said it differently about my love she would not have got upset’. It is the voice that speculates on the future, ‘Should I make that telephone call...what if...?’ It wonders what other people are thinking and how they will react. It is the voice of fear, the voice of the ego-mind - the part of us that believes that only through what happens to us in the world around can we be at peace within.

Nerves of steel

Nerves - 765

Today is after all, the only day you can truly be sure of and it is also the only day you have control over. When Churchill learned of this he made a decision: the Bismarck had to be sunk. His staff officers advised him this could not be done. The logic of the moment showed the British obviously lacked ships, aircraft, and fire power to do the job… But all the negative talk did not discourage Churchill. He was determined and he closed all the escape hatches. He was 100 percent committed to sinking the Bismarck. And it was sunk.

To move and win now leads to a good sense of urgency. This will help you tremendously in developing a true sense of urgency concerning your goals and to becoming more effective every day. Do qualitative work every day, make everyday a success and inevitably your whole week, month, year and life will be a success. One day at a time is still the golden rule to live by.

John is the kind of guy you love....

He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, ‘If I were any better, I would be twins!’ He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made evryone curious, so one day friends went up and asked him, ‘We do not get it! You cannot be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?’ He replied, ‘Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or ... you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood.’ Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or...I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.

Several years later, he was involved in a serious accident, falling some sixty feet from a communications tower. After eighteen hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back. About six months after the accident, when someone asked him how he was, he replied, ‘If I were any better, I’d be twins. Want to see my scars?’ when friends asked him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place. ‘The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter,’ he replied. ‘Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or...I could choose to die. I chose to live.’ He continued, ‘the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read 'he is a dead man'. I knew I needed to take action.’ And eventually he survived. [www.cfs. purdue. edu] In your path for winning you are the head honcho who takes care of the entire proceedings of your execution. Every day we have the choice to live fully. If you desire to live the life of your dreams, you must acquire a sense of urgency to accomplish tasks, a sense of urgency to live your dreams and a sense of urgency to get things done. One has to be on the attacking side of the equation rather than on the waiting side of things. Time and life are anonymous. Both are gifts that need to be utilized optimally. When you waste one, you automatically waste the other. So value your time greatly. It is the most important indicator of how you are utilizing your life to become a ‘Hollow to Halo’ and accomplish your dreams. 

Sense of urgency is the impetus to winning while false sense of urgency is the pebble in the shoe. – Dr. V. V. Rao

Inability to distinguish between the vital and trivial will rock the boat

Vital & Trivial

Prioritize the vital action rather than spend time and energy on the trivial issues, setback, shortfall and you will make good progress. One should not prepare to win a life time dream with a cloak and dagger way.

A real sense of urgency backed up with the capability to prioritize your goals, and actions to succeed in life. One also must be able to distinguish between the vital and trivial details.

Many a times, people waste a lot of their energy and time on the trivial details and in the bargain lose focus of what was vital and had to be done and thereby delay the progress which results in setback in progress and probably enthusiasm in taking the issue, thought and idea to its logical conclusion and success.

Unless we use systematic tools for prioritizing task and activities, we may end up arriving at some wrong decision and prioritization. The following tools - used independently and / or in combination, would therefore positively be helpful in effective prioritizing:

1.       Cost-Benefit analysis

2.      Force Field analysis

3.      Risk Priority Number analysis

4.      Return on Investment analysis

5.      Critical Path analysis

6.      Pareto analysis

Vital and trivial distinction can be based on the some more of the following causes

·         Reduction of risk

·         Avoidance of loss

·         A means of entry to new arena

·         A means of obtaining more money, wealth and fame

·         Removal of competitive environments

·         Obtaining new ideas

·         Obtaining talented people and talents

A true story:

At 12:16 a.m. Aug 28, 1991 a car subway train on the Lexington line beneath New York City jumped the track and crashed in the subway tunnel. When such an emergency occurs, the New York City transit author immediately appointed a project master to oversee the handling of disaster rescue and repair activities to bring the normalcy. The prioritization of phases to accomplish the project were

Phase 1: Respond to injury-get people out of danger, provide needed medical care, remove bodies and ensure that no victims remain in the debris.

Phase 2: Secure the area-simultaneously with phase-1, eliminate other threats to life and property by disconnecting power, providing emergency lighting and ventilation, stopping other trains from entering the area, keeping non-relevant pedestrian and vehicular activities.

Phase 3: Initiate command facilities-concurrent with phase 1 and 2 set up, activate command and coordination structure for all emergency activities.

Phase 4: Remove debris-collect and remove the elements and debris of the accident which would hinder rescue, clean-up, or repair.

Phase 5: Remove damaged equipment-use cranes and other to remove heavy items movement and large equipment removal, cutting the steel frames.

Phase 6: Facility repair,

Phase 7: Test the facilities and

Phase 8: Clean up. As work progressed through the next three days trains began running again.

[S Nacco, ‘PM in Crisis Management at NYCTA: Recovery from a major subway accident,’ PM Network, Feb’1992]

Normalized conclusion:Once you start recognizing, practicing and distinguishing difference between vital and trial parts of a plan, activities it will be a good feather in your cap. That will lead to a higher success rate of all your dreams.

Follow the path of highest enjoyment and blow the lid off

Path of enjoyment

The easiest and most loving ways to complete a dream is to give yourself alternatives for what you want to do. On the other hand, try and give yourself the flexibility over what to do, it becomes like a big adventure.

You get to decide what you like to do best, and you can do it. It excites you because you have an element of choice.

This is the path of highest enjoyment – doing what makes you feel happiest at the moment. When you do so, you automatically become productive and proud about yourself and feel good about the work you have accomplished.

Following the path of enjoyment is an apple of your mind’s eye.

We have heard about when we do not attach ourselves so passionately to the action and it results into a failure you were not attached because you were not enjoying. That is pretty clear. Yet we do expect in our lives greatest results. We are convinced that we reap only what we sow.

Early priorities: Thomas Edison founded GE in the year 1878. When the 45 year old Welch became CEO in 1981, the US economy was in a recession. To leverage performance in GE’s diverse portfolio of businesses, the new CEO challenges each to be ‘better than the best’ and announced for a radical change over in the next five years. But as GE managers struggled to build #1 and #2 positions in a recessionary environment and global Japan’s industrial pressure during that time GE freed up $ 11 billion by selling more than 200 businesses also made 370 acquisitions investing more than $21 billion. Internally Welch’s insistence that GE become more ‘lean and agile’ resulted in highly disciplined de-staffing process. As he continued to chip away at bureaucracy, Welch next scrapped GE’s laborious strategic planning system and corporate planning. The budgeting process was re-installed by scrapping the just internal documenting process and he instituted a comparison with external similar industries. In the span of 8 years he de-staffed 59,000 salaried and 64,000 hourly positions.

The second stage: By the late 1980s, most of the GE restructuring was complete and now major work on rebuilding process started. Both management operating system and supporting management hardware instituted.

Best practices: Welch’s relentless pursuit of ideas to increase productivity resulted in the birth of related movement called ‘Best Practices’. Simple principle of ‘How can we learn from the other companies that are achieving higher productivity than GE?’. For example one of the auditors explained: ‘When I started 10 years ago, the first thing I did was count the $5,000 in the petty cash box. Today, we look at $5 million in inventory on the floor, searching for process improvements that will bring it down.’ Then he focused on ‘Developing leaders’, ‘Going global’, ‘Boundary less behavior’, ‘Achieving the impossible’, and ‘Service business from 15% to 75%’ from 1981 to 1999 with his relentless initiatives, changes, and improvements built the confidence back in the company.

The Six Sigma Quality Initiative:When a 1995 company survey showed that GE employees were dissatisfied with the quality of its products, processes and services. GE adopted the Six sigma model at the annual general meeting, Welch announced that in the first two years of Six sigma, GE had saved $750 million and the DNA of the organization towards quality and productivity has been institutionalized. Jack Welch glowed with pride at GE Annual Meeting in 1999. For the first time GE revenue exceeded $100 billion, operating margin was all time high of 16.7%, and earnings per share had increased over 14%, the fortune poll of US corporate executives had voted GE the country’s ‘Most admired company’ for the second year running, and the Financial Times had named it the ‘Most Respected Company in the world’ in the year 2000 Jack Welch retired at the age of 64 years.[ Strategic Management, Gregory G Dess, G T Lumpkin, Marilyn L Taylor ]

For about 20 years, Jack Welch managed the company from a level of survival to a $100 billion company. It was only possible because he was enjoying and loving what he was doing year on year, he was open to new practices, ideas, talents, techniques and robust behaviors. He finished most of the initiatives, targets, aspirations and developments he had started and more importantly he was able to leave behind so many valuable lessons for the future generations.

Concluding reminder: Finish what you start

We always feel better looking at inferior people and snug as a bug in a rug

Snug as a bug

‘I am perfectly capable of deciding what is best for me, my family and my career.

I do not need outside guidance.’ Sounds like a rebellious early teenager. It is actually our complacency talking in the head.

We like living in our safe and secure place; a place with no personal and professional growth or no force pushing us to make positive changes in our life.

A place we believe is the ultimate so we remain in a jungle of complacence this happens to all of us. We have been enjoying a stable life at that level for a very long time. Our superiority complex makes us compare ourselves to an inferior person and become complacent. This can easily happen at any level, the trap is still the same and the script is almost always going to be similar. We have subconsciously decided that there is no need to make further changes, no need to push ourselves to make further growth, and now we can just sit back, prop our feet up, and enjoy our current level and ignore our weak link and live with complacency.

Michael Jordan, one of the world’s best basketball player, has a winning attitude. In high school, he was out from his school team obviously that did not comfort him. He missed more than 9000 shots in his career. He lost almost 300 games, at least 26 times he missed the winning shot in the final games, however he never stopped shooting the baskets and winning the games for the team and for himself. We have to watch what we are doing closely while we are grinding anything on a grindstone. And the only way you can do that is by keeping your nose to the grindstone. Simply we cannot be successful without real hard work.

Taking Usain Bolt as an example, Usain Bolt did not happen in a day. It has taken tons of hard work, dedication and pain at every moment of journey to reach that level of excellence. He broke his own personal records again and again.

‘You have got to understand with great clarity what you can do better than any other company in the world,’ as per author Jim Collins.

Star Bucks CEO Howard Schultz realized this just before he directed company resources in what may have been a disastrous direction. Schultz envisioned Starbucks as the internet coffeehouse of the world. You would be able to order specialty coffees, cappuccino machines, even pots and pans. But before he tried to move the aroma of freshly brewed latte to the internet, he considered his next important action. According to one writer, ‘It is as if he woke up one morning, rubbed his eyes, sipped a strong Sumatran brew, and said to himself, ‘Wait a minute, I sell coffee!’

The internal true ‘sense of urgency’ took him to revenue about $2.4 billion within two years of business started in the year 2001, [J. Creswell, ‘Remedies for an Economic Hangover,’ Fortune, June’2001] and he showed us the path for ‘Hollow to Halo’.

In Hardwood Groves

The same leaves over and over again!

They fall from giving shade above

To make one texture of faded brown

And fit the earth like a leather glove

Before the leaves can mount again

To fill the trees with another shade

They must go down into the dark decayed

They must be pierced by flowers and put

Beneath the feet of dancing flowers…

We always feel better looking at inferior people and deviate from our winning path.